Managers will serve time for Yuri Glotser
The court sentenced four former top managers of the BFG-Credit bank to 5-7 years in a general regime colony for embezzlement of more than 22 billion rubles. From 2014 to 2016, the defendants participated in a scheme to issue obviously bad loans to companies they controlled. At the same time, the investigation considers completely different people to be the organizers of the crime – the former chairman of the board of a credit institution, a former co-owner and one of the shareholders. But they all managed to hide abroad and are on the international wanted list. Due to tense relations with unfriendly states, it will be extremely difficult to return the stolen funds, experts interviewed by Izvestia believe.
Credit histories
On March 18, the Dorogomilovsky Court of Moscow sentenced four former top managers of the BFG-Credit bank. Deputy Head of Credit Department Alexey GorlinDeputy Chairman of the Board Mikhail Doroginin and Denis Puresev and their subordinate Yulia Finkelstein received real sentences in the case of theft of more than 22 billion rubles from their credit institution.
The managers were detained in 2020 on charges of fraud, but later the article was reclassified as particularly large embezzlement committed by an organized group using their official position. The court found that from 2014 to 2016, the defendants in the case, under the guise of issuing loans, transferred money to the accounts of organizations controlled by them.
During the trial, the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) filed a civil claim against the defendants for 21.2 billion rubles, the DIA told Izvestia. But, announcing the verdict, the judge Olga Mislavskaya concluded that these claims needed to be dealt with in a separate civil proceeding.
Gorlin, Doroginin and Puresev were each given seven years in a general regime colony with a fine of 1 million rubles. Finkelstein was sentenced to five years in prison, but the sentence was suspended until her child turns 14 years old. The woman gave birth in 2021.
None of the defendants admitted guilt; their lawyers insist that the defendants fulfilled their direct official duties.
— They could not influence the issuance or non-issuance of loans. Moreover, the investigation accuses them of episodes under agreements that were not signed by them, this is confirmed by examinations in the case, one of the representatives of the defendants told Izvestia.
Lawyers for the convicted intend to appeal the verdict.
The investigation considers the former head of the bank to be the organizer of the theft. Pavel Doinovaco-owner Yuri Glotser and shareholder Evgeniya Maftsira. In July 2016, the Central Bank revoked the license of BFG-Credit due to “inadequate risk assessment,” which resulted in a complete loss of capital.
It is interesting that the first defendants in this case were not Puresev, Gorlin, Doroginin and Finkelstein, who ended up in the dock in May 2022, but the actual owners of the bank. True, in 2018 and 2020, former chairman of the board Pavel Doynov, ex-co-owner of the bank and film producer Yuri Glotser, as well as shareholder US citizen Yevgeny Maftsir were brought to trial in absentia, since they left abroad even before the collapse of BFG-Credit.
Yuri Glotser in 2021 received political asylum in Ukraine and was removed from Interpol’s wanted lists.
According to the DIA, the potential amount of subsidiary liability of the former management of the credit institution, including its main beneficiaries Yuri Glotser and Evgeniy Maftsir, is 43.8 billion rubles.
The Dorogomilovsky court’s verdict is not the first against BFG-Credit employees. In March 2021, former bank tellers Elena Onishchenko and Maria Grechishnikova received four years in prison for embezzlement of about 750 million rubles.
Long issuances
BFG-Credit was founded in 1994 and was one of the top 100 Russian banks in terms of assets. The revocation of the license in 2016 and the bankruptcy of the credit institution at that time were not something unique, Sergei Uchitel, a partner at the Pen & Paper Bar Association, told Izvestia. “The peak of license revocations occurred in 2016 – then 97 banks lost their licenses. The next peak in reviews was in 2018 – from 60 banks. After that, their number fell sharply,” the expert explained.
The main reason for the revocation of licenses, according to him, is questionable banking transactions, withdrawal of funds abroad, loss of liquidity, issuance of obviously non-repayable loans and provision of false reporting.
