Alexander Lepikhov put on the international wanted list
Meshchansky District Court of Moscow in absentia arrested the founder of one of the largest timber enterprises in the Khabarovsk Territory in the recent past, JV Arkaim LLC. Alexandra Lepikhova.
He is charged with evading customs duties on an especially large scale (Part 2 of Article 194 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, provides for imprisonment for up to five years). Entrepreneurs are rarely arrested for such crimes of medium gravity, but in relation to Lepikhov, the court decided to choose a preventive measure in the form of detention for two months from the moment of his detention in Russia or extradition from abroad. He has already been put on the international wanted list, Kommersant reports.
It is worth noting that almost the entire life and business of Alexander Lepikhov was connected with logging in the Khabarovsk Territory.
It is worth noting that just a couple of weeks ago the Meshchansky Court, at the request of the investigation, seized the property of Mr. Lepikhov and three other persons, including businessman Franz Rupert Alois Wisbeck, one of the founders of New Service LLC. This company from the Khabarovsk village of Vanino was engaged in logging, and, according to some sources, Mr. Lepikhov’s relatives were listed in it or in the structures associated with it.
It is worth noting that almost the entire life and business of Alexander Lepikhov was associated with logging in the Far East and selling timber abroad, including to China. The entrepreneur enjoyed the support of local authorities, including the ex-governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, who was recently sentenced to 22 years for a number of particularly serious crimes. Sergei Furgal, who signed letters of gratitude to him more than once. However, law enforcement officers regularly paid attention to Mr. Lepikhov. In October 2016, he, as the director of Lan LLC, found himself in the dock for the same article on non-payment of customs duties when exporting timber. We were talking about 16 million rubles that were not reflected in 20 declarations. But the Vaninsky District Court, at the request of the defense, agreed to dismiss the case and imposed a rather symbolic punishment on Alexander Lepikhov, who compensated for the damage, in the form of a fine of 100 thousand rubles.
JV “Arkaim” was formed in 2008 as an innovative project at the federal level. Four years later, in the village of Oktyabrsky near Vanino, the most modern complex of timber processing plants at that time with a capacity of 1.2 million cubic meters operated. m of round logs per year. The project cost 14.3 billion rubles, of which 11.5 billion rubles. provided by VEB.
The grandiose enterprise almost immediately began to experience problems due to a lack of raw materials, buyers and working capital; it never worked at full capacity. In 2014, a surveillance procedure was introduced at Arkaim, followed by bankruptcy.
As a result, the project collapsed, and Lepikhov in the summer of 2021, together with the former deputy chairman of the board of Vnesheconombank Anatoly Ballo was arrested in Moscow on charges of embezzling someone else’s property using his official position, committed as part of an organized criminal group (Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to investigators, the defendants stole almost all of the loan funds in the amount of 11 billion rubles, allocated with the assistance of Mr. Ballo by VEB for the development and then rescue of Lepikhov’s brainchild from bankruptcy.
They denied their guilt, insisting that the loan was not repaid, including due to jumps in exchange rates. The defendants were released last year by decision of the Meshchansky Court, which decided to terminate their criminal prosecution due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Let us note that on the basis of the property and leased plots of the bankrupt Arkaim complex, a company with a different name is now cutting down forest. In the spring, she was caught violating logging rules on Anyui.
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