Alexander Anatolievich Mineev(March 4, 1964, Moscow - January 22, 2014, Korolev, Moscow Region) - Russian entrepreneur, multimillionaire, one of the leaders of the "new Russian business" of the 1990s, founder of Russia's first electronics supermarket.
One of the first Russian businessmen, he started doing business at the end of the Soviet era, in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, he founded Russia's first chain of stores selling household and office equipment under the name Party. He was the first in Russia to start mass trade in copiers. In 1996, the turnover of the trading company exceeded 580 million dollars, as a result of which "Partiya" became the absolute leader in the market of household and office equipment. Consumers also remember her slogan “Out of politics, out of competition!”.
By 2014, he was the owner of real estate in prestigious areas of Moscow for a total amount of more than $700 million. A number of objects that belonged to Mineev are located along specially protected government highways on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, Rublevsky Highway, Staraya Square, Lubyanskaya Square. All Mineev's property was estimated at $1 billion.
Biography and business Personal life and hobbiesMineev lived in the cottage village of Zagoryanka in the Moscow suburbs. His office was located in the nearest city - Korolev, where all the top managers of the Eurasia company traveled from Moscow with a report to the boss.
He was a fan of the Aquarium group, was friends with musician Boris Grebenshchikov. Among his close friends is businessman Oleg Boyko. Mineev modestly joked about his achievements and interests outside of business: “I jumped over the chessboard with a pole.”
He was personally acquainted with the leaders of the Solntsevskaya OPG, was friends with senior officials of the FSB, the Federal Customs Service.
Approaching the 50th anniversary, to which the businessman did not live a month and a half, Mineev experienced serious health problems, suffered from a severe form of diabetes, and gangrene of his left leg began. On the ill-fated day, Alexander went to Moscow to see a doctor.
MurderMineev was shot dead on the afternoon of January 22, 2014 in the center of Korolev on Tsiolkovsky Street, when he was driving from the village of Zagoryanka to Moscow and his Range Rover stopped at a pedestrian crossing. The killers fired 27 shots from a Kalashnikov assault rifle, seven bullets hit the target. Mineev died on the spot from his wounds, his driver-bodyguard was not injured. A criminal case has been initiated. .
Alexander Mineev is buried at the Khovansky cemetery. The ex-wife and children did not arrive from England for the funeral ceremony, fearing for their lives.
InvestigationIn November 2014, it became known that Boris Karamatov, a former top manager of Mineev's company, and his accomplice, Dmitry Kurylenko, were charged with murder and fraudulent actions with the victim's property. Yulia Egorova, the former head of the legal service of the murdered businessman, has also been charged with involvement in the attempted theft of Mineev's property.
Partially used materials from the site http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/
On Monday, the funeral of the oligarch Alexander Mineev, who was shot dead by hitmen last week, took place. As Rosbalt managed to find out, until recently he was the owner of real estate in prestigious places in Moscow worth over $ 700 million. In the fall of 2013, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan unexpectedly searched Mineev’s capital offices as part of an investigation into the financing of militants. Shortly thereafter, over twenty buildings owned by the businessman turned out to be rewritten to some natives of the Caucasus. When the oligarch turned to law enforcement agencies, he was killed.
The funeral of Alexander Mineev took place on January 27 at the Khovansky cemetery in Moscow. They were attended by close friends of the oligarch and employees of his firms. Mineev's ex-wife and children who live in England did not dare to fly to Russia, as they fear for their safety. The Rosbalt correspondent spoke with several business partners of the oligarch, who have recently been part of his close circle. They told their version of the events leading up to the crime.
The interlocutors of the agency noted that Alexander Mineev was a secretive person, with an extremely difficult character. Therefore, over the years of his life, he did not have so many friends. The most famous of them are businessman Oleg Boyko and rock singer Boris Grebenshchikov (Mineev was a fan of the work of the leader of the Aquarium group).
