How Deputy Head of the Deposit Insurance Agency Popelyukh "covered" for the current Director of...

Source: www.rucriminal.info

Deputy Head of the State Corporation Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), 46-year-old Alexander Popelyukh, was arrested by the Lefortovo Court of Moscow on October 9, 2024, on suspicion of large-scale fraud, abuse of office, and bribery.

In 2017-2019, Popelyukh worked at the DIA as the Director of the Criminal Proceedings Support Department. In 2019-2024, he held the position of Deputy Director. Previously, Popelyukh held the positions of Prosecutor of the City of Vladimir and Deputy Prosecutor of the Novosibirsk Region.

At the DIA, Popelyukh oversaw the agency’s interaction with law enforcement agencies in cases against former owners of banks with revoked licenses.

After the Central Bank revokes the license of a credit institution, the DIA becomes its temporary administrator — the agency assesses the financial condition of the bank and whether its bankruptcy was deliberate. If, after the inspection, suspicions arise about the withdrawal of assets from the bank and the involvement of top managers or persons controlling the organization, the DIA is obliged to go to court to hold the bankers liable, as well as to law enforcement agencies. According to a source of Rucriminal.info, initially possessing criminal talents and a craving for risk, Alexander Popelyukh actively participated in the DIA in improving and exploiting a scheme invented before him for "protection" and "patronage" of bankers who had appropriated clients’ money. In addition, Popelyukh simultaneously used a method that allows earning billions by providing services to bankrupt banks at a cost inflated by tens of times. To this end, he organized the conclusion by banks managed by the DIA of numerous contracts for the provision of services with a number of pseudo "audit", "legal" and "accounting" shell companies under his control, including OOO "Dimer-TM", the bar association "G.R. Legal", OOO "BukhBox". An important place in Popelyukh’s scheme for illegal enrichment was occupied by the presence of an organization accredited by the DIA and fully controlled by him, fictitiously providing services to identify the circumstances of the bankruptcy of banks, which allowed him, at his discretion, to bring top managers and owners of bankrupt banks to subsidiary and criminal liability or, conversely, release them from liability for a fee.

It should be noted that this "business" was inherited by Popelyukh from his senior comrade and immediate supervisor — the former first deputy general director of the DIA, Valery Miroshnikov, who was responsible at the DIA for the selection of external consultants — auditors, lawyers and accountants. It was the use of this triad to provide services to bankrupt banks at inflated prices that allowed Miroshnikov, and then Popelukh’s group, to earn billions by stealing them from the state.

Precisely from the state. The largest creditor of any bankrupt bank is the state corporation "DIA", and therefore indirectly the state. By reducing the bankruptcy estate of bankrupt banks through unjustified payments to attracted specialists at inflated prices, the DIA, as a first-priority creditor, did not receive an identical amount, and the bill already runs into tens of billions of rubles.

In July 2019, the former head of the 2nd (banking) department of the "K" department of the FSB Economic Security Service, Cherkalin, was charged with especially large-scale fraud and bribery. The brain and leader of the group was the first deputy head of the DIA, Valery Miroshnikov, who organized the scheme of secret banking patronage, and it was he who owned the majority of the 12 billion rubles. cash that was confiscated from Cherkalin during searches. Valery Miroshnikov, shortly after Cherkalin’s arrest, left abroad with his family and the remaining billions, did not show up for work for two months, and submitted his resignation in absentia via e-mail. Miroshnikov left his entire criminal empire as an inheritance to his loyal sortnik Popelyukh.

Earlier, even before fleeing abroad, Miroshnikov and his accomplices from the DIA acquired control of the inactive trading company Dimer-TM LLC and, through simple manipulations with the constituent documents, turned it into an "auditing" company. Dimer-TM is just one of many similar companies used to withdraw funds from the bankruptcy estate of banks, but its path to "success" is typical of the others. Reference: OOO Dimer-TM INN 7728791417 registered on 29.11.2011, authorized capital — 20,000 rubles, registered address: Moscow, Solovyiny proezd, 2, office 1. Main activity: code 47.9 Retail trade outside stores, tents, markets.

