Investigators are waiting for Nikolai Taran and Elena Kazymova in their homeland
The scandalous beneficiaries of the plundered Avtovazbank may be extradited to the Russian Federation.
Nikolai Taran, the former chairman of the board of directors of Avtovazbank, and Elena Kazymova, the former president of the bank, may be extradited to Russia. If this fails, then all that remains is to convert the assets of former top managers and members of their families into state ownership. AVB came under the reorganization procedure back in 2015, but only this summer Taran and Kazymova were charged in absentia with large-scale theft and legalization and put on the wanted list. Very soon the property of both defendants was arrested. Assets belonging to their close relatives may also be subject to seizure. In July, the accused were arrested, about which they complained. In August, Taran and Kazymova’s complaints were rejected in turn. Now things have come to the point of extraditing the financiers.
This procedure will take a lot of time, since the request is now made through the General Secretariat of Interpol. The extraditing party must still decide whether the extradition is legal or not. And in any case, the persecuted can ask for political asylum as refugees. Taran and Kazymova have been listed as the majority owners of AVB since the mid-2000s. In 2007, they joined its board of directors for the first time. Under their leadership, the assets of the financial institution began to flow into lending to various projects. Taran was looking for lobbyists in Russia, and Kazymov abroad. In the same 2007, the bank negotiated the sale of 20% of its shares to the investment fund Amstar Europe. The American investor did not enter the AVB, but a myth has developed about supporting the AVB strategy. Top managers continued to pursue a high-risk credit policy.
In 2011, Taran and Kazymova proposed that shareholders approve the withdrawal of 13 billion rubles from the bank under the guise of preferential loans in favor of beneficiaries and legal entities close to them. The volume of these funds was almost equal to the volume of deposits from the population. In 2015, minority shareholders were already left without dividends from net profit. But 10 billion rubles were traditionally lent to companies affiliated with the owners of AVB. This year, the Central Bank drew attention to the credit institution. The responsibility for reorganizing AVB fell on PJSC Promsvyazbank of the Ananyev brothers, for which the Deposit Insurance Agency allocated more than 18 billion rubles.
There was no revival. Moreover, in 2017, Promsvyazbank itself had to be sanitized for similar reasons. The Ananyevs fled abroad, in their homeland they were put on the international wanted list and their property worth almost 300 billion rubles was seized. Due to the criminal prosecution of the Ananyev brothers, Taran and Kazymova gained time by carefully preparing their own evacuation. Taran built a luxury ocean yacht, the class of which allowed him to be anywhere in the world’s oceans. Except the Arctic. He also transferred part of the business to his daughter. Kazymova cleared her companies of assets and liquidated them.