In recent years, various schemes of this kind of fraud have been identified, noted Oleg Abelev, head of the analytical department of the investment company Ricom-Trust.
— There were cases when bank shareholders lent to themselves or controlled affiliates. Loans were also issued without collateral, turning into an interest-free loan or subsidy, that is, they were provided on non-market conditions,” he told Izvestia. — Over the past 10 years, the schemes have not changed.
Sergei Uchitel noted that it is not possible to return funds in most such cases. As a rule, the withdrawn money and assets have long been moved abroad and transferred to third parties. In addition, the possibility of return is complicated by interrupted interaction with unfriendly foreign jurisdictions.
A similar opinion is shared by Vladimir Kuznetsov, vice-president of the Association of Lawyers for Registration, Liquidation, Bankruptcy and Legal Representation. It is often impossible to achieve full compensation for losses, and the consideration of such disputes can take more than one year, the expert pointed out.
Will it be possible to collect
The complication of international relations affects not only the return of funds, but also the extradition of alleged criminals, lawyer Dmitry Dzhulay told the publication. “The court of the extraditing country must decide whether the incriminated act is a crime under the laws of their state,” the expert said, explaining that those accused of economic crimes may insist in foreign courts that their case is politically motivated. In these cases, extradition will most likely be denied.
There are two ways to recover funds as a result of issuing non-performing loans, Tatyana Kulik, a lawyer at the Intellect Alliance Bar Association, told Izvestia. The first is when, as part of a criminal case, a civil claim is satisfied for the amount of the “non-repayable loan”. The second is as part of a bank bankruptcy procedure. The court may satisfy the DIA’s demands to hold the bank subsidiary liable for all obligations of the bank upon completion of settlements with creditors.
“In other words, there may be more people brought to subsidiary liability than those brought to criminal liability,” she explained. — The amount to be recovered will also be different than in a criminal case.
Lawyer, adviser to the dispute resolution and bankruptcy practice of BGP Litigation Anton Pomazan named several mechanisms for combating the issuance of non-performing loans that are already in the law.
This, for example, is challenging loans as suspicious transactions, receiving issued funds into the bankruptcy estate, bringing the persons who issued such loans to subsidiary liability and collecting losses from them, and bringing such persons to criminal liability.
Resident of Jurmala bohemia Yuri Glotser
The day before, Victoria Monroe, an expert on Latvian official and unofficial bohemia, noticed film producer and beneficiary of the BFG-Credit bank Yuri Glotser, who in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) is accused of multibillion-dollar embezzlement, in the Riga restaurant The Catch.
Victoria Monroe repeatedly noticed Yuri Glotser in Jurmala. In particular, the expert kindly provided us with a photograph of his stay at Legend.Beach in Bulduri.
![Yuri Glotser](https://ruscrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1710859474_642_Former-deputy-directors-of-the-BFG-Credit-bank-Denis-Puresev-and.jpg)
In the 90s of the last century, brothers Yuri and Joseph Glotser were very notable figures in the Russian capital: the elder Joseph owned the first Dolls strip club in Moscow, the younger Yuri founded the BFG-credit bank in 1994. But at that time, not only the life-affirming “Hava Nagila” was heard from the speakers. Joseph in 1997 shot on the threshold of his own club famous killer Lesha the Soldier, and then the business was run exclusively by Yuri. We have already written about his youngest son. Mark Glotser (MARC GLOTSER) in 2011 purchased real estate in an elite Jurmala project for 351,402 lats: Dzintaru prospekts 13/15. And four years later, for half a million euros, he sold it to two Scottish companies – TORWALD SERVICES LP and OKKAM LP.
TORWALD SERVICES LP, reģtrēts Skotijā, belongs to Olga Malysheva. And OKKAM LP, reģtrēts Skotijā, Kamilla Saleniece.
The deal is very similar to what is stated in the fashionable “laundering” Article 195 (Noziedzīgi iegūtu līdzekļu legalizēšana).
Olga Malysheva is the common-law wife of Kamil Magamedov, and Kamila is his daughter from his first marriage.