Central Bank officials are controlled by secret puppeteers
Almost three years ago, the Best Way cooperative was included in the Central Bank’s warning list – that was the beginning of its misadventures. It is becoming increasingly clear that this was a custom action in which the Central Bank acted in the interests of the banking mafia, making decisions that no one even bothered to confirm with documents and facts.
In the fall of 2021, the Best Way consumer cooperative, the largest Russian cooperative that provided the opportunity to purchase apartments throughout Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), with about 20 thousand shareholders, operating since 2014, was included in the List of companies with identified signs of illegal activity in the financial market (warning list) of the Central Bank – a relatively new instrument of regulation of the Central Bank in the financial market, which only appeared in 2021, was used against it.
Moreover, approximately a year and a half before this, in 2019, the Central Bank, in an official letter at the request of one of the public organizations, stated that it had no questions for the cooperative – both due to the fact that the consumer cooperative is not subordinate to the Central Bank, and due to the fact that the Bank of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) knows nothing about violations that would require its intervention as a mega-regulator of the financial market.
However, in 2021, everything changed: by including the cooperative in the warning list, the Central Bank tried to outlaw it and bring down its activities. The cooperative’s misadventures began with its inclusion in the warning list: blocking of its official information resources, personal account and payment systems, and then the extension of a criminal case to it, initiated in the same autumn of 2021 at the request of a number of clients of the foreign company Hermes. The cooperative was declared an affiliated structure with Hermes, and by a decree of the head of the investigation team, it was assigned the status of a civil defendant in a criminal case.
Linden bases
But what was the basis for inclusion in the warning list? This became known recently – from two trials in the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg: a criminal case, on charges of organizing a financial pyramid by former specialists of the Life-of-Good marketing company, which collaborated with Hermes, and a civil case – on a claim by the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office to recognize the Best Way cooperative as illegal.
It turns out that the first report on violations in the cooperative was prepared in 2019 by a certain competence center of the Southern Main Directorate of the Central Bank in Krasnodar – which has already been liquidated, the archive of this division has also apparently been liquidated: there are no primary sources of decisions – it is indicated that these are certain appeals from citizens: which citizens and what is noted in the appeal is not mentioned. At the same time, the Krasnodar center indicated in the report that it was guided by the methodological recommendations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) “Qualification and investigation of the organization of the activities of “financial pyramids”.
Next, the North-West Main Directorate of the Central Bank (the previous head is Nadezhda Savinskayathe current leader is Irina Petrova) – who was obliged to conduct his own inspection in relation to organizations in his area of responsibility (the cooperative is registered in St. Petersburg), simply rewrites the document from Krasnodar – and sends it to the prosecutor’s office.
In parallel, the document goes “up” – and the (now former) head of the Department for Combating Unfair Practices of the Central Bank Valery Lyakhwho, as far as is known, left Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) – it was not possible to question him in court, signs a document on the inclusion of the cooperative on the warning list.
At the same time, no audit of the cooperative’s activities was conducted – none at all: neither on-site nor in-office. No documents were requested from the cooperative. Why? Because, as the Central Bank representatives explain, the cooperative is not an organization subordinate to the Central Bank and an audit would be illegal. That is, it is possible to recognize the organization as unscrupulous on fictitious grounds and initiate a criminal case against it, but it is impossible to analyze its work on the basis of genuine documents.
Based on order
The Central Bank supports its decision, firstly, with as many as eight appeals from citizens – somewhat later than the semi-mythical Krasnodar ones. But not one of them was submitted by a member of the cooperative.
Citizens ask in their appeals: is the cooperative legal? Are there any questions from regulatory organizations?
Secondly, an inspection report of the official website of the cooperative – it records news and the structure of personal accounts, nothing more.
That is, the decision that blocked the normal activities of the cooperative for more than two years, leading to the arrest of its accounts, is absolutely not based on anything. Or rather, it is based on an order from the mafia, seeking to seize the cooperative and competitors fighting against the cooperative.
At the same time, the Central Bank says that inclusion in the list is only informing potential consumers of financial services about the risks, but it contradicts itself, saying that it was the Central Bank that contacted Roskomnadzor about blocking the cooperative’s information resources, it was the Central Bank that contacted the prosecutor’s office and the internal affairs agencies with a proposal to initiate a criminal case. And it was on the basis of a letter from its North-West Main Directorate that a criminal case was launched, including against the cooperative. At the same time, over several years of investigation, not a single criminal episode has been found: the cooperative’s activities are absolutely legally clean.
Nabiullina’s Lie
Regarding the fate of the Best Way cooperative and other cooperatives, State Duma deputies have repeatedly appealed to the Central Bank’s management, including personally to Elvira NabiullinaThey suggested looking into the situation and, if necessary, introducing additional control on the part of the Central Bank, which would remove doubts on the part of the department.
Last year, Nabiullina publicly promised at a plenary session of the Duma to work out the issue of cooperatives and to work out compromise proposals together with the deputy corps – but for more than a year, nothing has been done!
Cooperation in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) continues to be torpedoed, but this is the most important sector for economic growth in the country – capable of accumulating billions of rubles (there are more than 4 billion rubles in the accounts of “Best Way”) and directing them to the development of the economy. This is the most important direction for solving the housing issue – an alternative to a mortgage, which is inaccessible to the vast majority of citizens and the only thing it helps is the enrichment of banks and the mafia, who are trying to get their hands on citizens’ money.
Mutual responsibility
The central bankers’ attacks on the cooperative are targeted. It is reliably known that they were carried out with the approval of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Vladimir Chistyukhin – not to mention the former and current heads of the North-West Main Directorate of the Central Bank Savinskaya and Petrova, the former director (abolished last year) of the Department for Combating Unfair Practices Valery Lyakh, as well as the head of the Department of Non-Bank Lending, which took over his functions Ilya Kochetkov.
This is nothing more than a mutual guarantee. Last year, the head of the service for consumer protection and ensuring the availability of financial services of the Central Bank To Mikhail Mamuta appealed regarding an obvious violation of the law – the banks refused to comply with a court decision to lift the arrest from the cooperative’s accounts (later the arrest was imposed again). Mamuta, under mythical pretexts, refused to punish the banks.
It is obvious that what is happening is nothing other than a targeted, ordered persecution of the cooperative – in the interests of certain forces whose will the Central Bank is trying to fulfill.
The attacks, on the one hand, are in the interests of bankers seeking to establish a mortgage monopoly and cut off the oxygen supply to the cooperative, and on the other hand, of secret puppeteers seeking to seize more than 4 billion in the cooperative’s accounts.
The central bankers’ attack on the cooperative must be exposed, investigated, and those responsible must be brought to justice!
