But the creators of the “pyramid” “Drevprom”, nevertheless, are suing “Sberbank” for the recovery of 167 million rubles.
“Six” beats “Ace”
This situation can only be in a game of cards, and then not always. Any person with at least a basic school education understands that a larger amount of debt cannot be repaid with less money. And yet, the number of participants in the schemes of “financial pyramids” is not decreasing.
Drevprom LLC is one of the largest financial pyramids of the last decade. Created in 2011 in the Bashkir Sterlitamak. Clients were attracted by “fabulous” offers: they promised to repay the debt to banks for 25-30% of the cost of the loan. And those wishing to alleviate their “financial burden” went to the offices of Drevprom LLC. Their number allowed the company to open its representative offices in 50 cities of the country. The main flow was in Bashkiria, Tatarstan and the Orenburg region of Russia.
The financial pyramid works by attracting new and new deposits. The first clients really got rid of their debts thanks to the funds that came from subsequent applicants – the loans of the first “lucky ones” were simply repaid in banks in full. It is easy to understand that not everyone is so “lucky”. After enthusiastic responses about the actions of the company, money flowed into it, as they say, a river. Only now Drevprom was in no hurry to fulfill its promises.
Already at the end of 2013, during a meeting of the Chairman of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina with representatives of large banks, the latter complained about the activities of the Drevprom company. The representative of VTB 24 even asked the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Vladimir Kolokoltsev to intervene in the situation. And back in August 2013, the President of Bashkiria, Rustem Khamitov, asked to check the company’s activities. After that, the companies issued a warning about possible criminal liability. But in “Drevprom” this direct hint of serious problems was not heeded and continued to “cut” money from extremely gullible citizens.
In 2014, the Ministry of Internal Affairs fulfilled its “warnings”. Three main beneficiaries of Drevprom were arrested: founder and director Andrey Sundukov and his henchmen Artur Shcherba and Vitaly Schastlivtsev. The Sterlitamak City Court charged everyone with organizing a criminal community (part 3 of article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), committing fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159) and laundering proceeds from crime (part 4 of article 174.1) . Three more employees of the pyramid were ordered not to leave: Raushanya Ishbuldina, Tatyana Sarayeva and Yulia Sharafullina.
Will foreigners help us?
At the request of law enforcement officers, the property of the defendants for 120 million rubles was arrested. According to investigators, participants in the criminal case legalized illegal income by buying cars, jewelry and real estate. This list includes a garage for 200 cars, more than 40 cars worth 73 million rubles. And the total infusion of citizens was estimated at 566 million rubles.
By the verdict of the city court of Sterlitamak, Sundukov was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. Shcherba was appointed 6 years old, Schastlivtsev – 5 and a half. But initially the public prosecutor insisted on much tougher measures. Yevgeny Sundukov – 19 years in prison with a fine of 1.5 million rubles, Vitaly Schastlivtsev and Artur Shcherba – 17 years each with a fine of 1 million rubles. For Raushanya Ishbuldina, Tatyana Saraeva and Yulia Sharafullina – 16 years each with fines of 400 thousand rubles each, but the women “got off” with a suspended sentence.
Sundukov, Shcherba and Schastlivtsev initially disagreed with the claims against them, their arrest and subsequent accusations. “Great strategists” through a group of lawyers appealed to … the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). At the same time, the Supreme Court of Bashkiria back in 2017 gave a ruling on the validity of the decisions of the city court of Sterlitamak. More on this later.
Meanwhile, deceived depositors tried to get their money back. It is clear that not everyone succeeded.
Stuffing cannot be turned back
One of the demonstrative litigation against Drevprom was the trial in the Chishminsky District Court of Bashkortostan in June 2015. One of the company’s clients filed a lawsuit against Pyramid “on termination of the financing agreement, recovery of funds, penalties, losses, fines, compensation for moral damage and recovery of legal costs.”
Citizen “N” (let’s call her that) owed almost 92 thousand rubles to Sberbank on a loan. Having succumbed to the advertising of Drevprom about the possibility of writing off debt for a much smaller amount, the woman paid the employees of this financial pyramid 18.4 thousand rubles. As it is already clear, the money was simply spent on enriching the businessmen of the company, no one paid off any debts.
Bypassing the legal details of the process, we note that by its decision the court satisfied the plaintiff’s requirements only partially: “to recover from DrevProm LLC in favor of <..> the amount paid in the amount of 18,350 rubles, a penalty in the amount of 10,096 rubles 15 kopecks, the costs of paying for the services of a representative in the amount of 3,000 rubles, to recover a total of 31,446 rubles. At the same time, the requested amount of financial compensation exceeded 144 thousand rubles. The court dismissed the claims for non-pecuniary damage and a fine against the defendant.
At the same time, it is not clear who ultimately paid the money to the plaintiff. In 2015, Drevprom was already declared bankrupt. The fate of the money of other – non-assertive – depositors is now incomprehensible. Therefore, for the most part, “fateful” life decisions cannot be returned to the starting point.
To freedom – with a “clear” conscience
At the end of December 2019, convicts Sundukov, Shcherba and Schastlivtsev were released “to freedom”. All three were released from punishment in connection with his actual departure from 2014 in a pre-trial detention center (where 1 day can be counted as one and a half). Moreover, all were acquitted on charges of money laundering (part 4 of article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) – “due to the lack of corpus delicti”.
Therefore, the intention of the former financial pyramid to recover about 170 million rubles from the country’s largest bank, Sberbank, looks at least surprising. Apparently, they will not officially tell us all the “insider things” either now or later.