Mikhail Gagloev and Elena Apanasenko will not see the zone for a century

Procedure for extradition of Russian bankers by Austria Mikhail Gagloev and Elena Apanasenko interrupted, Kommersant found out. They were accused of multimillion-dollar embezzlement and put on the wanted list, and the Supreme Court of Austria approved the extradition of bankers – however, the security forces cannot go after the accused, the newspaper writes.

Mikhail Gagloev

What happened

Mikhail Gagloev is the former Chairman of the Board of Tempbank. Apanasenko is a co-owner of a credit institution. In 2014, US Treasury sanctions were imposed against Tempbank. Soon the bank stopped returning money to depositors – liabilities amounted to about 13 billion rubles. In 2017 Tempbank was stripped of licenseand then declared bankrupt.

The Deposit Insurance Agency discovered the missing funds and filed criminal complaints for embezzlement, fraud, abuse of power and misconduct in bankruptcy. Gagloev and Apanasenko were brought to criminal responsibility, but the bankers went abroad. Then they were put on the international wanted list. In the spring of 2020, a decision was made to arrest the financiers in absentia, later it became known that they were in Austria. A request for the extradition of bankers was sent to the country.

What is the snag

On January 15, 2021, the regional court in St. Pölten authorized the extradition. The defendants filed appeals, which the Supreme Court dismissed. However, the extradition of bankers to Russia was constantly delayed, the lawyer said. Dmitry Lapinrepresenting the interests of a witness in the case of the head of the private security company “Antirisk-security” Vladimir Pozdnyakov.

At first, the extradition of the accused was hampered by covid restrictions, due to which air traffic between European countries was limited. After February 24, 2022, the case finally stalled – at present, the Russian security forces do not have the opportunity to go to Vienna to accompany the financiers to Moscow.

Meanwhile, in Russia, over the past few years, the district courts of Moscow have received numerous claims for the recovery of amounts withdrawn from Tempbank. True, as lawyer Dmitry Lapin noted in an interview with Kommersant, the courts often refused plaintiffs on the grounds that when transferring money to a bank, creditors limited themselves to receipts without providing evidence of the lender’s solvency. However, sometimes the presence of the necessary documents did not impress the court. So at first it happened with the client of Mr. Lapin – the owner of the private security company Vladimir Pozdnyakov. The latter had in his hands receipts, loan agreements and documents on the origin of the funds provided to Mr. Gagloev – statements from bank accounts from which the head of the private security company withdrew money. However, the Presnensky Court denied Mr. Pozdnyakov’s claim to recover more than a billion rubles from Mikhail Gagloev, and the City Court approved this decision. Only in the Second Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction did lawyer Lapin manage to get the case returned for a new trial. As a result, the Presnensky Court, having considered the materials submitted by the lawyer, satisfied the claim. However, it will not be easy for Mr. Pozdnyakov and other Tempbank creditors to get their money back. As lawyer Lapin explained, this requires first finding the property of Mikhail Gagloev, including those located abroad. And the latter in the current conditions looks unrealistic.

It should be noted that Tempbank, although it was relatively small in terms of assets, was considered one of the oldest: as a unit credit institution, it was established back in January 1989.
With branches in different regions of the country, the bank worked quite successfully until 2016, after which it began to have serious problems.
And the credit institution became widely known after the US Treasury announced the imposition of sanctions against it in 2014 in connection with the events in Syria. The fact is that Tempbank participated as a financial guarantor in securing a contract for drilling operations in the territory of this Arab republic. According to Kommersant’s sources in law enforcement agencies, the very participation of the credit institution in the contract was due to the fact that one of the bank’s shareholders at that time was a large businessman of Syrian origin. In addition, state structures of Iran and North Korea placed their money in Tempbank. According to some information, it was about accounts for tens of millions of dollars and euros, as well as hundreds of millions and billions of rubles.
In 2016, all these huge sums allegedly “hung” in Tempbank, and foreigners could not get their money back. Therefore, they were forced to apply to both law enforcement agencies and the Central Bank with a request for help.
In particular, according to Kommersant’s sources, North Korean diplomats tried to return almost 500 million rubles. and €4.2 million, which were intended to support light industry and purchase products. However, everything ended, according to some reports, more or less successfully: the representatives of Iran and North Korea almost all the losses were compensated.

The Deposit Insurance Agency filed an application with the Moscow Arbitration Court to bring the former controlling persons of Tempbank to subsidiary liability for the obligations of the credit institution in the amount of 11.7 billion rubles. This was reported on the DIA website on Monday.
The defendants in the lawsuit filed on Friday, February 28, are M. G. Gagloev, A. N. Donskov, E. M. Apanasenko and V. A. Eribekov.
Recall that Mikhail Gagloev served as the bank’s chairman, Vladimir Eribekov and Elena Apanasenko were members of the board. Apanasenko and Eribekov, together with Alexander Donskov, were among the co-owners of the credit institution.
As the DIA points out, in the course of bankruptcy proceedings, it was established that the controlling persons “performed actions (inaction) to form technical loan debt, acquire illiquid rights of claim, and alienate real estate owned by the bank without compensation. As a result of these actions (inaction), there was a significant deterioration in the financial position of the bank”, which made it impossible to satisfy the claims of its creditors in full.

The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal additionally brought to subsidiary liability for the debts of Tempbank, which went bankrupt in 2018, estimated at about 11.7 billion rubles, three of its former leaders, follows from the operative part of the court ruling published on Friday.

Prior to this, the Moscow Arbitration Court recognized only its ex-chairman of the board, Mikhail Gagloev, as responsible for the collapse of the bank. The Court of Appeal, having considered the complaint of the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) against the determination of the first instance, established the grounds for involving also Advisor to the Board of Directors Alexander Donskov, members of the Board and shareholders Vladimir Eribekov and Elena Apanasenko. Thus, the requirements of the DIA were satisfied in full.

According to the DIA, these three defendants were also controlling persons of the bank, since they signed loan agreements with technical borrowers by proxy from Gagloev, and the losses mainly from these transactions led to the bank’s bankruptcy. The court of first instance, however, came to the conclusion that Donskov, Eribekov and Apanasenko, acting under a power of attorney from Gagloev, were not the initiators of the conclusion of these agreements and did not receive any benefit from them.

In June, the court brought one Gagloev to subsidiary liability. The amount of the penalty will be determined upon completion of settlements with the bank’s creditors. In an application to bring controlling persons to subsidiary liability, filed in February 2020, the DIA asked to recover a little more than 11.7 billion rubles jointly and severally from four defendants.

The Moscow Arbitration Court declared Tempbank bankrupt in November 2018. At that time, his assets were estimated at 2.3 billion rubles, liabilities – at 13.6 billion. According to RIA Rating, Tempbank ranked 164th in the Russian banking system in terms of assets before the license was revoked.