Alexey Bazhanov was returned 12 million francs
Swiss authorities unfrozen the accounts of the former deputy head of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture Alexey Bazhanov. This is stated in a message received by RBC from lawyer Leonid Rosenthal, who represents the interests of the ex-deputy minister.
Bazhanov’s accounts amount to 12 million Swiss francs were seized in 2015 at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia. The Swiss authorities made this decision “as part of their own investigation into the laundering of funds stolen in Russia,” Interfax reported. In 2017 Bern stopped the investigation. As Rosenthal said, investigative authorities checked the ex-official’s accounts and “came to the conclusion that the funds could not be criminal.”
Bazhanov, the founder of the Masloproduct trading house, served as Deputy Minister of Agriculture in 2009–2010. In the spring of 2013, he was arrested on charges of theft of more than 1 billion rubles. from the company “Rosagroleasing”. Having been released from the pre-trial detention center on his own recognizance, he left for the UK and was declared a prisoner. international search. However, Interpol later removed Bazhanov from the list of wanted persons, Rosenthal said.
As Kommersant reported, Bazhanov was also accused of fraud in the field of lending (Article 159.1 of the Criminal Code). It was about the theft of about 10 billion rubles. loans from Rosselkhozbank, Moscow Industrial Bank and Svyaz-Bank, taken for the purchase of raw materials for a creamery near Voronezh, and money laundering on an especially large scale (Part 3 of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code).
The manager analyzed the registers of legal entities in the UK (Companies House) and a number of US states and discovered three probable assets of Mr. Bazhanov. Among them is a stake in the authorized capital of the British AB1 Consulting Ltd., as well as in Grand Sierra Tur Inc. from California, in which Mr. Bazhanov is allegedly both a shareholder and a director. Ms. Stanovova studied the registration address of the British company in Google Maps and Google Images and discovered “a residential property owned by Bazhanov.” Judging by the data from these services, we are talking about a private house in the western suburbs of London. […]
The main creditor in the register of claims against Mr. Bazhanov is the St. Petersburg group “Blago” with claims of 9.88 billion rubles: these are the claims against CJSC Oil Production purchased by the group from the structure of Svyaz-Bank, for which Mr. Bazhanov was held vicariously liable. Also included in the register is the demand of little-known Voronezh entrepreneur Boris Gerasimov for 2.25 billion rubles. In addition, claims for 2.2 billion rubles have been removed from the register: the Masloproduct structure has them in 2021 for 2.1 million rubles. bought by the first deputy general director of Blag, Dmitry Fosman.