In the Basmanny Court of Moscow, a debate was held in the case of the lawyers of the Forus Group company, which participated in the theft of real estate worth 9.3 billion rubles. founder of the Party network Alexander Mineev, who was killed in 2014. The former lawyer of Mr. Mineev’s mother, Vadim Vedenin, who, according to investigators, participated in two episodes of the theft of a businessman’s property, as well as in the seizure of one of the Moscow restaurants, deserved, according to the state prosecutor, 14 years in prison. For the Forus Group employee Yuri Afindulov, who is involved in the episode with the restaurant, the prosecutor requested nine years. The defendants pleaded not guilty, their defense asked for an acquittal. Recall that several participants in Mr. Mineev’s real estate scam have already received sentences the other day.
The debate of the parties in the Basmanny Court was held only on the second attempt. The fact is that at first the defendant Vadim Vedenin stated that he had changed his attitude towards the charge brought against him and therefore asked the court to adjourn the meeting in order to prepare for the speech. However, apparently, having assessed the situation in the pre-trial detention center again, at the next meeting the lawyer said that he had changed his mind and would not make any statements.
Then the state prosecutor in his speech noted that the guilt of the defendants in particularly large-scale fraud, in his opinion, was fully proved during the investigation and trial, and asked the court to sentence Vadim Vedenin to 14 years in prison and a fine of 2 million rub., and Yuri Afindulov – nine years and a fine of 1 million rubles.
The representative of the injured party – the four children of Alexander Mineev, who was killed in January 2014, agreed with the arguments of the prosecution in terms of proof of guilt and the amount of punishment, asked the court to satisfy the civil claim of his principals in full and compensate for the damage caused.
The defense, in turn, insisted that the investigation failed to prove the guilt of the defendants, and asked the court to acquit them.
It should be noted that Vadim Vedenin in this case is accused of three episodes of particularly large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and Yuri Afindulov – of one. In particular, Mr. Vedenin, according to investigators, participated in the seizure of Mr. Mineev’s real estate in Moscow worth 9.3 billion rubles, the Dikanka cottage village under construction in the Tver Region, as well as the two-story building of the Seven Beauties restaurant in Moscow Pechatniki in 2008 from Moscow restaurateur Surkhay Aliyev. Mr. Afindulov is charged only with the episode with the restaurant.
As Kommersant wrote more than once, in 2012 Alexander Mineev created a corporate chain of 18 LLCs and foreign companies to manage his real estate in Russia and protect his assets. On January 22, 2014, the businessman was killed in Korolyov near Moscow. From the very beginning, the Main Investigative Directorate of the ICR in the Moscow Region adhered to the version that the murder was connected with the raider seizure of Mr. Mineev’s property. By that time, the entrepreneur owned premises in 21 shopping centers in Moscow with a total area of 110 thousand square meters. m, in which he first traded, and then decided to rent them out.
The victim in the criminal case was first recognized as the mother of the murdered businessman Alla, and her interests were represented until the death of the woman in 2015 by lawyer Vadim Vedenin, who worked closely with Forus Group. He thus obtained access to the case file and the information contained therein. At the same time, Alexander Shibakov and Alexander Kaledin, the founders of Forus Group, acted as Alla Mineeva’s trustees.
It should be noted that it was with this company that Mr. Mineev began to sue for his property, having returned from London in 2013, where he had previously lived for some time. During the investigation, it turned out that while the businessman was in the UK, Mr. Shibakov was registered as a director of a number of foreign companies through which Mr. Mineev’s assets were managed. Such testimony during the investigation was given, in particular, by Sergei Tarasov, who until the death of Alexander Mineev acted as his financial director and was considered the person closest to him. He was personally responsible for the businessman’s accounting and collected rent after the death of his boss. It should be noted that after the murder of Alexander Mineev, the businessman’s cash and the money in the accounts of his companies and his heirs could not be found.
According to investigators, a significant role in the execution of all necessary documents for the new owners of Mineev’s property was played directly by Mr. Vedenin, who, after the death of the entrepreneur, achieved recognition of these four offshore companies as the injured party in the criminal case.
The scammers pulled off a similar scam with the property of Mr. Mineev in Konakovo, Tver region: the businessman bought land there and began building the elite village of Dikanka.
In the end, all the alleged participants in these scams were charged by the investigation with particularly large-scale fraud, however, a number of defendants – Sergey Tarasov, lawyer Igor Leskovsky, lawyers Alexander Vince and Ekaterina Yakovleva, as well as the former president of the Kyokushin Federation of Dagestan Sadrudin Bagaudinov – in absentia, since all of them are wanted.
Recall that recently the Tushinsky Court of Moscow passed a verdict in the case of five participants in the attempted raider seizure of the assets of Alexander Mineev. The court sentenced lawyer Sergei Bogolyubsky nine years in prison, former serviceman Dmitry Kurylenko eight years, the latter’s driver Omar Suleymanov seven years, lawyer Kamil Kaziev five years, and ex-head of the legal service of Mineev’s companies Yulia Yegorova three years.
The representative of the victims, Chairman of the Presidium of the ICA “Aronov and Partners”, Alexander Aronov, believes that the Investigative Committee of Russia “did a colossal job during the investigation, establishing the truth in the case, collecting evidence not only in Russia, but also abroad, identifying the perpetrators who, despite active resistance, charges were brought and they were brought to trial.” Further actions within the framework of protecting the rights of victims will depend entirely on the final decision in the criminal case in the Basmanny District Court of Moscow, the lawyer added.