How Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko withdrew billions to Ukraine, is it possible to seize a crypto wallet and why Las Vegas was searched? in Moscow Vladimir Vazagov.
– Vladimir Viktorovich, what is the largest criminal case of an economic orientation that is currently being processed by your subordinates?
– Investigators of the Moscow Administration stopped the criminal activities of a transnational group, which, according to preliminary data alone, brought abroad over 1 trillion rubles. In addition to Russian citizens, the organized criminal group also included Ukrainian citizens, one of whom, by the way, was a co-organizer of the group and received 40% of illegal income. Using the Bank-Client keys of fictitious companies, the participants carried out illegal circulation of finances directly on the territory of Ukraine and Cyprus in order to make it difficult for Russian law enforcement officers to identify the facts of the use of these keys.
– That is, Russian clients turned to the participants of the OPS for such a “service”, and those, in turn, using the Ukrainian financial space as a “laundry”, withdrew money to the accounts of Western banks?
– Absolutely right. The so-called applications were received through a special computer program, in which they were then processed. The criminal case got its unofficial name “Portal” precisely by the name of this program. The criminals operated for about ten years, the vitality of their illegal business, unfortunately, was explained quite simply: by the presence of patrons among law enforcement officers, the Federal Tax Service and banking workers. The OPS had a highly structured, organized hierarchical structure, high-tech support, and a high degree of conspiracy.
– How did you manage to stop the activities of the group?
– One of the patrons of the OPS was Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko (for crimes of corruption, he was sentenced to 16 years of strict regime, his assets, estimated at 10 billion rubles, were confiscated. – “Kommersant”), and during the investigation of his criminal case, episodes of activity were revealed “Portal”. The painstaking work of the investigators of the metropolitan administration began to identify all persons and collect evidence.
Immediately after the arrest of Zakharchenko, many of the “bosses” of the “Portal” left the territory of Russia – four people who led the organized criminal group already from the territory of other states.
In total, several hundred people participated in the shadow business, the role of each was clearly regulated, there were peculiar structural divisions in the OPS: “Managers”, “Accountants”, “Financiers”, “Collectors”, “Lawyers”, “Auditing companies”, “Computer technologies ”, “Archive” and even “Customer Acquisition”. In total, the group controlled more than one and a half thousand legal entities and entrepreneurs. The attackers also had their own bank, Novoye Vremya. Using it and a number of criminal schemes, the defendants, according to investigators, cashed out or transferred abroad more than 1 trillion rubles, receiving criminal income in the amount of 32 billion rubles. But thanks to the work of investigators, about 3 billion rubles have now been returned to the budget of the Russian Federation. During the investigation of the criminal case, letters were sent to the tax authorities to organize on-site audits to bring client companies to tax liability.
– Who used the services of shadow bankers?
— Large companies, including those with state participation. Money from them was withdrawn to Germany, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
– Now the “Portal” is completely closed?
– I do not exclude that the organizers are engaged in similar activities from the territory of foreign states, while other performers were involved, but the vast majority of persons involved in illegal banking activities are under investigation – more than 60 people. There were so many of them that the case will be submitted to the courts in parts in relation to 10-12 people. Otherwise, the defendants, together with the defense lawyers, simply will not fit in any of the courtrooms.
— Have there been criminal cases in progress, where there are dozens of defendants and the standard courtroom turned out to be small?
– In our production there was a case about a criminal community that organized illegal gambling activities under the guise of sports sweepstakes.
Gambling is prohibited in almost all regions of the country, with the exception of a few.
This fact turned out to be in the hands of the attackers, since there are plenty of gambling people running after fortune, and, accordingly, the turnover and income of such a “business on human vices” are very high.
A vivid example is the criminal case of Las Vegas against the organizer of the criminal community Anton Bazhanov and 67 of his accomplices, who, in the period from December 2016 to September 2018, under the guise of legal activities of a bookmaker’s office, carried out illegal gambling in numerous premises on the territory of the Moscow region. In the course of investigative and operational activities carried out by investigators of the Moscow Investigative Committee together with law enforcement officers, the illegal activities of 14 gaming clubs and casinos were identified and suppressed, more than 150 searches were conducted in office and residential premises, more than 100 people were detained, who were checked for involvement in committed crimes. At present, criminal cases are being considered in courts against all defendants on the merits, five more defendants are on the international wanted list.
– On behalf of the chairman of the TFR Alexander Bastrykin, subdivisions for the investigation of cybercrime were created in all regional departments of the committee, how successful is their work in the capital?
“Cyberspace has no boundaries, and the investigation of crimes in this area requires constant improvement of the competencies of investigators. And I personally pay special attention to this issue. We have four hackers under investigation who hacked bank websites, stole customer data and put it up for sale on the dark web. It would seem that the usual group of defendants under Art. 187 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. But during the investigation, it turned out that the members of the criminal group owned crypto wallets with bitcoins worth more than 1 billion rubles. This is one of the largest seized and subsequently arrested amounts in cryptocurrency, due to which the damage to the victims will be repaid and legal costs will be covered.
Currently, investigators of the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR are investigating a no less high-profile criminal case against cybercriminals – on the fact of abuse of official powers against the head of Solar LLC, which issues electronic digital signature keys (EDS), which are used by legal entities to conduct financial and economic activities .
In this case, EDS keys ended up in the hands of malefactors who used them all over the country to illegally register legal entities, draw up unreliable accounting and tax reports, and even receive the so-called paper VAT – reimbursement for operations that were carried out only in the accounts of the defendants in the investigation.
— One of the most important goals of the investigation is compensation for damages. How are things going with this in Moscow?
– For ten months of 2022, only in criminal cases on tax crimes, it was possible to achieve the return of 15 billion rubles to the budget. In particular, thanks to the work of investigators, a large oil company, JSC NK Dulisma, voluntarily paid off part of its arrears. At the same time, I would like to note that procedural decisions have not yet been made on all materials on tax offenses. During the same period, we received about 600 materials, and 231 cases of tax evasion are being investigated.
What are the current challenges facing management?
“From year to year, our employees stand guard over the economic security of the country, and work in this strategically important area will certainly continue, taking into account new challenges.
