Tatfondbank in gray tones
As people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and Ak Bars Bank, they became zits-chairmen for a pittance.
“Mingazetdinov solved current issues, but it was Musin who determined the fate,” said a witness in the case of the ex-head of the TFB, who worked as a nominee director in one of the companies that received loans from the bank. During interrogations, former employees of Tatfondbank explained to investigators how they became directors of technical firms for an additional payment of 5-10 thousand rubles a month and signed loan agreements without asking too many questions. It turns out that the practice existed not only under Robert Musin, but also under Ildus Mingazetdinov, and all security officers were mired in technical firms. Details – in the material “BUSINESS Online”.
The former chairman of the TFB should be brought for interrogation forcibly
Almost a year has passed since Robert Musin was taken into custody in a new criminal case. Of course, this was a formal procedure – the ex-chairman of the board of PJSC Tatfondbank was already in jail at that time and was waiting for an appeal against his first sentence. Now the court has extended his arrest until the summer – then exactly one year will have passed since the new case was received by the court.
Despite the impressive time frame, the process is progressing very slowly. Witnesses whom the court summons for interrogation do not come and are not even amenable to forcible bringing. In particular, they could not bring to court the former chairman of the TFB, Nailya Tagirova, who was even called Musin’s “right hand”, because she fell ill. Guzel Fattakhova, a former member of the board of the bank, could not be brought either because she is “outside of Tatarstan”. At the meeting, it was decided that the drive would be issued again – I really want to interrogate these witnesses live.
The parties did not show the same attention to other witnesses who did not come. And they did not mind if the state prosecutor Elena Petrova read out their testimony, which they gave during the investigation. All of them are connected with the most “voluminous” part of the accusation of issuing unsecured loans for 15.7 billion rubles to a group of 35 technical companies close to Musin. According to investigators, the companies did not conduct real activities and were used “in scheme operations.” Between the firms there were chains of settlement, “transit” payments, which ultimately led to an increase in debt, the prosecution is sure. The full list of companies “BUSINESS Online” published earlier.
The directors of firms were people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Finance …
Farit Aglyamov, during interrogation, said that before coming to the TFB, he worked for almost three decades in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Somewhere in 2003, his former colleague Farid Bikmukhametov invited him to work in a bank, and he agreed – he became a leading specialist in the TFB security service. Under Aglyamov, three heads of the Security Service changed in the bank: in 2011, Foat Shamsevaleev took the chair of the chief “security guard”, and in 2015 he was replaced by Ilgiz Minullin, the father of the head of the Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Taliya Minullina. “The bank’s security service was personally supervised by the chairman of the board,” Aglyamov said, listing the former tops of the TFB — Musin, Ildus Mingazetdinov, Rinat Khairov, Dmitry Nagumanov, Kamil Yusupov, Nailya Tagirova, Marat Zagidullin.
Despite the fact that Aglyamov’s duties as an employee of the Security Service included “identifying crimes committed by personnel and fraud from outside,” he agreed to the offer of his boss Shamsevaleev to earn extra money as a nominal director of Land Estate LLC. “At that time, all security officers were directors of some organizations,” Aglyamov explained why he did not refuse. Moreover, the order, as he was told, came from the chairman of the board – then it was Musin. Another plus is that in addition to a salary of 29 thousand rubles, they promised another 5 thousand every month from above. “The extra money would not hurt me,” Aglyamov explained his decision.
So he became the director of Land Estate LLC. What the company was doing, the speaker did not find out, he only signed the documents that were brought to him by couriers from Uchet.ru LLC, including loan agreements. “I signed the documents based on trust in the management of Tatfondbank,” Aglyamov said. This continued until 2017. “By this time, I realized that I was participating in the gray fraud of the bank, Musin, so I went to see him. But they didn’t let me in,” Aglyamov continued. After that, he sold his stake in the firm.
By the way, Land Estate was the founder (together with Traverse Company) of Yagodinskaya Sloboda LLC. Aglyamov also agreed to become its director, already for 7 thousand a month, and signed the documents “without looking.” “According to Bikmukhametov, LLC was part of the bank’s group of companies, served in the interests of the bank,” the witness said. – For what purpose the loans were taken, I do not know. The bank’s management explained this by the fact that obtaining loans is one of the directions in order to obtain benefits for the bank. At the same time, he noted that this company actually carried out activities, was engaged in construction: for example, it erected a high-rise building on Yagodinskaya Street, and also a cottage village in Sokury – all with credit money. In 2017, Aglyamov also withdrew from the founders.
One of the witnesses in the case was also Vladimir Kiryashin, who in the 90s worked in the control and audit department of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Tatarstan. He headed OJSC “Artug”, which the investigation also ranks among the firms that received unsecured loans from the TFB. “Mingazetdinov invited me to this organization,” Kiryashin said during interrogation, adding that they had known each other since his time at the Ministry of Finance. According to the witness, he was asked to “adjust” the management system of the companies that were part of “Artug” and to make sure that they did not violate the law on joint-stock companies. “It can be said that Artug OJSC was engaged in the analysis of the financial statements of companies controlled by Musin,” Kiryashin told investigators. In the staff of “Artug” there were three people who were sitting in the office on Levo-Bulachnaya. “About 2010, I had a conversation with Mingazetdinov, who said that it was necessary to appoint [моего заместителя] Ibragimov for the position of director of several organizations: Aromat Pharm LLC, Kapital Pharm LLC and, possibly, some other organization,” Kiryashin said and conveyed the request to his deputy. “As far as I remember, Ibragimov headed these organizations.” In 2011, Kiryashin resigned.
