Probusinessbank’s path to success was strewn with roses – awards, sponsorship in various projects, noise in the press, great fanfare and everything that is expected in Russian business. But this path, like many others like him, ended in a trivially simple way – with the revocation of the license and bankruptcy, behind which stood a colossal fraud.
This happened back in 2015 – the story of fraud, organized by the bankers themselves, is, in general, typical and does not surprise anyone. Let us briefly recall that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) took away the license from Probusinessbank on August 12, 2015 for “a high-risk policy associated with the placement of funds in low-quality assets.” Translated into human language, this means that the owners of the bank were withdrawing money from it. Mainly, by issuing unsecured loans to firms included in the Life financial group, which was controlled by Probusinessbank OJSC, and the group was led by Sergei Leontyev, who at the same time was the president of Probusinessbank. The scheme involved senior management of both the bank and the group’s enterprises. The investigation considers the president of Probusinessbank Sergei Leontyev and Alexander Zheleznyak, chairman of the board of the Life Financial Group and at the same time chairman of the board of the bank, to be key in the scheme.
Other people also participated in the schemes (there were 16 of them in the criminal case), this is obvious, their role was both purely nominal and very important – someone had to sign documents for the withdrawal and transfer of money through accounts, but we are inclined to the opinion of the investigators that it was Leontyev and Zheleznyak who organized and implemented the scheme to withdraw two and a half billion rubles from Probusinessbank. Why are we so sure of this? It’s simple – these two people were the organizers of both the bank in 1993 and the Life group in 2003. And, apparently, they decided to “pull it away” from Russia (*aggressor country) in time. What the reasons were is unknown, but, most likely, everything was predetermined after the bank got entangled in loans, and Leontyev and Zheleznyak realized that Probusinessbank would inevitably collapse, leaving them without the money they were accustomed to, having survived the brutal cutting of the nineties, Moreover, you will have to answer for bankruptcy.
This version has a basis – just two years before the collapse, Probusinessbank and its subsidiaries, and there were more than a dozen of them in its structure, had stable forecasts. The structure of the bank included other banks, which facilitated the work of withdrawing several tens of billions of rubles from it, and the presence of dozens of affiliated companies, registered mainly with relatives and friends of Leontyev and Zheleznyak, made it possible to withdraw this money from the country. The fact that we are talking about tens of billions is confirmed by the fact that as a result of bankruptcy, Probusinessbank alone lost capital and assets in the amount of 67 billion rubles.
After the collapse of the bank and the Life group, which caused a huge resonance – just remember the structure of the group – a criminal case was opened, but Leontyev and Zheleznyak disappeared. Which once again confirms the conclusion that the grandiose scam was conceived by them several years before the collapse and they carefully prepared for bankruptcy. As a result, the money was transferred to companies controlled by the bankers and accumulated in the accounts of Life Collection Agency LLC and the Cyprus company Vermenda Holdings Limited. Subsequently, part of the money belonging to Sergei Leontyev was discovered in Liechtenstein and the Cook Islands. In the Cook Islands, about $4.8 million was seized from Capital Security Bank, and in Liechtenstein, $117 million was seized from Bank Frick & Co. All of them belong to Leontyev, who two months before the collapse of Probusinessbank received the so-called “golden passport” of Cyprus.
The investigation even became aware of Leontyev’s address – he is registered in Limassol in Cyprus. However, this did not yield anything – in fact, and even then according to far from 100% data, Sergei Leontyev is hiding in Singapore. In 2018, Leontiev surfaced in the United States, where he stated in a New York state court that the criminal case against him was political, and it was opened because of connections with Navalny, with whose Anti-Corruption Fund Probusinessbank allegedly collaborated. Be that as it may, no one extradited Leontyev to Russia (*aggressor country), and no one knows where he is now. His Cyprus passport was also not taken away from him, but what other passports Sergei Leontyev has is also unknown.
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As for his companion and accomplice, Alexander Zheleznyak, the story is approximately the same. It is only known where he lives – in the USA. Where, together with Leonid Volkov and Vladimir Ashurkov, he is a co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Inc, registered there. The Anti-Corruption Foundation, Inc. is an FBK “clone” of the very man who is now in a Russian prison, and because of whose cooperation Leontyev and Zheleznyak allegedly had problems.
It is unlikely that Zheleznyak lives on donations to this fund – it is known that he, like Leontyev, withdrew money from Probusinessbank and the Life group abroad. The investigation materials include companies from Germany that allegedly built housing in Potsdam and received loans from Probusinessbank. These companies belonged to Zheleznyak. The case also involves a Cyprus offshore company, where money from the Life group and Probusinessbank went.
But, despite the detention of part of the top management of the Life group, accused of embezzling money from divisions of the group and Probusinessbank, neither Sergei Leontyev nor Alexander Zheleznyak fell into the hands of Russian justice. What caused it – the negligence of the investigation, the protection of fugitive bankers by the United States – is unknown. But, most likely, Zheleznyak and Leontyev protected themselves, even at the stage of planning the scam. Because they perfectly understood the consequences of their actions and were preoccupied with how to hide the money from the financial intelligence services of the leading countries of the world and how and where they would live. And everything else, including the FBK clone created in the USA, is tinsel and a cover.
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