In Russia, one of the most notorious worldwide investigations related to money laundering, about the laundering of tens of billions of dollars through Deutsche Bank, should have been going on at full speed. The Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation has testimony against the former head of trading of the Russian division of Deutsche Bank Tim Wiswell, the head of the Moscow office of Deutsche bank (DB) Yerg Bongarz (now the director of DB for Central and Eastern Europe), against the former vice-president of Deutsche Bank for operations on share market of Sergei Suverov. All these materials were collected as part of an investigation into the theft of 3.2 billion rubles from Promsberbank. Together with Aleksey Kulikov, the board of Promsberbank included Igor Putin, a cousin of Vladimir Putin.
The organizers of the embezzlement - Ivan Myazin and Alexey Kulikov - also created a money laundering channel through Deutsche Bank. For a long time, the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation threatened that all the collected materials on the DB were about to turn into a high-profile international investigation. All this was throwing dust in the eyes. As a result, it turned out that Andrey Gorbatov, a participant in a scam with funds from Promsberbank and a top manager of the laundering canal, was not even put on the wanted list, despite a lot of evidence. He leads a very wealthy life in Cyprus. And the "Promsberbank case" along with the materials about the laundering canal through the DB was quietly dropped into the Main Investigation Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Moscow Region, where it is now being prepared for "funeral". Kulikov, not even a day in the colony, has already been released. His accomplice Myazin will also soon be released; he is serving his sentence in complete comfort in the pre-trial detention center of Mozhaisk. The DB executives on whom the testimony was given were not even interrogated. Details of how a potentially large-scale investigation was born and then died are in the material of Rucriminal.info.
The main assets of the shadow banker Alexei Kulikov were the banks "Kreditimpex" and Promsberbank. At one time, he became friends with Dmitry Frolov, an employee of the Directorate of the FSB of the Russian Federation, who became his "roof" and personal friend. As a result, Kulikov participated in dozens of topics: theft of billions of VAT; cashing out; money laundering and their transit to the West. In his best years, Kulikov was an extremely influential person, he was almost promoted to the State Duma from the "Fair Russia" together with his close acquaintance Alexander Babakov. But if Babakov got into the State Duma, Kulikovk was removed from the election race at the last moment.
In Promsberbank, another shadow banker, Ivan Myazin, became Kulikov's partner. On the basis of this bank, they made a large channel for the transit of money to the West. At the same time, the couple withdrew 3.2 billion rubles from Promsberbank. As part of this case, Alexei Kulikov and Myazin were arrested.
Witnesses in the case said that in 2005-2006, Myazin was the chairman of the board of the Siberian Bank for Economic Development. A year later, Myazin bought out this bank and created the investment company Financial Bridge Investment Company. The IK was led by Oleg Belousov, one of the members of Myazin's team. "Myazin had extensive contacts in law enforcement agencies, as well as in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the FSFM acting at that time," said witnesses during interrogations. Also, along with this entire group, there was another large shadow banker, Aleksey Kulikov, whose main focus was "VAT refund".
In 2013, Myazin bought Promsberbank from businessman Grigory Altshuler. Soon, the members of the group began to implement schemes to withdraw money from the bank. “Myazin, together with Belousov, provided cover for their activities through the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, that is, they agreed not to apply disciplinary measures against Promsberbank, entailing the revocation of the license.
Initially, funds were withdrawn through fictitious purchases of shares and securities. Thus, 60% of the bank's assets were withdrawn. Then Kulikov said that a new scheme for the withdrawal of assets was agreed with individual representatives of the Central Bank - by providing loans to controlled firms. Moreover, each such loan Myazin coordinated with his people from the Central Bank, therefore, when the Bank of Russia checks Promsberbank on these firms, despite their obvious doubtfulness, the regulator did not have any questions.
According to the materials of the case, which Rucriminal.info got acquainted with, the banks Russian Land Bank, Russian Credit and Deutsche Bank participated in the mass withdrawal of funds from the Russian Federation. At the same time, Ivan Myazin organized "a cover for the activities of investment companies to withdraw funds abroad through his connections in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, organized cash flows, search for and involvement of third-party banks and investment companies in this activity."
Oleg Belousov and Ivan Myazin created companies, where cash funds were collected for their subsequent transfer in the form of bribes to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. For this money, representatives of the Bank of Russia did not notice illegal operations to transport gigantic sums outside the country.
Witnesses reported on the role of the former head of trade in the illegal transit of money from Russia of the Russian division of Deutsche Bank by Tim Wiswell. According to the testimony of the banker, this US citizen, for a monthly fee of $ 100 thousand, carried out transactions with packages of securities and currency through Deutsche Bank, which were part of the schemes for the withdrawal of funds outside the Russian Federation. The witness told when, who and in what places transferred the money to Wiswell.
Also in the case file it is indicated that Alexey Kulikov was personally acquainted with the head of the Moscow office of Deutsche bank Yerg Bongarz (now the director of DB for Central and Eastern Europe), who brought him to the bank. He also advised how to bypass DB's control - to buy already operating financial companies with a history and admitted to work as clients of Deutsche bank. Such companies were IK Financial Bridge or Rye, Man & Gor Securities, the activities of which began to be supervised by Andrey Gorbatov. By the way, "Financial Bridge" was acquired from Alexander Perepelichny, who later became an informant for Western intelligence services and died under strange circumstances.
A special role was assigned to Gorbatov's assistant Oleg Shevelev, whose duties included the selection of nominee leaders of these companies. There are testimonies against the former vice-president of Deutsche Bank for operations in the stock market, Sergei Suverov. Suverov was personally acquainted with Alexei Kulikov, they were on friendly terms. Financial Bridge and other companies involved in the laundry took an active part in transactions for the formation of packages of securities of Russian issuers for the subsequent execution of sham transactions, the purpose of which was to withdraw funds from the Russian Federation.
Gorbatov and Belousov are now holders of Cypriot passports and have acquired their own CDB bank in Cyprus. At the same time, Gorbatov himself likes to boast that he has so much money that he can easily solve any problems with the security forces. So when Belousov was put on the international wanted list, according to Gorbatov himself, he, having become poorer by several million dollars, decided the issue in the prosecutor's office and the supervisory agency blocked the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation from bringing charges in absentia to Gorbatov. Now the case of the theft of Promsberbank and the laundering through DB were sent to the funeral.
According to the materials of the case, at one point the control service (compliance) of Deutsche Bank became interested in the structures of Myazin and Kulikov. All postings have been blocked. Bongartz said that he could not influence the control service. As a result, a conflict arose between Myazin and Kulikov. The first accused the second of embezzling a significant part of the money that was allocated monthly to bribe top managers of the Moscow office of Deutsche Bank. According to the case file, in a cafe on the first floor of an office building occupied by the bank, Kulikov had a meeting with a senior employee of the Deutsche Bank control service, Komov. Kulikov, used the calculator on his smartphone, typing a five-digit dollar figure on its screen. Komov refused and reported an attempted bribery. However, for some reason his statement was hushed up by DB, and payments for the Myazimna-Kulikova channel continued.
Timofey Grishin
To be continued
