Saint-Petersburg Main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee have launched a criminal investigation in a crime under paragraphs “a”, “b” of part 2 of article 172 of the RF Penal Code (illegal banking by a group of people with deriving an income on a very large scale). Alexander Atamanov, Yana Bondarenko and Sergey Kuznetsov have been detained on suspicions of the crime.
According to investigators, in the period between January and November 2014, the detainees together with unidentified people set up an organized criminal group to make money in Saint-Petersburg by illegal banking. They found clients who needed to cash funds and then transferred the money to phony companies. Making it look like legal by concluding contracts on selling ferrous metals the accomplices transferred the money to the accounts of the firms under their control that had licenses to sell ferrous metal scrap. After that the suspects received cash in banks and passed it to their clients disguising as legal activity connected with purchase of ferrous metals. For their services the suspects received at least 5.5 percent of the cashed sum. In all, the accomplices have cashed over 192 million rubles.
The criminal group was united, stable and has a clear distribution of roles. This way Atamanov was in charge of the group, attracted clients, looked for new banks to open accounts and nominal heads of organizations used for chasing and coordinated their work. Bondarenko was in charge of accounting, accepting applications from clients, control and transferring of the money using bank-client software, calculation of fees and actual deliver of cash to the clients. Kuznetsov represented the interests of the clients, found new companies for cashing, transferred money via firms under his control and was in charge of secrecy.
The crime was soled thanks to the officers of Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad Region Office of the Federal Security Service and assistance of security services of ZAO Raiffaizenbank, PAO VTB 24 and OAO Sberbank of Russia.
At present Atamanov, Bondarenko and Kuznetsov are charged with the crime and put under house arrest. The investigation is ongoing.
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