Criminal prosecution of the former head of a large construction company NPO Kosmos Andrey Chernyakov discontinued. He was accused of stealing more than 10 billion rubles in Bank of Moscow loan funds, but the statute of limitations on the case had expired. Kommersant reports this December 4.
According to investigators, Chernyakov, being the head of NPO Kosmos, organized the theft of 10.8 billion rubles in loan funds from BM Bank between April 2011 and October 2013. A significant portion of this money was spent on maintaining the construction company’s office. The accused was hiding from the investigative authorities and was in international wanted list. In 2017, he was detained in Poland, and in 2019, Chernyakov was extradited to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism).
At preliminary hearings in the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow, the defense petitioned to terminate the criminal prosecution under Part 4 of Art. 159.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) (“Fraud in the field of lending on an especially large scale”), since the ten-year statute of limitations in the case expired in mid-October.
The court agreed with the lawyer and stopped the criminal prosecution of Andrei Chernyakov due to circumstances that did not rehabilitate him. The court left the Bank of Moscow’s claim for damages without consideration.
As Kommersant notes, Chernyakov was accused of several more episodes: in connection with the construction of the multifunctional complex of the Russian Judo Academy in Zvenigorod, he was accused of embezzling 30 million rubles, as well as non-payment of wages to workers of the NPO Kosmos.
As lawyer Ruslan Koblev told the publication, Chernyakov is now engaged in construction, including large projects.
Let us note that Chernyakov’s company built, in particular, the Alabyano-Baltic tunnel in the capital. The company was also supposed to build a tunnel on the Sinopskaya embankment in St. Petersburg, but in April 2014 the contract for 1.3 billion rubles was terminated due to failure to complete the work on time.