Agustín Morales-Escomilla and chests of gold
Savelovsky court of Moscow sentenced banker to 11 years in a strict regime colony Agustin Morales-Escomilla in the case of the illegal withdrawal of more than 1.6 billion rubles from Russia, informs on Tuesday, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.
Morales-Escomilla was found guilty of leading a structural subdivision of a criminal community, committing foreign exchange transactions to transfer funds in foreign currency to non-resident accounts using false documents.
The court established that Agustin Morales-Escomilla in 2013 was the actual owner of JSCB Smartbank.
At the same time, Russian credit institutions with the powers of a currency control agent were provided with documents “containing deliberately unreliable information about the grounds, purposes and purpose of the transfer, for a total amount of more than 1.6 billion rubles.”
During the investigation, a pre-trial cooperation agreement was concluded with Morales-Escomilla, the obligations under which he fully fulfilled, the Prosecutor General’s Office noted.
Morales-Escomille was convicted in a criminal case on illegal currency transactions, initiated, among other things, against the former leader of the Democratic Party of Moldova, businessman Vladimir Plahotniuc.
According to the investigation, members of the international criminal community in 2013-2014 illegally withdrew funds from the Russian Federation through Moldindconbank SA
Morales-Escomilla also played a certain role in this. Recall that he ended up in a pre-trial detention center back in 2017 on charges of embezzlement or embezzlement of Taurus bank funds. It is interesting that the Russian Spaniard himself with a Moscow residence permit only once briefly was listed as an employee of one credit institution, although he constantly rotated in circles around banking. At the same time, he was known, like a number of his banker friends, by participating in car races – races on his Lamborghini in drag racing with prizes. A few years ago, the Tverskoy Court sentenced him, along with a number of other defendants in the Taurus case, to seven years in prison, dropping the charges of organizing a scam, but recognizing him as one of the shadow owners of the institution. Having not admitted his guilt and having managed to serve most of the term in the capital’s SIZO-4 “Medved”, the underground banker-racer was already preparing to file a petition for parole when he was arrested under a number of articles of the Criminal Code on embezzlement of Promregionbank’s funds. According to some reports, at that moment, Agustin Morales-Escomilla decided to cooperate with the investigation, revealing, among other things, the details of both the Moldovan scheme and other illegal financial frauds with banks, which in the end all turned out to be bankrupt with huge holes in their assets.
According to the investigation, members of the community, in the course of implementing criminal intent, transferred funds in foreign currency from the accounts of legal entities under their control in Russian credit institutions to the accounts of BC Moldindconbank SA, opened, including in the Bank of New York, under the pretext of selling foreign currency . Then, funds in Russian rubles received from these transactions were debited from the correspondent accounts of Russian banks in BC Moldindconbank SA on false decisions of the courts of the Republic of Moldova in favor of foreign legal entities (non-residents). Subsequently, they were sent to foreign banks to the accounts of clients of the criminal community, mainly to European countries.
Plahotniuc, as well as his alleged accomplice Veaceslav Platon, are currently on the international wanted list.
And here is what testimony against Morales-Escomilla was given by the main witness in the “Landromat case” banker Oleg Kuzmin: “During my stay in the hospital, I learned that Platon V.N., Vlasov OL. and Sitnikov I.V. agreed among themselves on the bankruptcy of Investtorgbank. In August, September 2015, all liquid assets were withdrawn from the said bank under various schemes by Morales-Escomille A., Galkin A. and replaced by issued unsecured loans to one-day firms that do not conduct real financial and economic activities. Most of the liquid assets ended up in Baltika banks and Smart Bank, which subsequently “transferred” to Yenisei Bank, and which were subsequently transferred to Morales-Escomilla A., Galkin A., Galkin N. and Vlasov O. companies are residents. Did Sitnikov AND.The. and Platon V.N. any assets with Investtorgbank, I do not know, the license from Investtorgbank was revoked on October 5, 2015.”
First, ingots, and then everything was covered with coins from above. Of course, both Chuvilin and Morales were tormented by the question of why all these strange deals and manipulations are being made. When the chest of gold was ready, the bankers found out what it was for. As it turned out Ruslan Baysarov, Adam Delimkhanov, Suleiman Geremeev and Bekhan Taymaskhanov came up with a tradition, every year on October 5 on the birthday Ramzan Kadyrov give him a chest full of gold worth 500 million rubles. Chuvilin told the Cheka-OGPU that he personally knew about five such chests given as gifts for Kadyrov’s birthdays. But according to the banker’s estimates, in reality, such a gift could be made for 10 years. Thus, Kadyrov could receive 10 chests of gold worth 5 billion rubles.
