The Moldovan scheme brought Alexander Grigoriev to trial. False deal on the sale of Doninvest bank by the Paramonovs to Grigoriev, or how to bring an entrepreneur to justice Investigation cuts off "unnecessary"

The victim and defrauded investor of the Doninvest bank, Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev, continues to be tried in the Leninsky District Court of Rostov. Precisely the victim, and precisely the deceived, there is no other name for a person who was unreasonably sent to court on someone's order. Entrepreneur Grigoriev decided to acquire Doninvest Bank, and even invested more than 350 million of his own rubles in it before the purchase. This happened at a time when the bank faced quite serious difficulties that threw it to the brink of bankruptcy. As it turned out later, this position of Doninvest was directly related to the fact that about a billion rubles in debts were formed before the structure. The loan money, which no one was going to return, was issued to organizations controlled by the management of Doninvest Bank and Mikhail Paramonov (the former owner of Doninvest). Alexander Yurievich Grigoriev turned out to be in this whole story in a completely unattractive way, being completely innocent of what he is accused of.

Bank Doninvest was in a precarious position even before Grigoriev made the decision to buy it. That is why the bank's management and its former owner used the 350 million rubles invested by him in their own interests, and not as agreed. All the money simply settled on the accounts of the Paramonovo enterprises. Subsequently, the situation reached the point that the next scheduled inspection by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation could simply reveal the true state of affairs in Doninvest Bank. At that moment, Mikhail Paramonov and his entourage (Kalitvanskaya - the chairman of the bank's board and her deputy Gulenkova) decided that it was time to sell the bank with all the "dowry". Somehow miraculously, they managed to get out to Kulesha Grigory, who, in combination, turned out to be familiar with the entrepreneur Alexander Grigoriev. It was he who was persuaded to buy the bank. Kulesha presented Doninvest bank to Grigoriev in the form of an extremely promising purchase, and with his eloquence brought him to a deal to buy the bank. And then a nightmare began for Grigoriev - it turned out that if someone owns a billion, he can practically do anything.

When an investigation began on the bankruptcy of Doninvest Bank, its management, Deputy Chairman of the Board Gulenkova and Chairman Kalitvanskaya herself were initially arrested. However, soon, for some unknown reason, Grigoriev was also arrested. Moreover, his arrest was replicated by the media almost as an event of the century: an alleged super-cashier was detained, who withdrew $ 50 billion from the Russian Federation. It turned out that all this was aimed at denigrating the name of Grigoriev. The idea assumed that such high-profile accusations would provide a bias against the businessman, including for the court and investigation. In fact, the customers succeeded in what was expected. Grigoriev never took part in dubious scams, and he was simply not involved in what was discussed, but his reputation was damaged.

The purchase and sale of Doninvest Bank was accompanied by a memorandum between Mikhail Paramonov and Alexander Grigoriev, where the rights, obligations and peculiarities of the transfer of the bank to a new owner were spelled out. An unpleasant fact, but only Grigoriev fulfilled his obligations. Paramonov did not consider it necessary to comply with the terms of the agreement.

Instead, secretly from Grigoriev, Kalitvanskaya, Gulenkova and Kulesha decided to re-lend. This means that instead of the real debtor organizations of Doninvest, owned by Paramonov and his company, one-day shell companies were presented. To ensure visibility of the movement of funds, a small amount of money was simply transferred from account to account, depicting the receipt of funds. Of course, all this happened without the consent and without the knowledge of Grigoriev. While the "re-crediting" was going on, Kulesha provided him with reports, according to which it was possible to draw conclusions that the bank was doing fine. Fact - Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev was deceived, the bank lost its license.

While the Rostov Ministry of Internal Affairs was investigating Doninvest's bankruptcy, Gulenkova, Kalitvanskaya and the bank's management were arrested, since their involvement was revealed. Later, the investigation of the case turned out to be transferred to the investigator Nikolayev, and from here the most interesting thing began: Alexander Grigoriev was arrested and found guilty of stealing funds from Doninvest.