Alexander Mineev started doing business in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the time of the heyday of cooperation. Mineev himself told his acquaintances that at that time he often had to contact representatives of the "Solntsevo" criminal group, and he knew some of its leaders personally. Then the circle of communication of the entrepreneur changed. He could often be met with senior officials of the FSB of the Russian Federation and the customs committee. This was due to the fact that Mineev was engaged in the supply of large batches of household appliances to Russia. And such a business without the help of the security forces in charge of imports was simply not possible. After some time, Mineev created the country's first chain of stores selling equipment, called "Party", which brought huge incomes. In the late 1990s, Party merged with another network, Domino. The leadership in this alliance was with Mineev. However, due to the complex nature of relations with new partners, the businessman did not work out. In the early 2000s, the entrepreneur unexpectedly turned off the entire business selling household appliances, after which he and his family went to live in London. He never spoke about the reasons for such an act.
However, as Rosbalt managed to find out, Mineev could afford to stay calmly and comfortably in England. By the time of his departure, he was the owner of 21 properties in Moscow. So, he owned a shopping and office center at 88 Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a shopping center near the Taganskaya metro station, a shopping center on Kaluga Square, buildings on Lubyanskaya and Staraya Squares, etc. All these properties were registered with 18 firms: Lubyanka LLC, Na Bolshaya Polyanka LLC, U Taganka LLC, etc. The founders were offshore structures, which in turn belonged to other offshore companies. This whole long chain eventually led to Mineev. Formally, 18 firms rented out the premises to the management company (in recent years it was Eurasia LLC, also owned by Mineev through offshore companies), and she already subleased them. The buildings brought in a monthly income of 350 million rubles.
According to the interlocutors of Rosbalt, in England, Mineev actually lived as a rentier, received money from his premises, and did not interfere in the work of top managers. However, he later got into a fight with his wife. During the divorce, the High Court of London left most of the overseas property to his ex-wife and children, also obliging the businessman to pay them 30 million pounds sterling.
The frustrated oligarch returned to Russia in the summer of 2012, where he decided to take over the operational management of his real estate business himself. But again, because of his difficult nature, he immediately quarreled with all the top managers, whom he then fired. According to the sources of the agency, they were replaced by people often random. Many important personnel decisions were generally made during feasts. “Sometimes it was believed that Alexander was trying every day to break the Guinness Book record for the number and variety of strong drinks consumed per day. The complexity of his character was largely connected with this, ”complained the interlocutors of Rosbalt.
New top managers were not checked, since Mineev actually had no real security service: one person was responsible for all such questions. His attention was attracted by a native of Dagestan, who received a responsible post in Eurasia. It turned out that the new top manager at different times used passports for three different names, and was also involved in various dubious stories. This was reported to Mineev, who in September 2013 fired his own protege. Together with the native of Dagestan, several minor constituent documents were lost. Back then, it didn't matter much.
And already in the first days of November, a group of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan arrived at the office of Eurasia LLC on Kutuzovsky Prospekt with a search warrant. From the submitted documents, it followed that a case on the financing of illegal armed groups was being investigated in the republic. Allegedly, during a search in one of the mountain villages, a document was found with the seal of Eurasia LLC, which gave rise to investigative actions in the office on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. According to Rosbalt's interlocutors, for some reason the visitors showed particular interest in the constituent documents of the very 18 firms to which the buildings were registered. But they were not in the room. The next day, the Dagestan security forces reappeared at Eurasia LLC and interrogated the top managers of the company, handing them parting summons with calls for interrogation to Dagestan.
Three days later, when the financial director of Eurasia LLC was leaving the office on Kutuzovsky, an unknown person of Caucasian appearance ran up to him. The attacker hit the financier on the head with a club and tried to take away a large portfolio - apparently the attacker believed that the constituent documents could be there. However, the financial director turned out to be well developed physically. He managed not only to fight off the criminal, but also rushed after him in pursuit. At that moment, a car jumped out from around the corner, knocked down an employee of Eurasia, the attacker jumped into this car and disappeared.
