A court has recognized the evidence collected by the second department of the Investigative Committee’s Head Office (based in Saint Petersburg) sufficient to convict members of an organized group who committed multiple thefts of funds from bank accounts opened in OAO Sberbank of Russia: Alexander Gorbachev, Oleg Shved, Alexander Komarov, David Pogosyan, Alexander Yezersky, Mikhail Semenenko, as well as former employee of OAO Sberbank of Russia Aleksei Lapin. Depending on the role of each one, they were found guilty of 14 counts of crimes under Part 4 of Article 159 (fraud by an organized group), 17 counts of crimes under Part 3 of Article 183 (illegal getting and disclosure of the information which is a bank secret out of mercenary motives), and 4 counts of crimes under Part 2 of Article 327 of the RF Penal Code (forgery of documents to facilitation another crime).
The court and investigators have established that an organized group of more than 10 people was active in the city of Saint Petersburg and other regions of Russia since 2011. Members of the group got illegal access to the accounts of bank clients and via Internet and cellular communications transferred funds to the accounts of entities and people they controlled and then they cashed the money in bank offices and ATMs. In some cases they used forged passports to commit their crimes. The group caused a damage of more than 400 million rubles. A total of 35 counts of crimes were revealed.
Technical, handwriting, phonographic and other forensic examinations were run to confirm that the accused were involved in the crimes. Most of them pled guilty. In all there are 11 people under the investigation, three of them are wanted.
The court has sentenced Alexander Gorbachev to 9 years in prison, Oleg Shved 5.5 years. Komarov, Semenenko, Pogosyan and Yezersky got a suspended sentence of 5 years.
Mikhail Turkin, the Deputy Director of the bank, had made a plea bargain and was earlier sentenced to 3 years in prison.
PDF version 
DOC version