As for the testimony, all the bank employees who were somehow involved in the frauds directly pointed to the perpetrators, but not to Grigoriev. Grigory Kulesha also came to the attention of law enforcement agencies, and during his first interrogation, on September 2, 2015, he did not say a word about the guilt and involvement of Grigoriev. On the contrary, he told the whole truth. Only later, realizing that he could end up in a strict regime colony for 10 years, he decided to agree to an agreement on cooperation with the investigation. Apparently, the investigator Nikolaev knew how to convince people. After that, Kulesha's testimony changed radically, in his words, Grigoriev was to blame for everything! With his, allegedly, filing and approval, everything happened. At the same time, the investigator Nikolayev did not consider it necessary to keep the first protocol of Kulesha's interrogation in the materials of the criminal case. But he was kept by Grigoriev's lawyers.

Among other things, Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev himself and two of his accomplices (according to the investigator), upon arrival from Moscow, were sent to the Rostov SIZO, or rather, to SIZO-1. In fact, it is a prison within a prison designed for the most dangerous murderers and terrorists. Gulenkova and Kalitvanskaya, who passed as executors in this criminal case, were kept in ordinary cells, not in complete silence, not without a TV and refrigerator, unlike Grigoriev.

Throughout the entire period of the investigation of the case, the investigator Nikolayev in every possible way ignored the petitions of Alexander Grigoriev and his lawyers, and only when patience came to an end, he agreed to conduct a forensic examination, which was supposed to shed light on all the secrets kept in Doninvest. The experts had to identify whether there was a fact of theft of money from the bank, and if it did, then who had withdrawn the money and where. The result of the examination only managed to be in the hands of Nikolayev, and then, like the first protocol of Kulesha's interrogation, it sank in an unknown direction.

The commenced consideration of the criminal case on the merits also did not bring joy to Grigoriev: all (about twenty) petitions of the defendants, the judge Strokov, hearing the case, rejected. It is important that all the requests of the prosecutor were satisfied by him. I would not like to believe that Judge Strokov will not consider it necessary to establish the truth in this criminal case, but everything has its time.

The Leninsky Court of Rostov-on-Don today announced the verdict to the former managers and employees of Doninvest Bank.

The last owner of the bank, Alexander Grigoriev, the chairman of the board of Doninvest Alla Kalitvanskaya, her deputy Svetlana Gulenkova, who is responsible for checking borrowers Denis Volchkov, financier Rinat Yusupov and a small shareholder of the bank Oksana Ermakova, are on the dock on charges of major fraud and organizing a criminal community.

Alexander Grigoriev was arrested in 2015. In addition to the episode with Doninvest, he is suspected of creating a financial hole in Zapadny Bank and transferring more than $ 46 billion abroad.

The court reads out the verdict. Photo: Igor Khoroshilov

At the trial, Grigoriev said that he was greatly mistaken about the financial condition of the bank when he bought it in 2014. By that time, the founder of the bank, the well-known Rostov businessman Mikhail Paramonov, after the collapse of the enterprises of the financial and industrial group Doninvest, finally moved to France and preferred from there to communicate with creditors and the bailiff service.

Three months after the purchase of the bank, his license was revoked, and after a while Grigoriev was arrested and accused of withdrawing money from the bank by issuing loans to one-day firms.

The accusation against Grigoriev and the rest of the defendants was built on the words of the former president of the bank, Grigory Kulesha. Grigoriev insisted that after the purchase of the bank he was misled by the managers, who in fact remained under the control of Mikhail Paramonov. According to Grigoriev, from May to September 2014, the bank's management was actually engaged in "re-lending": they replaced the firms of the previous owner - Mikhail Paramonov, which owe the bank more than a billion rubles, with one-day firms, that is, fictitious companies. The indebted companies had pledges in the bank - mostly real estate. As a matter of course, all this collateral was gone from the bank. Grigoriev says that all this time, and the "refinancing" lasted four months, he practically did not appear at the bank, but was in Moscow, receiving reports from the bank president Grigory Kulesha that everything was fine, Paramonov's companies were returning loans, and free money are immediately issued to new clients of the bank.