In December 2013, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation revoked the license from the bank, which held the accounts of 18 firms controlled by Mineev. To open new accounts in another bank, extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities were required. Having received them, the oligarch's subordinates were surprised to see that the founders of all 18 firms were offshore structures that had nothing to do with Mineev, and some natives of the North Caucasus were appointed general directors. All changes were made on fake documents. Realizing that in an instant he had lost almost everything, Mineev and his lawyers urgently imposed interim measures on the buildings through arbitration courts and filed an application with the UEBiPK of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow. While they were doing this, another blow was dealt to Mineev’s business: the Eurasia management company was re-registered on an unknown offshore, and Suleymanov Omar Suleymanovich, a resident of Dagestan, became its general director in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
All events took place shortly after the New Year. Mineev realized that he simply could not resist the seizure of assets on his own. “Only then did he really “take up his mind”, change his lifestyle a little and begin to develop a response plan, in particular, he began to create a powerful security service, attracted several retired security officials to work,” Rosbalt’s interlocutors said. New applications were quickly submitted to law enforcement agencies, and a pre-investigation check was launched. Strong guards were posted in all buildings, waiting for their possible forceful capture. Also, the new heads of the security service offered to assign personal security to Mineev himself, but he flatly refused.
Since returning to Russia, the oligarch has lived in a cottage in the village of Zagoryanka, not far from Korolev, near Moscow (in this city he opened his personal office). This caused a lot of inconvenience to absolutely all top managers of Eurasia, who almost every day had to go to their boss outside the city (Mineev himself categorically refused to appear in Moscow). He also believed that nothing threatened him in the Queen. As it turned out, he was wrong.
On January 22, 2014, the Range Rover, along with the oligarch and his driver, was driving from Zagoryanka to the office in Korolyov. Mineev was sitting in the front passenger seat. When the car stopped at a traffic light, a Mitsubishi Lancer slowed down from the driver's side and a little behind it, from the window of which a machine gun appeared. The offender fired obliquely, through the entire interior of the Range Rover. 27 bullets fired hit Mineev, he died on the spot from his wounds. The driver was not hurt. On the fact of the murder, a criminal case was initiated under Art. 105 (murder) and Art. 222 (illicit arms trafficking) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
A Rosbalt source in law enforcement noted that there are certain “leads” suggesting that the perpetrators of the murder were current or former militants, in connection with the investigation into the financing of which a strange search was carried out at Mineev’s office by the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan. However, who exactly is behind the seizure of all the assets of the oligarch worth over $700 million is not yet known. Perhaps this will be established during the investigation of the murder.
The interlocutors of the agency note that part of Mineev's real estate is located in places that can be considered strategically important in terms of ensuring security from a terrorist threat. The shopping and office center is located right next to Kutuzovsky Prospekt and Rublevsky Highway, along which motorcades with top officials of the state pass almost daily. The building on the Old Square is adjacent to the presidential administration. And the building on Lubyanskaya Square is located next to the headquarters of the FSB of the Russian Federation.
The fate of a businessman in Russia is extremely changeable. Overnight, a huge jackpot will unexpectedly roll, which can be facilitated by a favorable combination of circumstances or ordinary luck, and sometimes - accurate calculation and huge work. With the same ease, everything can be lost in one minute or enter a long streak of failures, ending in the inevitable complete collapse.
A well-known Russian businessman made his fortune in the radio electronics trade. Mineev was the first in Russia to notice the huge prospect of the copier market, becoming a pioneer in its sales. Having organized, together with their partner Mikhail Kuznetsov, the sale of household appliances in the first digital supermarket on Kaluzhskaya Square, they quickly promoted the pilot project. The Party chain of stores has become familiar to millions of Russians not only for its products, but also for its aggressive television advertising campaign, which was carried out under the rather meaningless slogan "Out of politics, out of competition."
Indeed, the founding fathers of the company were not seen at party conventions or in the thick of the political party, but they had to face tough competition on a daily basis. Nevertheless, having reached a turnover of 580 million rubles in 1996, Party and Alexander Mineev were far ahead of their closest competitor, M Video. The businessman preferred to spend his free time in the company of people close to art. The leader of the Aquarium group, Boris Grebenshchikov, and businessman Oleg Boyko, patron of the national cinema, the owner of the Rive Gauche perfume network, became his personal friends.
Successful start
The secret of the initial success was the use of the most modern retail technologies at that time. In addition to advertising from the TV screen, Mineev became a pioneer in introducing sales of goods into the regular practice. Another feature of the "Party" was the refusal to use rented retail space. Its owners actively bought up and became owners of retail space on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, Rublevsky Highway, Lubyanskaya and Staraya Square.