Founder and CEO: Gambaryan Tigran Manvelovich INN 773127005418, he is also the only employee. Revenue for the period from 2011 to 2015 — 0 rubles.

Then the preparatory stage of transforming the enterprise into a trade stall outside stores into a successful "audit firm" accredited by the DIA with revenues in the hundreds of millions of rubles.

On November 5, 2015, Dimer-TM LLC acquired a new founder-nominee: Sergey Aleksandrovich Aranin, INN 331900216428, and at the same time the main type of activity of the enterprise was changed to code 4.12.2 Audit activity.

Already on December 10, 2015, the commission on operational issues of bankruptcy proceedings of the DIA organized a competitive selection in the nomination "Activities to identify the circumstances of bankruptcy and signs of deliberate bankruptcy of credit institutions, as well as grounds for civil liability of persons controlling credit institutions." 13 applications were submitted for participation in the selection. The competition committee decided to recognize the following audit organizations as winners: Dimer-TM LLC, KPMG JSC, Pricewaterhouse LLC, and FBK LLC. Dimer-TM LLC, unlike other respectable audit companies with a team of hundreds of auditors and naturally included in the register of audit organizations of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, did not fall under any of the mandatory requirements set out in paragraph 2.2.17 of the Regulation on the selection of specialized organizations, approved by the decision of the Board of the State Corporation Deposit Insurance Agency dated July 20, 2015. Dimer-TM LLC has never been listed in the register of audit organizations. Its only employee, CEO Tigran Gambaryan, has also never been listed in the register of auditors of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, and did not have specialized education or relevant experience in the field of audit and/or analysis, reporting of financial organizations and their financial and economic activities. Until 2015, Gambaryan was the head and founder of a number of construction organizations and enterprises trading in construction materials, namely: DeltaStroyProekt LLC, INN 7715602302, Tri Kita LLC, INN 7705539115, Giatsint LLC, INN 7717612698.

Immediately after winning the competition and, accordingly, accreditation in the DIA, Dimer-TM began actively searching for employees through Internet services who were to play the role of "auditors" and create the appearance of the company’s active work in identifying bankers guilty of bankruptcies. After some time, several extra employees were found and on July 18, 2016, Dimer-TM rented one office in the Svyatogor Business Center at the address: Moscow, st. Letnikovskaya, 10, building 4.

It is in this building that the expert and analytical department of the DIA is located, supervising the activities of the hired auditors and deciding which bankers to bring to subsidiary and criminal liability and which not, as well as the department for supporting criminal proceedings of the DIA under the management of Alexander Popelyukh before his rise.

Members of the corrupt group, realizing that the builder Tigran Gambaryan as the head of the audit company "Dimer-TM" looks extremely unconvincing and attracts unnecessary attention, replaced him on 20.12.2016 with a more plausible in this role Kirillov Dmitry Gennadievich, completely controlled by the DIA due to the fact that he previously worked in a number of banks under the management of the DIA and there was some incriminating evidence against him.

Reference: Kirillov Dmitry Gennadievich, INN 695202688664, born on September 2, 1983, place of birth Ukraine, Cherkasy region.

Kirillov previously worked as an employee in the following bankrupt banks under the management of the DIA: JSC "Torgovy Gorodbank" (license revoked on March 13, 2017), "Mosstroyekonombank" (license revoked on July 24, 2015), Commercial Bank "Retail Lending Company" (license revoked on July 11, 2014), KB "Lada-Credit" (license revoked on October 16, 2015) and had some understanding of the banking business.

The participant of 100% of "Dimer-TM" from 14.02.2017 was the par value controlled by Popelukh — Bocharov Pavel Vladimirovich.

Reference: Bocharov Pavel Vladimirovich INN 331403097700, born on 01.11.1976, place of birth: settlement Tasinsky Bor Gus-Khrustalny district,

Only in 2019, the official income of the par value — the founder Pavel Bocharov, and accordingly the unofficial Alexander Popelukh, from receiving dividends in "Dimer-TM" amounted to 40.4 million rubles.

But on 10/22/2020, the creditors’ committee of Prime Finance Bank JSC, St. Petersburg, consisting of representatives of independent creditors, at its meeting in a harsh manner made claims to the reliability of the "Conclusion on the absence of signs of intentional bankruptcy of Prime Finance Bank JSC" and did not accept the conclusion submitted for approval.