Hidden in France Mikhail Paramonov

However, the court refused to conduct an examination of the financial documents, which the prosecution insisted on. Grigory Kulesha, who pleaded guilty and testified against the bank's managers, was convicted in 2017 and has already been released.

The prosecutor asked for a sentence of 19 years in prison for Alexander Grigoriev, given the charge of organizing a criminal community. However, the court found the defendants guilty under Art. 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation unproven and sentenced the former owner of the bank to 9 years in prison, a fine of 1 million rubles and payment of 1.4 billion rubles in favor of Zapadny Bank. Alla Kalitvanskaya was sentenced to 7 years and 10 months in prison and a fine of 850 thousand rubles, her deputy Svetlana Gulenkova - the same. The bank's financier Rinat Yusupov received only 4.5 years of imprisonment, although the prosecution requested twice that term for him. A small shareholder of the bank, a former realtor Oksana Ermakova, whom the court also found involved in the illegal withdrawal of money, was sentenced to 6 years in prison and a 400,000 fine. Denis Volchkov, who was in charge of checking the borrowers, was sentenced to 8 years, although the prosecution requested 17 for him.

In the criminal case on the bankruptcy of the Doninvest bank, in which Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev was accused, hearings on the merits continue in the Rostov-on-Don Leninsky District Court. There is a big question about Grigoriev's guilt and involvement in the theft of funds from Doninvest Bank, because the entrepreneur was not only going to acquire the bank, but also managed to invest in it a huge amount of 350 million rubles exactly at the time when the organization was in dire need of financial support. The money provided by the investor ultimately turned out to be cleverly withdrawn and distributed among the accounts of firms owned by the management of Doninvest Bank and its ex-owner Mikhail Paramonov.

For a moment, his debts to the bank amounted to more than 1 billion rubles, and there was no talk of returning them from the beginning. In order to completely evade responsibility for what he had done and shift billions of dollars in debts to Alexander Grigoriev, Paramonov somehow managed to find an approach to law enforcement agencies, which subsequently made the businessman guilty. Apparently, a billion rubles expands the horizons of its owner. It is interesting that while the investigation of the criminal case was being carried out by the Rostov Ministry of Internal Affairs, the chairman of the board of Doninvest Kalitvanskaya, her deputy, Gulenkova, and the bank's management were arrested. For many years these people were the right hand of Mikhail Paramonov and were involved in the bank's finances. However, at one point, the position of the investigation radically changed, and Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev was arrested. In addition, the media presented his detention, again with the light hand of the customer, as a sensation: the largest cashier who had withdrawn $ 50 billion from Russia was detained! Naturally, Grigoriev did not take any part in what the media were broadcasting so loudly. Over time, this news was forgotten, but the resonance and bias against Grigoriev both on the part of the investigating authorities and on the part of the court remained.

In order to somehow understand the reasons for what was happening, Grigoriev's lawyers had to conduct their own investigation within the framework of their capabilities. As they managed to find out, in fact, the withdrawal of funds from the Doninvest bank was carried out by the team of Mikhail Paramonov, including the bank's management. Doninvest had a lot of orders from the supervisory authority, in fact, being on the verge of bankruptcy. The upcoming next inspection by the commission of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation could have led to the fact that the whole truth would have surfaced, and therefore a decision was made to urgently sell the bank with all its problems and debts to the new owner.

Here a certain Grigory Kulesha, who was familiar with the entrepreneur Grigoriev, came to the place. It was he who, by persuasion and admonition about the prospects of investing, was able to push Alexander Grigoriev to complete the deal. The very purchase of the bank was accompanied by the conclusion of a conceptual agreement between Paramonov and Grigoriev, which determined the process of the bank's transition from the old owner to the new one, as well as their rights and obligations. The situation developed in such a way that Grigoriev fulfilled his obligations under the memorandum, which cannot be said about Paramonov. Apparently, as with the return of old debts to the bank, the question was rhetorical.