The estimated value of the purchased property eventually reached $700 million. Mineev's trading strategy was guided by the tastes and needs of the elite of the then society. The continuation of the chosen direction was the creation of another chain of stores - Domino, which offered its customers a wide selection of exclusive clothes, shoes and furniture. In the turbulent 90s, Alexander Mineev made contact with the top, securing peace of mind from lawless people and raids by guest performers. In the future, he built bridges of communication with influential functionaries of the Customs Service and the FSB. Large volumes of foreign deliveries of equipment required the presence of agents of influence in law enforcement agencies.
Rapid collapse
The first alarm bell sounded for Alexander Mineev shortly after the millennium. He ignored the changing market conditions. The emphasis on the needs of the stratum of the most affluent buyers has not justified itself in the face of an active rise in the living standards of the middle class. In 2006, Mineev sold the Party and closed all Domino stores, surrendering to the pressure of competitors. A few years earlier, he had ceded control of Rost Bank. A complete disaster was successfully averted. True, we had to part with part of the real estate, but instead of trade, income from the lease of retail space began to flow. Retail has become uninteresting to the businessman as well as the whole of Russia. Having moved to the UK, Mineev entered the role of a pensioner from business and rentier, having 21 properties in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The monthly income from sublease did not fall below the bar of 350 million rubles, and with this money he could live quite comfortably in foggy Albion.
The next big trouble for him was a long divorce process, as a result of which the London court took away most of the businessman's foreign property in favor of his ex-wife and two children. Poor consolation for Alexander Mineev was the victory in his native Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow, where he was able to secure ownership of several elite metropolitan apartments worth about 100 million rubles.
Muddy personalities
In 2012, Alexander Mineev decided to return from non-existence to active work, but it would be better if he did not do this. The changed Russian realities were absolutely incomprehensible to him. His Russian property was managed by Eurasia LLC. Immediately upon his return, the owner began to shuffle the company's leadership, and many appointments to senior positions in the company's top management were random and unpredictable.
Boris Karamatov - Khamitov decided to take possession of Mineev's property
Always characterized by a rather heavy and capricious nature, the businessman exacerbated this feature of his leadership style by consuming fantastic amounts of alcohol, which turned him into an unpredictable despot. Instead of experienced, time-tested personnel, murky personalities appeared in the company.
The kaleidoscope of new appointments ended with the fact that a native of Dagestan, the owner of 3 passports with different surnames, was hired into the governing structures. After some time, in a rare moment of enlightenment, Mineev decided to part with him, but he had already managed to do his dirty deed - to steal important constituent and financial documents. Then they were found in the mountains of Dagestan, which was the reason for a search in the central office of LLC "Eurasia" in connection with suspicions that arose in financing the activities of radical Muslim militant groups.
Raider raid
However, for Alexander Mineev, these suspicions were not the most terrible. In December 2013, Investbank was deprived of its license. Traditionally, Mineev preferred to keep the settlement accounts of his firms in this financial institution. Forced to open new accounts in other banks, he was surprised to find that the founder of 18 of his companies in the state registration authorities is no longer listed as him, but unknown to him natives of the Republic of Dagestan. With a sober mind, he realized that a serious raider "collision" was organized on his property. In fact, it was so.
The operation was led by a prominent Moscow raider lawyer. Mineev sounded the alarm, filed a statement with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the arbitration court demanding the introduction of interim measures. In parallel, he seriously took up the organization of his own security and completely stopped appearing in the capital. Every day, entire delegations of top managers of the company were sent from the capital to the office of Eurasia LLC in Korolev, near Moscow, to report on the state of affairs and make operational decisions. The nervous situation around the property provoked an exacerbation of Mineev's chronic diseases - he developed gangrene of his left leg. One of the victims of the undercover fight that began soon became the financial director of Eurasia, who was attacked on the street by an unknown person, hit on the head with a rubber truncheon and tried to take away a briefcase with documents. Apparently, the manager was ready for such events, so the effect of surprise did not work. He was not only able to fight back the attacker, but also found the strength to chase him at a run until he jumped into a car waiting nearby.