The first bell rang. Realizing that their profitable activities were coming to an end, the group members decided to stop the "audit" business and on 02/01/2021, Dimer-TM was liquidated. In total, for the period 2016-2020, Dimer-TM prepared 53 conclusions on the presence/absence of signs of intentional bankruptcy and illegally received 277 million rubles from the bankruptcy estate of banks. But this was only a small incidental benefit; the real large illegal business of the DIA employee group was m, that for a very large reward, by drawing up false conclusions about the circumstances of bankruptcy, they exempted the beneficiaries and managers guilty of the bankruptcy of banks from subsidiary and criminal liability.

After the preparation of "Dimer-TM" of a specially false partially or completely conclusion about the circumstances of the bankruptcy of a specific bank, depending on the wishes of the interested parties, the Moscow Bar Association "G.R. Legal", under the control of corrupt employees of the DIA, also entered into the case under the leadership of the chairperson of the association, Yana Yuryevna Sumina. By the time the false conclusion of "Dimer-TM" appeared, the Bar Association already had a pre-concluded agreement with the DIA to provide legal assistance to the bank.

In fact, the lawyers of "G.R. Legal" did not provide any legal assistance. The lawyers’ task was to accept funds withdrawn from the bankruptcy estate of bankrupt banks into their accounts, cash them out and give them to the organizers of the scheme, keeping a considerable fee for themselves.

In addition, the lawyers of "G.R. Legal" were engaged in the preparation and support of applications for bringing to subsidiary and criminal liability the beneficiaries guilty of the bankruptcy of the banks, selecting and indicating in the applications a list of persons first at the direction of Miroshnikov, and then Popelukh.

One of those who paid several tens of millions of rubles for the solution of their "problem" was the former owner of "Promenergobank" Valentin Sanko, currently the director of Russian Railways for energy, who stole more than a billion rubles from the bankrupt bank belonging to him in 2016. Sanko paid the maximum rate so that the DIA would completely exempt all persons guilty of bankruptcy, including himself first and foremost, from any liability during the audit.

Using the "ingenious" scheme developed by Miroshnikov, Alexander Popelyukh, in addition to receiving remuneration from the energy banker Sanko, earned more than 200 million rubles by providing legal services to the bank owned by Sanko at an inflated price through the G.R. Legal Bar Association controlled by him.

In the summer of 2018, agreement No. 2018 — 3787/59 was concluded between Promenergobank JSC and Dimer-TM LLC for 5 million rubles on the provision of services to identify signs of deliberate bankruptcy and establish grounds for bringing the Bank’s managers and owners to subsidiary liability. In mid-2019, the audit was completed and a deliberately false "Conclusion on the absence of signs of intentional bankruptcy of Promenergobank JSC" was prepared.

"Dimer-TM" "specifically by order of Sanko" did not establish signs of intentional bankruptcy of the bank and did not identify transactions that caused damage and did not find signs of crimes." And in general, "Dimer-TM" "specifically" did not identify the persons controlling the debtor who were guilty of the bankruptcy of the bank. By prior agreement with Sanko and with the defendant himself, the DIA chose the only acceptable person without property for potential subsidiary liability — the former nominal head of the bank, Alexander Postnov.

After the DIA approved the false "Conclusion on the absence of signs of intentional bankruptcy of Promenergobank JSC", it was transferred to the lawyers of "G.R. Legal" to file a lawsuit to bring Postnov to subsidiary liability for the Bank’s obligations. The court, given the absence of a list of transactions in the application that caused damage to the bank and creditors, expectedly refused to satisfy the claims of G.R. Legal and the DIA (determination of the Arbitration Court of the Vologda Region dated February 18, 2021 in case No. A13-11810/2016). The scheme built by Popelyukh to release Valentin Sanko from liability worked perfectly. Sanko deposited 1 billion rubles stolen from the bank owned by him in Sberbank.

