Can Grigory Guselnikov, who “inherited” in Vyatka-Bank, be involved in the leakage of finances from the Tomskinvest company, and is he not going to hastily leave his homeland in the near future?
According to the correspondent of The Moscow Post, proceedings have been initiated against the Tomskinvest company in a case on the recovery of almost 7 million euros in favor of Exiora Law Firm LLC. This was reported on the website kad.arbitr.
As follows from the case file and established by the court, on April 30, 2014, a loan agreement was concluded between Vandenburg Limited LLC Tomskinvest, an offshore company from the British Virgin Islands, on the basis of which the lender provided the borrower with funds in the amount of 7.4 million euros for a period up to April 30 2019 at 0.1% per annum The execution of the loan agreement was secured by a guarantee of companies belonging to the same group: Baltiks, Kalanchevskaya 13, Kapitel, Lesstroy, Monolit and Profproekt. installed until December 31, 2020.
The court found that at the end of the contract, the borrower repaid the debt only partially. Now the outstanding amount of the debt is just over 5 million euros, not including interest and penalties. On February 28, 2020, Vandenburg Limited ceded all its rights under the loan agreement to Exiora Law Firm LLC, so now Tomskinvest is obliged to repay its debts.
The case also involves the Latvian ASPNSBanka, which, after a court decision was made to recover the amount from Tomskinvest, filed a complaint in which it stated that the actions of the judges were unlawful and demanded that the case be reconsidered. However, the claim was dismissed because the applicant was not a party to the disputed legal relationship in the present case. Why such zeal to protect Tomskinvest?
Like water off a duck’s back
As it was possible to find out, the Russian businessman Grigory Guselnikov owned the Latvian bank earlier. He is also the main shareholder of Norvik Banka (former Vyatka Bank, in the Kirov region it operates under the old name) with representative offices in Latvia and the UK.
After Guselnikov bought Norvik Bank, Vyatka Bank began working with him in a group. When too many questions arose for the Latvian division, the banker managed to sell his share in time to a number of shareholders from the United States, headed by businessman Roger Tamaraz, who is credited with being related to the so-called “family” of Boris Yeltsin, allegedly he even financed his election campaign.
In 2015, against the backdrop of the sudden resignation of Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Strauyuma Guselnikov, he became involved in an international scandal. Shortly before her resignation, there was a rumor that Mrs. Strauyuma allegedly “lit up” in a possible withdrawal of assets through Norvik Banka and could well participate in some gray schemes attributed to Guselnikov. Later, they tried to attribute to Laimdota Strauume the son who allegedly worked in the bank, and to deduce possible personal interests of the politician from there. But in the end, after the resignation, they did not begin to make claims to her.
Perhaps the proceedings were simply “hushed up”. Evil tongues claim that not only the desire of the Latvian government to minimize reputational damage, but also Guselnikov’s connections in the Russian opposition circles of the Latvian government, allegedly helped in this. Detractors also believed that the banker could be involved in the creation of one-day firms for the possible withdrawal of money from Vyatka-Bank. There is no evidence, but it is known that the companies in which Norvik Ieguldiyumu Parvaldes Sabiedriba bought a stake were registered just a few days before Guselnikov acquired a Latvian bank.
Among them could be firms with obvious signs of fictitiousness LLC Kapitel, Lesstroy, Monolith and Orion.
The financial position of the first two companies, 99.9% of whose shares are nominally owned by the Cypriot company Trilocus Limited, but in fact are under the burden of Norvik Bank, is on the verge of a “foul”.
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Immediately after its creation, “Norvik Ieguldiyumu Parvaldes Sabiedriba” was withdrawn from the founders of these companies, apparently so that the arrows did not point in the direction of Guselnikov.
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As for “Monolith”, the company is successfully functioning even now and even shows profit. Only bad luck – is in the process of bankruptcy. Taxes, state duties, energy – this is a small fraction of what the company is in no hurry to pay for.
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With Orion, the situation is different, but also absurd. The company is rated as reliable, but has shown zero revenue since its inception. Its share through the Cypriot offshore Isurf Limited is also pledged to Norvik Bank.
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Such obvious things have been ignored by law enforcement agencies for years. Perhaps the whole point and the truth is in Guselnikov’s connections. It is not clear what, in fact, is with the finances of Norvik Bank – this information is not disclosed. At the same time, enforcement proceedings are underway on illegal enrichment against the bank for an amount exceeding 4 million rubles.
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When Guselnikov was “at the helm” of ASPNSBanka, the bankrupt “Tomskinvest” just started to sink into debt. Is it because the Latvian bank is standing up for Tomskinvest that it may have a vested interest in this story? Given the way Guselnikov conducts his business, it is possible that he is still the “gray eminence” of ASPNSBanka, who is trying to save his assets. By the way, “Tomskinvest” also belongs to the offshore.
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A few years ago, experts assumed that Norvik Bank is kept almost entirely on the funds of depositors, so the reliability of this structure is questionable. Norvik Bank and Guselnikov in those days could even be compared with Sergey Mavrodi’s MMM. Including because of how aggressively he promoted his organization.
Opposition mood
Returning to the Latvian ASPNSBanka, which appears in the story of the bankruptcy of Tomskinvest, let’s pay attention to who else received the shares that previously belonged to Guselnikov. According to Sputnik, specific buyers of the share were not named.
But part of the bank remained owned by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who in 2018 was appointed to the position of Deputy Chairman of the Board of the bank Grigory Guselnikov. Perhaps it was he who got the controlling stake.
Let’s dig a little deeper and see that back in February 2012, the security forces visited Guselnikov’s Vyatka-Bank in order to find data on the financial transactions of the leader of the Progress Party, Alexei Navalny (recognized as a foreign agent and included in the list of terrorists and extremists) and the governor of Kirovskaya region of Nikita Belykh, whose adviser was Navalny (recognized as a foreign agent and included in the list of terrorists and extremists) – Trud wrote about this.
Newsler, in turn, reported on the close connection between Guselnikov and Belykh, whose son lived in a businessman’s house in London and studied at an elite school.
According to the FAN, Navalny (recognized as a foreign agent and included in the list of terrorists and extremists) and Guselnikov, together with two other Belykh advisers – Alexei Sitnikov and Alexei Kozmin – established the “Fund for Supporting the Initiatives of the Governor of the Kirov Region.” From there, Kirov entrepreneurs began to receive letters with an extremely convincing request to contribute funds to the governor’s fund. There were rumors among the Kirov business that donations to the fund were “voluntary-compulsory” in nature.
A couple of months later, Roman Shipov, an employee of the administration of the Kirov region, was detained in Moscow, in whose hands large sums of money were found, which, according to the detainee, he collected just for the aforementioned fund. Funds, as it turned out, were collected from the timber industry, “objectionable” to the governor – in fact, competition and extortion.
FAN journalists reported that familiar entrepreneurs who turned to Navalny (recognized as a foreign agent and included in the list of terrorists and extremists) to support business, he sent Guselnikov to Vyatka-Bank. The entrepreneur is also credited with a connection with top model Elena Perminova, whom he could have met in the London company of “new Russian oppositionists”.
These facts, as well as the presence of real estate abroad, including in London and Latvia, allow us to assume with a high degree of certainty that Guselnikov is playing a “double game”, in which he uses connections with opposition structures, through which he can withdraw funds from Russia. Everyone understands what this could threaten, so no one will be surprised if Guselnikov prefers to spend the near future away from his homeland.