Angela Sergeeva was arrested for multi-billion dollar embezzlement
The beneficiary of the bankrupt VVB bank was arrested for withdrawing assets before the collapse of the credit institution with a “hole” of 12 billion rubles.
Original of this material
© News Agency “RBC”09/28/2023, Kommersant learned about the arrest of the owner of a bankrupt bank in an embezzlement case, Photo: via kommersant.ru
Kirill Sokolov
In the Moscow region, the alleged owner of the bankrupt and deprived of a license of the VVB Bank, Angela Sergeeva, was detained in the case of embezzlement on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code, up to ten years in prison), Kommersant writes. According to investigators, in her interests, the top management of the credit organization carried out multibillion-dollar thefts.
“Kommersant”, 09/28/2023, “The owner of the Crimean bank was captured in Europe-1”: On Wednesday morning, an investigative team, which included representatives of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and the GUEBiPK Ministry of Internal Affairs, arrived to search three addresses, including the cottage village of Europe-1 near Moscow, where Angela Sergeeva lives. The 52-year-old owner of the house was presented with a corresponding resolution, from which it followed that a criminal case had been opened against her for particularly large embezzlement (Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). At the end of the search, Angela Sergeeva was taken for questioning to the building of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on Tekhnicheskiy Lane. In the near future, the investigation intends to apply to the Basmanny District Court with a petition to arrest the defendant. […]
The State Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation began to investigate the criminal case regarding the withdrawal of funds from the VVB in March 2019, after contacting the law enforcement agencies of the Deposit Insurance Agency. Accusations of embezzlement of 4 billion rubles. were presented to the former vice-president and head of the VVB credit committee Irina Faminskaya, the ex-head of the Moscow branch of the VVB Anna Glebina and the head of the capital’s operational office Svetlana Demina. Their fourth alleged accomplice, bail department specialist Stanislav Gladkov, died during the preliminary investigation, and his criminal prosecution was dropped. It should be noted that in their testimony, the defendants stated that all dubious loans were actually issued to people close to the owners of the credit institution, on the personal orders of the latter. For example, the same Ms. Faminskaya and Demina claimed that all loans were issued at the direction of the owner of VVB, Angela Sergeeva. Allegedly, also due to the fact that the investigation did not evaluate this testimony, the Prosecutor General’s Office refused to approve the indictment against the defendants Faminskaya, Glebina and Demina, sending the case for additional investigation. Now the case will go to supervision, obviously in a new edition – its main defendant will most likely be Ms. Sergeeva. — Insert K.ru
VVB was initially based in Yaroslavl, and in 2015 moved to Sevastopol, where it became one of the key banks on the peninsula, acquired an impressive clientele, but had a significant amount of problem assets, the publication notes. In 2018, the credit institution’s license was revoked by the Central Bank, a search was conducted for a sanator, but an audit showed a catastrophic situation in the bank. Shortly before the collapse, asset withdrawal operations were discovered there, and the debt to creditors amounted to over 12 billion rubles.
The investigation into VVB top management began in 2019. The defendants in the case admitted that dubious loans were issued to people close to the owner of the bank, whom they named Angela Sergeeva, the newspaper writes. According to her, the Prosecutor General’s Office did not approve the indictment due to the lack of investigation into this evidence and sent the case for additional investigation. Now, the publication suggests, Sergeeva will become the main defendant in the case.
The alleged owner of VVB, according to the newspaper, will be checked for involvement in other crimes. The case materials mention testimony about the preparation of Sergeeva together with a former employee of one of the departments of the Central Bank Dmitry Rubinov (he is hiding abroad, he has been put on the international wanted list) attempts on the life of lawyer Irina Shoch. The latter represented the interests of victims in the search and return of assets from banks that belonged to ex-bankers, the publication indicates.
According to the newspaper, Angela Sergeeva entered the financial services sector in the early 2000s, with the help of the former head of the board of VIP Bank. Alexey Frenkel. In 2008 he was sentenced to 19 years in prison in the case of the contract murder of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Andrey Kozlov. After this, Sergeeva took up independent activities, the note notes.
The owner of Baltika Bank is also called one of her business partners. Oleg Vlasov (at the beginning of the year sentenced to 17 years behind withdrawal from Russia of 46 billion rubles.). At the same time, some witnesses name Sergeeva as the owner of Baltika. Among her other probable business partners, the newspaper lists the ex-owner of BFG-Credit Yuri Glotseras well as “one of the largest cashers” in Russia Sergei Magin. Last released in the spring of 2023 after serving his sentence in the case of illegal cash withdrawal, but is now again under arrest for suspected of participating in a Laundromat.
Banki.ru, 01/13/2020, “DIA demanded more than 10 billion rubles from former top managers of Bank VVB”: The Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) filed an application with the Arbitration Court of Sevastopol to bring 18 individuals and several legal entities that controlled VVB Bank to subsidiary liability and to recover 10.15 billion rubles from them, the agency said in a statement. The defendants are Yuri Bodyaev, Olga Voloshina, Elena Grigorieva, Anna Glebina, Alexey Demidov, Svetlana Demina, Andrey Zolotov, Natalya Zvyagintseva, Valery Pantin, Lyudmila Ponidelko, Alexander Semichev, Angela Sergeeva, Nadezhda Timofeeva, Evgeniy Trukhanov, Irina Faminskaya, Vladimir Friedrich, Igor Shcherbakov, Guy Yurchenko. Among the defendants are also JSC Investment Technologies, JSC Management Company Business Development, JSC Avesta and LLC Optimatrade.
Let us remind you that VVB Bank’s license was revoked on April 9, 2018. The Central Bank indicated that “the activities of the management of PJSC Bank VVB led to the formation on the balance sheet of the credit institution of a significant amount of problem assets and property recorded at an inflated value. As a result, the bank in December 2017 was unable to fulfill the demands of creditors.” On December 12, 2017, the regulator announced the appointment of a temporary administration at the VVB and the introduction of a three-month moratorium on satisfying creditor claims “due to the unstable financial position of the credit institution.” The moratorium was extended in March 2018. The media wrotethat VVB Bank was looking for a sanator before the license was revoked, but to no avail. On May 16, 2018, the Sevastopol Arbitration Court declared VVB Bank bankrupt. In July of the same year, the Central Bank estimated the “hole” in the balance sheet at 5.7 billion rubles, and also announced the identification of operations to withdraw the bank’s assets. — Insert K.ru
