Russian banks accuse New Yorker of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars

Banks "Trust" and "Otkrytie" filed a lawsuit in New York against the former beneficiary Vadim Belyaev. He is accused of creating an asset stripping scheme. The damage caused to them is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. The edition writes about it Meduza.

The lawsuit was filed with the New York State Supreme Court in late August. Banks "Trust" and "Otkrytie" accused the founder and former co-owner of the group "Otkrytie" Vadim Belyaev of causing damage.

In particular, the subject of a civil lawsuit is “the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars of assets that were embezzled as a result of fraudulent actions and illegal bringing to collapse of one of the largest private commercial banks in Russia, writes Interfax.

Vadim Belyaev now lives in New York under the surname Wolfson (the surname of Belyaev's father). Banks revealed that he had created a scheme to withdraw assets from Otkritie. To do this, he used more than 150 offshore companies. These companies were registered in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands. They were managed by employees of the group close to Belyaev and his partners.

As writes edition Forbes, one subgroup, called "ОХ +", consisted of 26 companies, the main purpose of which was to interact with the companies of the "Otkritie" group. The other 125 were simply used as spacers in order to hide the origin of the withdrawn money.

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The document also states that all operations were carried out according to a single scheme. At first, banks issued billions of dollars in loans to buy securities to Otkritie Holding or its investment subsidiary Otkritie Capital LLC. Then the borrowers bought and immediately sold securities, but the money was not returned to the lender - they were sent as a new loan to one of the offshore structures. Through this chain, money was withdrawn and deposited on the accounts of companies owned by Belyaev and his associates.

The Trust's press service said that their main task is to return the maximum possible amount of funds withdrawn. “The available evidence gives us confidence in the positive outcome of the dispute,” the statement said.

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The Central Bank of the Russian Federation in August 2017 announced the reorganization of the Otkritie Bank Group, one of the top 10 Russian banks. Trust was also part of this group. On its basis, the Bank of Non-Core Assets has now been created.

Otkritie Holding's beneficiaries are Vadim Belyaev (23,7%), as well as VTB (10%), co-owners of the oil company LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov and Leonid Fedun (about 12%), ex-CEO of Otkrytie Broker Alexander Bukharin (about 20%), as well as ex-head of the Supervisory Board of Otkritie Bank Ruben Aganbegyan (8%). Another 10% share belongs to the Cypriot company Velinio Holdings, owned by former top managers of Otkritie Bank.

Following the reorganization, in July 2019, the bank filed a claim with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the former owners, including Vadim Belyaev, in the amount of 289 billion 520 million rubles. This is the largest such lawsuit in the history of the Russian banking sector.