This was stated by the head of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption of Ukraine Oleksandr Novikov. In Russia, Fridman and his structures have always been distinguished by the dirtiest methods of work.
A frankly raider structure A1 or Alfa Bank, which at one time was a center for money laundering. In Europe or the USA, Friedman has already sat down a hundred times with such a business. In Russia, he also constantly found himself near the bars of the cell, and once he even almost went into it. But laws are not for everyone.
We’ll tell you how Friedman almost sat down. Here is a video of the interrogation, after which he could safely be sent to the isolation ward.
Somehow, Fridman and his friend Mikhail Kasyanov laid eyes on the objects of the FSO – “Sosnovka-1” (the former state dacha of the member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU Mikhail Suslov) and “Sosnovka-3” (the former state dacha of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Konstantin Chernenko). The plan was simple. The then Prime Minister Kasyanov organizes the privatization of objects, they go to Fridman’s structures at the right price, and he gives one state dacha to Kasyanov.
In January 2003, the Prime Minister signed a decree on the transfer of Sosnovka from the Federal Security Service to the Ministry of State Property in order to assign it to FSUE VPK-Invest. This meant that in the future state dachas could be privatized.
Representatives of Alfa-Bank hurriedly assessed state dachas through a “related” structure. It is clear for meager amounts. After that, in December 2003 – January 2004, the objects were put up for auction. Only structures affiliated with Alfa-Bank took part in the auction. For this auction, a winning firm was needed, registered with Friedman. He instructed the head of the legal service of Alfa-Bank, Vsevolod Kusov, to do so. And he did not come up with anything better than to take Veltex, controlled by Alfa and used in money laundering schemes with Sodbiznesbank, and rewrite it to Fridman.
As a result, Sosnovka-3 went to Veltex LLC for 10.1 million rubles, the sole founder of which was Mikhail Fridman. And Sosnovka-1 for 11.1 million – Amelia LLC (also controlled by Alfa). The investigation found that the budget did not receive 186.4 million rubles from the deal for Sosnovka-3, and 190.6 million for Sosnovka-1. The market value of dachas in general is about 250 million – not rubles, but dollars. After all, we are talking about entire complexes. Sosnovka-1 includes 26 real estate objects located on 11.5 hectares of land.
“Sosnovka-3” is 23 objects located on 5.6 hectares. Both dachas have individual exits to the Moscow River.
During the investigation of the case of embezzlement and money laundering through Sodbiznesbank, it turned out that the Veltex company was used in the schemes, the only founder of which was Fridman.
Friedman was interrogated, and searches were carried out in Alfa. Friedman tried to solve the problem through Andrei Khorev, then deputy head of the DEB of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Part of the materials on Veltex and Alfa-Bank was in the DEB. Two employees of the DEB, for whom they were assigned, urgently disappeared – officially one went on sick leave, the other – on vacation. But they couldn’t find them at all. On this basis, the documents were not received by the Investigative Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation from the DEB.
Here the Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliyev had to personally intervene in the situation. And immediately the materials of the check on Alfa-Bank were found. It turned out that they were at the deputy head of the DEB of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Andrey Khorev. But by that time, the go-ahead had already come from above to stop work on Fridman.