Businessman Kirill Yakubovsky has been arrested in Moscow on charges of fraud on an especially large scale. Law enforcement officers do not provide details, but it is known that Yakubovsky was previously a co-owner of the Coffee House and Azbuka Vkusa networks, and was also actively involved in the banking business.
Among others, in the contour of his business was the collapsed “Asia-Pacific Bank”, in which the money of the scandalous gold mining company “Petropavlovsk” was spinning. And Yakubovsky’s partners turned out to be very interesting personalities like Andrei Vdovin, to whom ill-wishers tried to stick the label of a “ripper of banks.”
Details – in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.
At the same time, Yakubovsky was not the majority owner in ATB – Andrei Vdovin was the main shareholder. He was also a minority shareholder in the business of Yakubovsky himself – the Azbuka Vkusa network, from whose capital the latter withdrew in 2014.
Banks ordered to live long
Andrei Vdovin, together with the founder of the Petropavlovsk gold mining company Peter Hambro and the son of former senator Pavel Maslovsky, Alexei, controlled a total of 67.58% of the bank through PPFIN Region and Tehsan Enterprises Limited.
In addition, Yakubovsky and Vdovin were beneficiaries of M2M Private Bank, a subsidiary of ATB. Subsequently, the license was revoked from M2M Private Bank, after which ATB fell down. As a result of the actual collapse of the structure, it had to be “handed over” for reorganization to the Central Bank.
Vdovin and partners bought “M2M Private Bank” 10 years before, and began to develop as a bank for wealthy clients. Under this “sauce” a “subsidiary” bank was opened in Latvia. The official version is that rich clients need services in Western banks. But, as Versiya writes, in fact the bank was opened as a channel for transferring money.
Throughout 2016, the Bank of Russia turned a blind eye to the core activities of M2M. The bank worked and carried out schemes. In the summer of 2016, it became impossible even for the Central Bank to ignore the outflow of capital through M2M, and Vdovin had to buy M2M shares on the balance sheet of ATB.
After the collapse of the ATB itself, something strange happened. The Central Bank considered that the reorganization of ATB cost the budget 13.5 billion rubles. Those. This is a loss to the treasury. However, the last court considered that the fact of losses was not proven, and refused to recover them from the former beneficiaries. After that, they wanted to sell the bank under the hammer, but even the omnivorous Sovcombank, brothers Dmitry and Sergey Khotimsky, did not buy it. As a result, the structure went to Kazakh business.
It turns out that the budget was forced to spend almost 14 billion rubles, but for some reason no one was to blame for the losses of the structure.
Salt is also added by the fact that in the same 2018, when the bank’s license was revoked, Andrey Vdovin, a partner of Mr. Yakubovsky, fell under a criminal case. It turned out that he left Russia back in 2017, so the arrest imposed on him turned out to be in absentia, the businessman was put on the wanted list.
He was charged with two counts of fraud on an especially large scale, embezzlement of $ 13 million. As law enforcement officers established, the bank took two loans from offshore companies, and Mr. Vdovin acted as a guarantor for them. However, the money was not returned to the creditors. Writes about this “Kommersant”.
What kind of loans, for what, where exactly the money could go – the investigation did not specify. However, Andrei Vdovin had scandalous fame before. They met Yakubovsky back in the distant 90s. At the same time, in fact, they met Pavel Maslovsky and other future protagonists of the Petropavlovsk Group of Companies.
In 1993, Maslovsky and his partners organized the Tokur-Zoloto company. Tokur’s settlement bank was the Blagoveshchensk Asia-Trust, whose Moscow office was headed by Andrey Vdovin, a 23-year-old graduate of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation. Another graduate of the Financial Academy, Kirill Yakubovsky, was his deputy.
Soon, Maslovsky’s paths with the first partners parted, he met the Englishman Peter Hambro and together with him began to develop the Pokrovskoye field. Tokur and its equity holders were waiting for an unenviable ending, the company was declared bankrupt in 1997. At the same time, the license of Asia-Trust was also revoked. After this project, it turned out that the funds of Asia-Trust’s clients somehow smoothly flowed into Expobank. Forbes wrote about it.
