How EU and US sanctions helped the managers of Alfa-Bank branch in Rostov-on-Don to rob their clients of 350 million rubles
A-Club of Alfa-Bank was conceived as a closed business and intellectual community. A division of the bank created to provide premium services to wealthy clients and their families. “A-Club” offered the highest quality and profitable services for its customers, which earned the respect and boundless trust of its business partners – the bank’s customers. The club was founded in Moscow in 2006. Later, the network of clubs spread across the regions of the country, and Rostov-on-Don did not escape the fate.
Vera Dunayeva, an employee of Alfa-Bank, became the director of the Rostov A-Club. The Rostov branch of the club was presented as a subdivision created for the bank’s VIP clients – the club provided a number of additional services and privileges to respected clients. Each member of the club was assigned a personal manager who helped the client in resolving any issues that arise in their use of the services of the banking sector. Clients were assisted by telephone in resolving any issue and conducting any banking operation – from searching for payments in other banks to withdrawing cash.
The bank’s managers serving the interests of VIP-club clients were the bank’s full-time employees: Irina Pigus, Daria Rudyuk, Vera Dunaeva.
Employees of the Rostov branch of Alfa-Bank offered the clients of banking VIP “A-club” an exclusive program. According to the documents provided, in order to protect the national interests of Russia and the need to implement a set of measures of an economic nature in relation to Russian legal entities, Federal Law No. 46-FZ dated 08.03. legal acts of the Russian Federation. From the employees of the bank, VIP-clients began to actively receive offers to place cash in the bank in a new privileged project to receive a higher income! Employees explained that – “under the current conditions, Alfa-Bank is interested in raising cash, as many depositors began to close accounts … To maintain its financial stability, the bank actively attracts funds from citizens and is ready to pay extremely high interest.”
Since before that, there were no complaints or claims about the work of the Club and the conditions for providing banking services, moreover, they had full confidence in the programs and work of the bank, they willingly contributed their money, replenishing the reserves of Alfa-Bank.
Receipt of funds was carried out in the negotiation room of the bank – money from clients was accepted by managers who served them under the A-Club VIP program. There was a reception of funds, including at the address of the head office of Alfa-Bank in Rostov-on-Don, on the street. Krasnoarmeiskaya, 206. At the entrance to the bank, customers were met by a bank manager or a security guard. The client was asked the question – “does he need a cash desk for a financial transaction?” Then they were escorted to the meeting room of the office of Alfa-Bank JSC, where, under video surveillance, the money was counted on a calculating machine and locked with a key. For the convenience of customers and to speed up the cash acceptance process, it was usually not necessary to wait for the cashier (the room is under video surveillance, and the bank itself is a “secure room,” bank employees explained to customers). Bank employees regularly carried out similar procedures with clients, and each time, for various reasons, the cash desk was closed … When asked to provide receipt documents for deposits, managers answered that all procedures were legal, open and with the consent of the bank’s management. That the management is up to date and the entire package of documents will be provided by the program participants at the end of the program. Bank employees explained to customers that the bank is currently under serious EU and US sanctions, that the owners of the bank, Fridman and Aven, have emigrated abroad. It is on the unspoken order of Fridman and Aven that the bank’s turnover cannot be shown – this is their personal instruction.
Thus, in the period from April to mid-May, employees of the Rostov branch of Alfa-Bank JSC collected about 350 million rubles from gullible VIP clients of the bank – eleven members of the privileged A-Club!
As a result, the money transferred by clients to the bank turned out to be “lost” – they did not receive any interest on their term deposits, and managers began to hide from clients. Since the end of May, the managers of the privileged program for A-club clients began to show strange behavior. They stopped answering calls, messages in instant messengers, they called back with delays. In early June, the husband of Daria Rudyuk answered the call of one of the clients, who explained that Daria had a problem at work with her management and she “I cut a vein in my arm.”
Alfa-Bank branch manager in Rostov Anton Butenko. Photo “Kommersant”
Anton Butenko, the regional manager of Alfa-Bank JSC, who soon gathered in one of the bank’s offices and did not know each other before the incident, expressed respect, thanked them for trusting Alfa’s banking reputation, for the fact that customers did not doubt in the legitimacy of the actions of the bank employees, and explained that the bank would conduct an internal investigation and, in any case, compensate the victims for losses from the arbitrariness of middle managers … Denis Loginov, head of the Alfa A-club directorate, and security officer Alexei Semin, who were present at the meeting, were deeply imbued with experiences VIP-clients of Alfa and expressed their full solidarity and support in their desire to return the funds criminally taken from them by the managers of Alfa-Bank and the management of the A-Club. The question is whether wealthy clients of the bank, members of the closed business and intellectual community, can believe that the management of the Rostov branch of Alfa-Bank and the regional security service of the bank were not aware of what a group of bank managers was doing in complicity with employees of the regional Security Service. And wouldn’t it be easier for the management of Alfa-Bank to attribute everything to a group of managers who stole money and send several of their employees to prison than to really return a lot of money to customers.
To be continued.