Investigative Committee establishes involvement of Mikhail Abyzov and his accomplices in other offenses


In terms of investigation of the probe The Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia established involvement of Mikhail Abyzov and his accomplices in legalization of funds acquired in an illegal way and commercial bribery (Paragraphs A, B, of Part 4 of Article 174.1 and Article 204 of the Criminal Code of Russia). Apart from that, investigators identified new accomplices of Abyzov's illegal activities, including former CEOs of Sibirskaya Energeticheskaya Compania (SIBEKO) Ruslan Vlasov, Yana Balan and Oksana Rozhenkova, and Ru-Kom LLC director Oleg Serebrennikov.

The fact of legalization of money was detected with assistance of Rosfinmonitoring and relevant authorities of the Republic of Cyprus. In 2014 Abyzov and his accomplices, acting as an organized group, stole monetary funds of SIBEKO and RES of over 4 billion rubles in total. The accomplices jeopardized the reliability of the SIBEKO's generating equipment as part of functioning of the unified energy system of Russia. Their criminal actions also entailed an unjustified tariff burden on electricity consumers. They withdrew the stolen funds from Russia and placed them in ruble accounts in banks on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus. The money was then converted into US dollars in order to legitimize the ownership.

Investigators also established a fact of commercial bribery. In 2017 Mikhail Abyzov actually owned a controlling stake of SIBEKO shares registered for offshore companies controlled by him. At the same time, he hid information about his property status in violation of anti-corruption legislation. Willing to sell his stake, Mikhail Abyzov, through other members of the criminal group, transferred 78 million rubles as a commercial bribe to former top managers of SIBEKO Ruslan Vlasov, Yana Balan and Oksana Rozhenkova. In their turn they reported to a potential buyer of shares significant information about the activities of SIBEKO, including financial ones, secretly from shareholders, regulatory bodies, employees of the enterprise

At present perpetrators of the probe are subject to investigative actions and other procedural activities.

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Official spokesperson for the Investigative Committee of Russia                             S. Petrenko

14 July 2020 14:18

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