Alexander Lavrentiev plug the hole
The Investigative Committee is investigating a criminal case on the embezzlement of almost 900 million rubles from the funds of Finprombank (JSC Financial and Industrial Bank), which collapsed in 2016, Kommersant reports. Previously, the institution was included in the first hundred Russian credit institutions.
The episodes investigated by the Investigative Committee date back to 2015 and are related to the issuance of loans to individuals that were not repaid and not serviced until the bank’s license was revoked. The total amount of damage, as follows from the case file, is 886 million rubles.
The largest non-performing loan was issued in the amount of $ 11 million to the co-owner of the Asia-Pacific Bank (ATB) and the former owner of Azbuka Vkusa Andrey Vdovin. Four years ago, he was put on the wanted list in the case of billions in embezzlement at ATB.
The case is being handled by a division that in 2017 started a case on the fraudulent embezzlement of Finprombank funds (damage – 5.6 billion rubles). Recently, the materials of criminal cases were combined into one proceeding.
The only accused
Then the first person involved in the case appeared – Alexander Lavrentiev, who in the past worked as deputy head of the credit department of Finprombank. The court sanctioned the conclusion of the financier in a pre-trial detention center, he himself does not admit guilt.
It should be noted that the case of embezzlement is handled by the first department of the department for the investigation of crimes against state power and in the field of economics of the main investigation department of the TFR. Since November 22, 2017, the same division has been conducting the “big case” of Finprombank about fraudulent theft of funds from a credit institution on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) with damage of 5.6 billion rubles. This investigation was actually frozen and, according to Kommersant, for several years was conducted in relation to unidentified persons who, according to the investigation, in late 2015 – early 2016 illegally withdrew the bank’s money “under the guise of concluding various agreements”, which “in reality didn’t intend to do it.”
Mr. Lavrentiev was detained, he was charged with embezzlement, and the Basmanny Court of the capital, having satisfied the petition of the investigation, sanctioned the conclusion of the financier in a pre-trial detention center. At the moment, this preventive measure has been extended until July 22. It is interesting that in the “big” case of Finprombank, the arrested person, according to Kommersant’s information, appeared as a witness and was summoned for interrogation to the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR a couple of times. In addition, at the claim of the DIA, they tried to bring Alexander Lavrentiev to subsidiary liability, but the Arbitration Court of the Moscow District refused to do so, not recognizing him as the controlling person of the bank.
Lavrentiev’s representative claims that there are no grounds for criminal prosecution, and the loan agreements that he is charged with were signed by the defendants as part of their official duties.