After the purchase of the bank, while Grigoriev was in Moscow, the same Kulesha reported to him about the state of affairs in Doninvest. Everything was fine in the bank for all the documentation he provided. At this time, Kulesha himself, Kalitvanskaya and Gulenkova carried out "re-crediting" for several months. The debtor firms owned by Paramonov were replaced by new debtors who, in fact, did not carry on and did not have collateral. In fact, they were just ephemeral. In this way, Paramonov retired, turning a well-planned fraud behind Grigoriev's back.

The clarified circumstances, unfortunately, were not taken into account by the investigator Nikolayev, in whose proceedings the Doninvest criminal case was transferred. No matter how hard Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev and his defense tried to prevent the absurd mistake, the reaction of the investigator was the same - complete ignorance. The prosecutor also supported him. However, the case does not contain evidence directly indicating guilt, or at least Grigoriev's involvement in the imputed acts. As a result, in the fall of 2014, Doninvest bank lost its license, which, to put it mildly, upset Grigoriev, who lost his money and bought the bankrupt bank, and became the accused in a criminal case. An additional fact confirming that "the case is sewn with white thread" is how different the testimony of Grigory Kulesha is. During the first interrogation, which took place on 09/02/2015, he told that he was hired by the chairman of the board Kalitvanskaya, that all the machinations were carried out without the knowledge of Grigoriev, that is, he was telling the truth, which is confirmed by other Doninvest employees, executors of the will of the leadership. The prospect of getting ten years in a strict regime colony, outlined by the investigator Nikolayev, pushed Kulesha to conclude a pre-trial agreement. Immediately after the start of cooperation with the investigation, Kulesha radically changed his own testimony. He stated that everything that happened at the bank was at the behest of Grigoriev. Grigory Kulesha also slandered a relative of Grigoriev, Volchkov.

By a very strange coincidence, the September 2 interrogation protocol disappeared from the case file. Fortunately, the lawyers of Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev kept a copy of it. Also, the necessary financial and analytical expertise in the case was appointed by the investigator only when there were too many petitions from Grigoriev and his defense, and it was no longer possible to simply ignore them. Surprisingly, only the investigator Nikolayev got acquainted with its results, and he considered that she was not interesting for the investigation. And this is the kind of expertise that fully reveals the entire insides of the bank, allowing you to find out the main thing - whether the money was withdrawn, and if so, by whom and where! Complaints directed at Nikolayev's actions passed into his own work, and he, of course, did not see a single violation. But the criminal case "grew fat" to 260 volumes, which were transferred to the prosecutor for approval of the indictment. Just a week, and 260 volumes have been studied by the prosecutor - the indictment is ready!

A certain bewilderment also arises from the fact that Grigoriev and two people who allegedly were his accomplices were held upon arrival from Moscow in the Rostov pre-trial detention center. More precisely, it was a special. a block in it, in which terrorists and murderers who pose a particular danger to society are placed. By the way, the perpetrators of the same criminal case, Kalitvanskaya and Gulenkova, were in ordinary cells.

To date, the Doninvest case is being considered by Judge Strokov. It is difficult to understand why, but from the very first session he did not satisfy any of the petitions made by the accused, but none of the petitions of the prosecutor remained rejected. I would like to believe that Judge Strokov will nevertheless wish to understand all the intricacies of this high-profile and, obviously, custom-made case, which benefits only certain individuals, but not Alexander Yuryevich Grigoriev.

The first of the king's affairs was completed, and Alexander Grigoriev was out of the question.

As it became known to Kommersant, the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs completed an investigation of one of the criminal cases against members of the criminal community, who, according to the agency's estimates, brought abroad about $ 46 billion. The Russian land bank Alexander Grigoriev, as well as several of his accomplices, will go on trial only for embezzlement of 2 billion rubles from these credit institutions. The investigation expects to pay off the damage in the case at the expense of the Sphere shopping center on Novy Arbat, which was arrested.