Since the project with Promenergobank was a pilot for the schemers from the DIA, the pseudo-legal support of the bank was personally handled by the chairperson of the bar association, Yana Sumina. On October 20, 2016, the bank concluded agreement No. 2016-3169/59 with her on the provision of legal assistance with a remuneration of 1.8 million rubles per month for nothing. Yana Sumina never showed up at the bank or at a single court hearing. Meanwhile, over three years her fee amounted to an astronomical sum of 200 million rubles.

In fact, the bank was provided with legal services by OOO ANR, St. Petersburg, INN 7811196893, which had a subcontract agreement with Sumina, but for an amount twenty times smaller — 100 thousand rubles per month. The founder and general director of ANR was Sumina’s accomplice — Nikolai Korolev.

In total, the group of corrupt officials from the DIA, G.R. Legal, together with Korolev, processed 22 banks throughout the country in this way: First Express, Master Bank, Smolensk Bank, Bank Askold, Pacific Foreign Trade Bank, Invest-Ecobank, Tula Industrialist, Russian Credit, Nota Bank, Bankirsky Dom", "Mezhtransbank", KB "Financial Standard", KB "Intercredit", "Konstance-Bank", "Promenergobank", "Vologdabank", Bank "VVB", KB "Metropol", "Confidence Bank", "Kemsotsbank", "Neklis-Bank", "Ekoprombank".

The total income of the criminal group from the implementation of the scheme to inflate the cost of legal services provided by only the lawyers of "G.R. Legal" to bankrupt banks amounted to 4.5 billion rubles.

The third component of the scheme for the illegal enrichment of corrupt officials from the DIA was the mandatory involvement of a firm providing accounting services, as usual at an order of magnitude higher cost.

In the case of Promenergobank, it was OOO BukhBox, under contract No. 2016-3195/59 dated 10/21/2016, it provided accounting services to a bankrupt bank that was not conducting operational activities for 750 thousand rubles per month, overstating the cost of services as usual by ten times.

But when developing and implementing the “ideal” criminal scheme, the corrupt officials from the DIA did not take into account one thing: the creditor of bankrupt banks is not only the DIA, but also independent clients of the banks. Independent creditors across the country began filing claims in court and collecting damages from the DIA. By the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Vologda Region dated July 10, 2023, in case No. A13-11810/2016, damages in the amount of 28.5 million rubles were recovered from the DIA, and the actions of the DIA to attract Dimer-TM LLC and Bukhbox LLC were recognized as illegal due to the fact that the cost of the services of these enterprises was inflated tenfold relative to the market price. A court decision on the recovery of another 200 million rubles in damages from the DIA for the illegal involvement of the lawyers of G.R. Legal is approaching. In addition, despite the fact that on February 11, 2022, the first deputy head of the DIA, Maria Filatova, following an additional investigation into the circumstances of the bank’s bankruptcy, sent a statement to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Vologda Region to initiate a criminal case against the beneficiary Valentin Mikhailovich Sanko on the facts of his commission of crimes under Part 4 of Article 159 and Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, expressed in the theft of the bank’s property in the amount of 1,266,854,058 rubles, a criminal case has not yet been initiated. Alexander Popelyukh from the DIA did everything to delay the pre-investigation check in order to wait for the expiration of the statute of limitations for the crimes committed by Sanko in 10 years, and to work off the received fee. And what is the result of the activities of a group of corrupt employees of the DIA headed by Alexander Popelyukh in managing one average regional bank for eight years, using the example of the case with Promenergobank?

- None of the beneficiaries and managers of the bank were ever brought to subsidiary or criminal liability;

- The bank’s creditors are still poorer by 1 billion rubles;

- The Director of Energy of Russian Railways and the former owner of the bank Valentin Sanko is still richer by 1 billion rubles, which he openly holds in his accounts at Sberbank;

- The state corporation DIA, and therefore indirectly the state, suffered damages in the amount of 228 million rubles due to the losses collected from it;

- Alexander Popelyukh became richer by 228 million rubles and bought two apartments in Moscow with them, a Range Rover and a Mercedes;

And this is only the situation for one of the 350 banks permanently under the management of the DIA, each of them has a similar situation, only the amounts differ. The damage caused to the state and independent creditors, and these are the largest Russian enterprises, amounts to hundreds of billions of rubles.

Denis Zhirnov

Source: www.rucriminal.info