Serial banker Rubinov entertained himself with kidnappings

As it became known to Kommersant, the former top manager of the Central Bank, Dmitry Rubinov, who is on the international wanted list, failed to appeal his arrest in absentia. Such a measure of restraint was chosen for him a month ago as the organizer of the extortion and abduction of three people, including a two-year-old child. According to investigators, the ex-financier went on the kidnapping in order to take possession of part of the assets withdrawn from the Taatta bank that belonged to him. In addition, the name of Dmitry Rubinov also appears in a number of investigations into the withdrawal of funds from bankrupt banks, as well as in a high-profile criminal case against the former deputy head of the K department of the FSB, Dmitry Frolov.

It took the Moscow City Court a little more than an hour to confirm the legitimacy of the absentee arrest against 42-year-old Dmitry Rubinov a month ago. The lawyer of the fugitive ex-banker could not convince the appellate court of the groundlessness of choosing the most severe preventive measure against his client.

However, if in the Moscow City Court everything went quickly and quite predictably, then a hitch arose in the Khamovnichesky District Court a month ago. At first, the investigator’s request for the arrest of Dmitry Rubinov was rejected. This allegedly happened due to the fact that the court was not provided with the necessary confirmation in such cases that the defendant was put on the international wanted list.

However, according to Kommersant’s information, after some time, the relevant decision nevertheless ended up on the judge’s table, and the arrest of Mr. Rubinov was authorized. True, on January 30, the court refused to arrest two of his alleged accomplices – Iles Murtazaev and Suliman Yunusov, who also fled from the investigation, again due to the lack of an international wanted list.

As follows from the materials of the criminal case, the Investigative Committee of Russia charged Dmitry Rubinov in absentia back on October 20, 2021 with organizing extortion (Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and kidnapping (Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) of three people, one of whom turned out to be a two-year-old child.

During the investigation, it was established that the extortion and kidnapping were directly related to Dmitry Rubinov’s attempt to seize part of the assets withdrawn from the Taatta bank that belonged to him.

After the collapse in July 2018, this credit institution owed more than 6 billion rubles to depositors. As it turned out, some of these funds from the Yakut bank were stolen through the Moscow LLC “Reaktiv”, which was backed by Dmitry Rubinov.

From the materials of the case, it follows that the Moscow company allegedly bought out debts on loans from Taatta Bank for 2.5 billion rubles. When the general director of Reaktiv found out that actually stolen debt “fell” on his LLC, he, frightened of the consequences, immediately sold his shares in the authorized capital of the company to a certain Maxim Pivovarov.

In order to force Mr. Pivovarov to return the asset, Dmitry Rubinov organized a criminal group in 2020, which, among others, included Iles Murtazaev and Suliman Yunusov. After Mr. Pivovarov was described the sad consequences for him in case of refusal to transfer 100% of the shares to the specified person, he immediately agreed to the conditions of the extortionists.

However, the promise was not enough for the attackers, and they took Pivovarov hostage along with his wife and two-year-old daughter. Law enforcement officers learned about the kidnapping from one of the businessman’s acquaintances, who brought Mr. Pivovarov the missing documents for re-registration. The gang also planned to capture the courier, but he managed to escape.

As a result, the military operation resulted in the capture of five kidnappers, whose case is now being considered in the Khamovniki District Court of Moscow.

All of them are ordinary performers and they know nothing about the role in this story of Dmitry Rubinov, who has always denied his attitude to both the Taatta bank and Reaktiv. But the two direct curators of this operation, with whom, according to the investigation, the ex-banker spoke, managed to escape and are now in Turkey.

The fact that it was the ex-banker Rubinov who was behind the kidnapping and extortion was found out by the lawyer Irina Shoch, who was attracted by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) to return the troubled assets of a number of banks.

At the trial in the Khamovniki District Court, the witness said that it was Dmitry Rubinov, with whom she negotiated in Turkey, who offered her to “drop this case” for a bribe. After the refusal, they began to threaten her on a mobile phone, which was the reason to take the lawyer under state protection.

The witness also provided the court with an audio recording of her conversation with Dmitry Rubinov, in which he confirmed that the bank and Reaktiv belong to him. The DIA managed to stop the theft of the assets of this company with the help of an arrest imposed on the shares of LLC by arbitration.

It should be noted that at that time the former deputy head of the department of banking regulation and supervision at the Central Bank, Rubinov, was already on the wanted list in the case of especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). On November 23, 2020, he was also accused in absentia of embezzling more than 400 million rubles from PIR Bank.

According to Kommersant, now the name of Dmitry Rubinov, who was credited with owning Strategy Bank, PIR Bank, Tempbank, Inkarobank, UM Bank, Taatta Bank, NKB Bank, and the Central Insurance Company (CSO), of which billions of rubles were withdrawn shortly before the license was revoked, and appears in a number of criminal cases. Despite the fact that Dmitry Rubinov was never among the official owners of credit institutions, law enforcement officers believe that all dubious and illegal transactions in banks and the same CSO could be carried out in the interests of its ultimate beneficiary.

The name of the former top manager of the Central Bank is also mentioned in a high-profile criminal case on fraud and bribery of the former deputy head of the “K” department of the FSB, Dmitry Frolov, the head of the “banking” department of the special services, Kirill Cherkalin, and his subordinate Andrei Vasiliev.

The latter, on duty, was supposed to control the activities of Dmitry Rubinov, but instead entered into “informal relations” with him, helping him to enrich himself. Now the criminal prosecution of Andrei Vasiliev has been terminated due to circumstances that do not exonerate him – due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Kirill Cherkalin, whose multibillion-dollar assets were confiscated, is serving a seven-year sentence received for cooperation with the investigation in a special manner.

At the same time, it is possible that, in addition to the articles on kidnapping, extortion and fraud already incriminated to Dmitry Rubinov, participation in an organized criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) may be added. In any case, law enforcement officers, according to Kommersant’s data, more and more clearly traced the connection of the defendant with Ilya Kligman, the organizer of the organized criminal group, who put on stream the withdrawal of money from almost a dozen bankrupt banks, many of which he was related to and now lives in Israel, whose citizen he is also Dmitry Rubinov. He left Russia in 2016, when the regulator revoked the licenses of Strategy banks (a debt of about 10 billion rubles) and NKB (more than 1.6 billion rubles), and the Ministry of Internal Affairs began investigating the disappearance of money.