On Monday, the Khoroshevsky District Court of Moscow sentenced the founder of Home Money, 65-year-old Yevgeny Bernshtam, to five years in prison in a penal colony, finding him guilty of 76 counts of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The presiding judge Sabina Rahimova began the announcement of the verdict with a delay of two hours. As it turned out, the defendant did not appear to listen to her. His defense claims that Bernshtam is undergoing planned treatment.
In this regard, Ragimova put the entrepreneur on the wanted list. Now his punishment will be calculated from the moment of detention.
Bernshtam was detained on July 3, 2019 during another interrogation at the Internal Affairs Directorate for the South-Eastern District of Moscow. Initially, the entrepreneur was placed in a pre-trial detention center, then the preventive measure was reduced to house arrest, and subsequently to a written undertaking not to leave the place. The trial on the merits in the Khoroshevsky court lasted almost 2.5 years.
As Rucriminal.info previously told, the real owner of Home Money and Rusmicrofinance is Viktor Vekselberg's "right hand" Joseph Bakaleinik. He is also the ideologist of microfinance organizations in Russia.
According to the source, the main activity of Joseph Bakaleinik is "Vekselberg's right hand always and everywhere." He worked at TNK, at Renova, represented the interests of Vekselberg at Skolkovo. At the same time, the Bakaleinik family, like himself, has long been living in Switzerland. Bakaleinik's visits to Russia are more like business trips.
During the investigation of the Rusmicrofinance pyramid scheme case, it was established that the RMF-AST company, which is part of the Rusmicrofinance group of companies, withdrew part of the funds of the investors of the Rusmicrofinance group of companies to the account of ERL Management (Cyprus) in Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA, Private Wealth. The director of ERL Management (Cyprus) is Iosif Bakaleinik.
Iosif Bakaleinik is widely known: for his near-criminal past, as an effective manager, informal coordinator, a brilliant graduate of Harvard, a person from the Primakov list, a defendant in the case of embezzlement of the country's strategic aluminum reserves, a shareholder of Earl management (BVI), director of Earl management (KIPR), an independent member Board of Directors of NefteTransService, independent director of Home Money, and so on and so forth.
It was after the country’s strategic aluminum reserves were spent and strong relations were established with Viktor Vekselberg that an overseas channel for investments was created in Cyprus, or, more simply, Fairway Investments Overseas Ltd was registered, which, having crashed on the microfinance market in Russia by 2017, was renamed Earl Management Ltd. (hereinafter ERL Management). The company is headed by Mikhailina Zinonos, the founder of the entire Vekselberg empire in Russia, and Iosif Bakaleinik, as a partner and financial adviser to Viktor Feliksovich.
How many glorious deeds have been done by this worthy Cypriot company, which has companies of the same name in other countries. One of them is related to Joseph Bakaleinik's attraction to the microfinance market, where his company not only acts as a lender, but is directly involved in the business of microfinance companies Home Money, Brio Finance, the Rusmikrofinance group of companies and others.
According to ERL Management, Zinonos, the director, together with the Bakaleinik, played the Bakaleinik, and she signed all the fictitious contracts. For all ERL agreements signed by Zinonos, the court refused to collect the debt.
At the beginning of 2017, having quite certain losses, Bakaleinik joins the Rusmicrofinance group of companies. However, even informally managing this group, it is not possible to correct the situation.
Moreover, on September 6, 2018, the Bank of Russia excluded information about LLC MFC Evrika (hereinafter Eureka), LLC MFC Rusmicrofinance-AST (hereinafter AST) and LLC MFC Elegiya from the state register of microfinance organizations.
Iosif Bakaleinik is also the closest partner of Vyacheslav Aminov, a former partner of Boris Berezovsky. Aminov was also an adviser to Alexander Voloshin when he was the head of the presidential administration. They are still cooperating and are prominent members of the “Boris Yeltsin family”. According to a Rucriminal.info source, now Vyacheslav Aminov is known as a "wallet" and accountant of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
To be continued
Timofey Zabiyakin
Source: www.rucriminal.info