… employees of Ak Bars Bank and a student who has just graduated from the Faculty of Economics
What Karim Ibragimov did before he got to Ak Bars Bank is unknown. However, in 2004, as follows from his testimony, he came to a personal meeting with Musin, who was then chairman of the board of directors of ABB (from 2002 to 2013). He allegedly immediately offered the position of a bank adviser with a salary of 45,000 rubles a month.
In 2007, Musin called him to his office and said that he would appoint him a director at Artug OJSC, where only an accountant worked. By 2010, the company’s shares were bought by Artug-Finance, the founder of which was Mingazetdinov, the witness recalled. “Mingazetdinov solved current issues [этих организаций], but it was Musin who determined their fate,” Ibragimov said. Then Kiryashin was taken to the firm as a director, and Ibragimov was appointed the founder of a number of organizations. And initially, according to Ibragimov, he refused these positions. “Mingazetdinov summoned me to his place [в офис ТФБ на улице Чернышевского]. He said that there would be no changes for me, the salary would remain the same. I agreed, because I did not want to contradict the plan of the leadership, ”Ibragimov said. So he headed Aromat Pharm LLC, Kapital Pharm, and some other company. He signed documents, including on loans – “hundreds of millions of rubles.” “[Предполагаю] that the funds were sent to the TFB and IntekhBank, more precisely, to the authorized capital of banks to increase the positive indicators of the bank, ”Ibragimov argued.
This was not the end of his adventures. Around 2012, Ibragimov recalled, Musin called him to him and asked: “where am I now registered and how much is my salary.” And he told the news: now Ibragimov, in addition to everything else, will be employed in LLC Mortgage Agency of the Republic of Tatarstan as the deputy head of the department. According to the witness, at that time this company was engaged in the construction of the Ecopark Dubrava residential complex. And in March 2014, Ibragimov was “offered” to move to MR Analytics LLC in order to analyze the financial documents that came from Musin’s office. “As I understand it, when someone applied to Musin for financing construction projects, he could transfer some projects to me for study, analysis and preparation of a conclusion,” Ibragimov said.
Answering the questions of the investigators, the witness said that Musin and Mingazetdinov, as he understood, had “comradely, partnership” relations, but still the last word remained with Robert Renatovich. “Musin acted as a senior partner, who retained the right to have a decisive vote on serious economic issues,” Ibragimov said.
Gulnara Gumerova, who in 2012-2013 was the director of the nominee company Polyus-S, worked at Ak Bars Bank as the chief economist of the economic security expert department. It was supposed to find and block suspicious transactions, which, for example, fell under the money laundering law. According to her, Nikolai Zhurov, deputy director of the security department, suggested that she become a “nominal figure”. The second founder of Polyus-S was another Ak Bars Bank employee, Gumerova said. Moreover, unlike other “nominal values”, the speaker did this for altruistic reasons – she was not paid money. As agreed, she signed the documents that some “accountant of Light” brought to her. In the end, doubts about the legality of this idea won out, and Gumerova quit the company.
But Ruslan Zakirov had nothing to do with the bank – luck just turned up. In 2010, he graduated from the Faculty of Economics of KFU and sent his resume to banks. “I was invited for an interview by Musin. He liked my candidacy, and I was invited to the position of director of the Aktiv Invest company, ”Zakirov told about his incredible career leap. According to him, then he believed that the company was part of the TFB structure. On her balance sheet was a company car, a boat, land in the Zelenodolsk district and an apartment in St. Petersburg. Some time later, he became the director of Real Estate. In these firms, he signed, like everyone else, loan agreements, but at the same time he asked questions – what is all this for? “I was told, [что кредиты нужны] to finance other organizations that are part of the bank’s group of companies, which is necessary to help other organizations, ”Zakirov told investigators. Also, at different times, the witness was the director of Avtohaus LLC, then Nedvizhimost Plus LLC, which owned the Fashion Family shopping center, and Gusev, an employee of the TFB, was the founder of the company. After the collapse of the bank, Zakirov liquidated the companies, but in the end he was brought to subsidiary liability for 650 million rubles. Zakirov said that he did not agree with this, because he signed the documents without reading them carefully.
Also, among the witnesses, several former employees of the TFB itself and IntechBank were interrogated. Anatoly Derebenev, an internal audit specialist, was the director of Kazanskaya Selkhoztekhnika JSC, an employee named Fakhieva worked at Accounting. Ru” and “Creative Invest”. Ildar Aipov, who has worked at Intech since 2007, became the director of Svitil LLC at the suggestion of Musin. But Ivan Kireev, for example, worked at Global Consulting LLC and himself processed documents for changing directors in other technical firms from the TFB orbit. In one of the organizations he employed the wife of his son, who was eventually brought to subsidiary liability.
The next hearing in Musin’s case will take place in mid-March.
