“The court, agreeing with the position of the public prosecutor, found Morales-Escomilho guilty of the alleged crime. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison with a sentence in a strict regime correctional colony, with a fine of 1 million rubles, with restriction of freedom for a period of 1 year,” the agency said in a statement.
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.
“Acting as part of a criminal community under the leadership of Vyacheslav Platon, Vladimir Plahotniuc, Alexandra Korkinatogether with Helena PlatonAlexei Sobolev, Lev Pakhomov, made currency transactions to transfer funds in foreign currency from the accounts of the specified credit institution to the bank accounts of a non-resident – JSC CB Moldindconbank, the prosecutor’s office said.
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 withdraw funds from Russia via Moldindconbank SA
“Kommersant”, 06/21/2023, “Russian Spaniard revealed the Moldovan scheme”: It is worth noting that this verdict was the next, but far from the last of a series of decisions that have taken place and a number of other pending decisions regarding the leaders and participants of the OPS involved in the withdrawal of about 126 billion rubles. through Moldova. […]
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. — Inset K.ru
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.
@vchkogpu, 12/12/2021 11:45 AM: Here are the testimonies given by a witness, a shady banker Petr Chuvilin: “Alexander Alexandrovich Galkin and Agustin Agustinovich Morales-Escamilla – were the actual owners of ZATO-Bank (subsequently renamed Smart Bank), Taurus Bank and CB Rublevsky LLC. These persons maintained close commercial and friendly relations with Platon V.N., from the indicated banks controlled by him, he participated in the “Moldovan scheme”.
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.” — Inset K.ru
@vchkogpu, 05.04.2023 09:12: April 7th will be 40 days since the death of banker Pyotr Chuvilin, a man who knew many financial secrets of officials and representatives of special services. The VChK-OGPU expired Chuvilin’s promise of silence and the time has come to publish many of these secrets. […] As you know, at one time Chuvilin controlled ZATO-bank, which actually became the settlement bank, both in Chechnya as a whole and all of its most prominent representatives. I had to work with a huge amount of cash in a variety of currencies (pictured). Somehow, in the fall of 2010, Chuvilin received a go-ahead for 500 million rubles to purchase gold bars and gold bullion coins from Sberbank. The money for this (again in cash) came from various businessmen. The task was unusual in that at the same time it was necessary to acquire a huge and extremely strong chest that could withstand such an amount of gold. The “right hand” of Chuvilin, Agustin Morales-Escomilla (now in custody), was engaged in the acquisition of gold, and the acquisitions were placed in this chest (pictured).
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. — Inset K.ru