Expobank belonged to the Wimm-Bill-Dann company of scandalous entrepreneurs Gavril Yushvaev and David Yakobashvili.
Later, the same David Yakobashvili got into a whole series of scandals. Among other things, he was accused of fraud with a 46% stake in the Yeisk Port Elevator (EPE). Boris Minakhi, former business partner of Yakobashvili, acted as the applicant in the criminal case on the raider seizure of the EPE. This was written by “Version”.
Gavriil Yushvaev is a multiple hero of our publications. In certain circles, he is known as “Garik Makhachkala” – they have repeatedly tried to attribute his acquaintance with criminal authorities to him. And a few years ago, a scandal erupted when his guards participated in a shootout in the Oko tower in Moscow City. Then several people were injured, including employees of the state federal state unitary enterprise Okhrana. This was reported by REN TV.
Train from “Petropavlovsk”
Kirill Yakubovsky has interesting partners, whatever you say. However, this does not shed light on the current situation with his arrest. As our sources suggest, the ends can be looked for in the situation with the already mentioned Petropavlovsk Civil Code.
In 1999, the assets of Expobank were bought by the MDM-bank of Andrey Melnichenko and Sergey Popov. And Vdovin and Yakubovsky got a license and a brand for $3 million. This deal was financed by the future owners of “Petropavlovsk” Maslovsky and Hambro. Then they had just begun to mine gold at the Pokrovskoye deposit and believed the young financiers, having received a 50% option in Expobank in exchange for money.
As already mentioned, later ATB became a co-owner of the assets of Petropavlovsk. And it is noteworthy that he got rid of these assets only in 2018, literally on the eve of the revocation of the license. Then the bank owned 9.11% of voting shares. On these securities, the bank had options with the Cypriot Vailaski Holding Ltd (which controlled 9.57% of Petropavlovsk), which just represented the interests of the founders Pavel Maslovsky and Peter Hambro and their partner Andrey Vdovin.
However, another scandal erupted later. After Petropavlovsk was in the hands of the new majority owner Konstantin Strukov (Yuzhuralzoloto), the new management conducted an audit at the enterprise. As a result, Maslovsky ended up under a criminal case.
According to the plot of the criminal case, in 2018 Maslovsky was a member of the board of directors and was the beneficial owner of Pokrovsky Mine JSC (part of Petropavlovsk Group of Companies).
As the investigation considered, he, being a person who has a significant influence on decision-making in the joint-stock company, and possessing organizational and administrative functions, together with his son Alexei Maslovsky, stole 99.4 million rubles from Pokrovsky Mine by purchasing office space in Blagoveshchensk at an inflated cost .
In 2022, Maslovsky was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. His son Maslovsky was put on the wanted list and arrested in absentia, Vedomosti wrote about this.
And it’s 2018 again. Didn’t too many events happen during that period – after all, Maslovsky’s crime practically coincided with the withdrawal of ATB from the Petropavlovsk capital and the collapse of the structure itself. And then God knows where the 13 billion rubles allocated by the state for its reorganization disappeared.
Surprisingly, after all these stories, Yakubovsky found himself without business in Russia. At least, such a conclusion can be drawn from the data of the information system Rusproflie.ru
He was the founder of five organizations. Of the two of them – Netizen Rimskaya LLC and Netizen SPB LLC, and it was released in the same 2018. At the end of 2021, the latter had negative assets in the amount of about 70 million rubles.
From another, CJSC “Coffee House”, he left only in 2022. Her assets are not minus, but very decent – 191 million rubles. The successor was Coffee House LLC, which has an asset value of 182 million rubles. And it belongs to 95% of the Cypriot offshore “Company C-H-H-El Coffee House Holding” (CYPRES) LTD. “Isn’t it worth looking for both the money of Petropavlovsk and the money of ATB?
Of course, law enforcement officers should shed light on the situation. However, with such partners and with such a background, few people were surprised at the emergence of a criminal case. Perhaps now Yakubovsky is very sorry that he did not leave the country at the time, just like his real partner Andrei Vdovin.