The former beneficiary and chairman of Starbank’s board of directors could have his sentence increased from 8 to 14 years in prison.
At the trial in Moscow over the embezzlement of 5 billion rubles from Starbank, the state prosecution has requested 5 to 14 years in prison for the defendants – the former head and top managers of the credit institution, as well as the head of a law firm. Most of the defendants, including a graduate of the Defense Ministry’s Military University, do not admit guilt.
As it became known to “Kommersant”, the Tverskoy court of the capital held a debate of the parties in the case of embezzlement of more than 5.1 billion rubles from the Moscow Starbank. The state prosecutor requested the maximum term – nine years in prison – for the alleged organizer of the crime, the former beneficiary and chairman of Starbank’s board of directors, 48-year-old Agadzhan Avanesov. Taking into account the eight years he was sentenced two years ago by the Nagatinskiy court of Moscow for fraud and extortion (part 4 of article 159 and part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the prosecutor asked to sentence the defendant to a total of 14 years in a strict regime colony.
It should be noted that in February this year Aghajan Avanesov filed a petition to be released from punishment under the first sentence due to illness, but the Tverskoy court refused him.
Three more defendants – former top managers of the bank Lyudmila Kontorshchikova, Dmitry Seleznev and Dmitry Shervashidze, according to the state prosecutor, deserve from eight to eight and a half years of general regime colony. Dmitry Shevandin, the founder of Ipso Yure LLC, faces the lowest sentence of five years. His firm was located in the same building as Starbank, which, among other organizations, provided legal services to support various, including illegal transactions.
It is interesting that Mr. Shevandin graduated from the Military University of the Ministry of Defense with a degree in law, and during his studies at the university he participated in parades on Red Square (which was emphasized earlier by his lawyers in courts). Like Aghajan Avanesov, Dmitry Shevandin has a criminal record, but already expunged. On October 27, 2021, he was sentenced by the Simonovsky court of Moscow to three years in prison for attempted large-scale fraud (part 3 of article 30, part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Then the lawyer was found guilty of concluding fictitious contracts for the supply of goods for almost 522 million rubles.
The regulator revoked Starbank’s license in March 2016 due to “high-risk credit policy” and “failure to comply with the requirement of the supervisory authority to prohibit certain operations aimed at protecting the interests of depositors”. According to the Central Bank, Starbank was “involved in dubious transit operations and operations to withdraw funds abroad”. At the time of its collapse its liabilities to creditors amounted to 15.6 billion rubles. According to Kommersant, initially almost all of this amount appeared as damage in the criminal case, which in September 2017, at the request of the Central Bank and the Deposit Insurance Agency, the Department of Internal Affairs of Moscow’s South-West Administrative District initiated criminal proceedings under Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (especially large-scale fraud).
Later, the case was transferred to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, and in the final version of the charges, which were reclassified as especially large embezzlement (part 4, article 160 of the Criminal Code), the amount of damage amounted to 5.1 billion rubles.
The case materials refer to the events of 2013-2016. The investigation considers Agadjan Avanesov, who is also the owner and co-owner of a number of large Russian and European companies, as the organizer of criminal schemes. For a long time, the businessman lived in Switzerland, from where he came to Russia in 2019 after learning about the Starbank case. However, in 2020 he was arrested on charges of particularly large-scale extortion. According to the investigation, with the help of three natives of Chechnya, the ex-banker tried to return $100 thousand, given to the “solver” for the settlement of problems with Starbank, but never worked out by the latter. Agajan Avanesov is currently serving a sentence for this crime.
He became a co-owner of Starbank through Starkapital LLC and the Swiss company Cage Holding SA in 2010. According to the investigation, the essence of the schemes used by Agadzhan Avanesov and his accomplices was to lend the bank to fictitious firms controlled by him. The money, under the guise of payment for mythical supplies of goods or equipment, was transferred abroad to the accounts of companies affiliated with Mr. Avanesov. For example, in this way Starbank lent more than half a billion rubles to Fish Factory LLC, a company affiliated with Mr. Avanesov.
According to the investigation, legal support for such transactions was provided by Ipso Yure LLC.
During a search of Dmitry Shevandin’s computer, files of primary documents were found on the basis of which not only all payments under fictitious contracts were made, but also the transit of funds to foreign jurisdictions.
It should be noted that part of the money stolen from Starbank in 2020 was discovered by law enforcement officers of Belarus, investigating the case of Belgazprombank and its former head, Viktor Babariko, considered one of the leaders of the opposition in the country (July 6, 2021, he was sentenced to 14 years for taking bribes). According to the version of the Belarusian security forces, large sums of money were transferred to offshore through Belgazprombank for a number of years, while the Belarusian investigation considered Viktor Babariko and Agadzhan Avanessov as the organizers of the scams. According to some reports, the latter was charged in absentia and put on the wanted list by Belarusian law enforcers in 2020.