Several dozen people are involved in a criminal case on illegal financial, including cash transactions, worth hundreds of billions of rubles. At the same time, the initial investigation did not foreshadow such a scale. It began in October 2015, when in Rostov-on-Don, officers of the GUEBiPK Ministry of Internal Affairs detained and subsequently arrested the ex-chairman of the board of OOO KB Doninvest Alla Kalitvanskaya and her deputy Svetlana Gulenkova by a court decision. Later they were joined by Oksana Ermakova, one of the owners of Doninvest Bank, Denis Volchkov, a member of the board of directors of this credit institution, and several other ordinary executors. Two more - St. Petersburg businessmen Oleg Vasiliev and Anton Tarasov - are on the wanted list. As they say in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, both are well known as players on the Russian cash market, and it was through the firms provided by these entrepreneurs that the banks withdrew the stolen money.

When the interregional ties of the group members began to take shape, the case was transferred from Rostov-on-Don to the investigation department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for further investigation.

According to the investigation, Doninvest employees were involved in the theft of huge sums from the bank's accounts, which were transferred to offshores through a chain of shell companies. Later it turned out that this scheme was also used by the new management of the bank, the shadow owner of which was considered to be Alexander Grigoriev. As of January 1, 2017, the bank, which had gone bankrupt two years earlier, according to the DIA, owed more than RUB 1.6 billion to customers. Earlier, the businessman was a co-owner of the bankrupt banks Zapadny (debt of 24.6 billion rubles), Transportny (44.2 billion rubles) and the Russian Land Bank (7 billion rubles).

All of them lost their licenses in 2014-2015 due to the implementation of a high-risk credit policy, the placement of funds in low-quality assets, the withdrawal of capital from Russia and the loss of their own funds. It is noteworthy that all these events took place in banks soon after Alexander Grigoriev became their owner.

He was detained on October 30, 2015 in the Sfera shopping center on Novy Arbat, of which, according to the investigation, he is a co-owner. Within the framework of the case, this shopping center, as well as the real estate (apartments, houses, land plots) of the defendants in order to pay off the damage, was arrested by a court decision.

In the course of further investigation, law enforcement agencies came to the conclusion that Alexander Grigoriev was involved in the theft of money not only from the aforementioned banks, but is also the leader of one of the largest organized criminal groups in Russia (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), engaged in illegal cash transactions. In total, more than 500 people were involved in them, using about 70 Russian banks, including those with the participation of state capital. Among them were, for example, "Russian Credit", "Eastcom-Finance", "Transportny", MAST-Bank, Antalbank, Intercapital-Bank, Russian Land Bank, "Taurus", "European Express", "Rublevsky", "Baltika ", Tempbank and a number of others. Most of them have already had their licenses revoked, but some continue to work today.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, using accounts in these financial structures, OCG members over the past few years could withdraw about $ 46 billion from the country, and the annual turnover of the criminal group was about 1 trillion rubles.

However, so far the investigation has been completed only on a few episodes of the criminal activities of the group headed by Alexander Grigoriev. In the materials that the defendants in the case began to get acquainted with, we are talking about embezzlement from the banks "Doninvest" and "Zapadny" about 2 billion rubles. Note that one verdict has already been passed in this case. The court considered the case of Grigory Kulesha, former vice-president of Zapadny bank, who fully admitted guilt, sentenced him to six years of probation. The rest of the defendants do not admit the charges of the incriminated acts.

According to the defense lawyer of Alexander Grigoriev, Sergei Shenknekht, no evidence of his client's participation in the criminal community and the incriminated acts can be traced. "In the summer of 2014, during the agony of Doninvest, Grigoriev tried to save the bank by investing 350 million rubles in it, but the investigation did not provide an exact calculation of the stolen, despite the financial and analytical expertise," Mr. Schenknecht told Kommersant - We generally learned that the episodes with Doninvest and Zapadny were combined shortly before the investigation was completed. more - about 2.5 billion. But Grigoriev has nothing to do with him. "