Murder of Mineev
On January 22, 2014, at noon, Alexander Mineev got into his Range Rover and ordered the driver to take him to the next appointment with the doctor. He didn't make it to the clinic. Having stopped to let pedestrians through the crossing, the car was shot from a machine gun from a passing car. Of the 27 shots fired, 7 hit the target. Mineev's driver did not receive a single scratch. Professionals worked.
A few hours later, a Hyundai Accent with license plates from the Vladimir region was found nearby in the yard, in the cabin of which they found a Kalash and 2 horns - empty and charged, as well as a mobile phone and gloves. Investigators hoped to identify the killers by DNA analysis. The perpetrators of the murder could not be found, and Boris Karamatov, a former high-ranking employee of Eurasia LLC, and Dmitry Kurylenko, who helped him, were named as the masterminds of the crime. Aiding the suspects was actively provided by firm lawyer Yulia Egorova.
Alexander Mineev is buried at the Khovansky cemetery. The ex-wife and children categorically refused to attend the ceremony, fearing for their lives in unpredictable Russia. After all, after the death of Mineev, they should automatically take possession of all the property, which is estimated at a substantial amount of $1 billion. Their decision was very prudent. After the death of a millionaire, an active struggle for his inheritance began. It was very interested in Vladimir Mironovich Palikhata, a well-known Moscow businessman with a rather scandalous reputation based on rumors about his love for raiding. entered into negotiations with the heirs of Mineev, whose interests were represented by his ex-wife. The violent death of the owner did not stop the struggle around his 17 stores, but simply took it to another level.
Mineev Alexander Anatolyevich (born March 4, 1964, Moscow, RSFSR, USSR - died January 22, 2014, Korolev, Moscow Region, RF) is a Russian businessman, founder of the first electronics supermarket in Russia.
Graduated from the Moscow Instrument-Making Institute. He went into business in the early 90s. In 1992-1994, Mineev had three stores that offered customers telephones, computers and office equipment. In the early 1990s, he founded the first chain of stores in Russia selling household and office equipment under the name "Partiya". The company existed until 2005.
In 1997, the "Party" opened a chain of stores "Domino", where it launched a trade in expensive clothes, shoes and luxury furniture. Businessmen responded to the 1998 crisis by re-profiling Domino to sell household goods. Despite the decline in turnover, the Domino network continued to operate until 2003. Until 2004, Mineev controlled Rost Bank for some time, then sold his stake. Owned more than 20 properties through the management company "Eurasia".
In the mid-2000s, while living in London, Mineev was involved in a protracted divorce process. The High Court of London awarded Mineev's ex-wife and three children a significant part of the businessman's overseas property and ordered them to pay them £30 million. In particular, Mineev lost almost all real estate in London. In 2012, a businessman in the Nikulinsky District Court sued his ex-wife for several elite apartments in Moscow worth more than 100 million rubles.
In the summer of 2012, Mineev returned to Russia and himself headed the Eurasia company, which rented out his property. Having replaced almost all top managers, Mineev recruited new employees, among whom there were many random and unverified individuals with dubious biographies and reputations. Alexander Mineev was shot dead on January 22, 2014 in the center of Korolev. Mineev died on the spot from his wounds, his driver-bodyguard was not injured. The ex-wife and his three children did not arrive from England for the funeral ceremony, fearing for their lives. In November 2014, it became known that the former top manager of Mineev's company Boris Karamatov, as well as his accomplice, the alleged GRU general Dmitry Kurylenko, were charged with murder and fraudulent actions with the property of the victim, and the direct perpetrators, most likely, were natives of Dagestan. In 2015, Georgy Shuppe, son-in-law of Boris Berezovsky, who lives in the UK, was arrested in absentia on charges of organizing the murder of Mineev and fraud with his property.
Notary Aleksey Solovyov, who handles Mineev’s inheritance case, shortly after the death of the businessman announced to his heirs, including the eldest of three children, son Vsevolod (who lives in the UK), that no significant property was found registered directly to the murdered billionaire, except for three used cars . Among the property of Mineev, neither shopping centers, nor bank accounts, nor apartments, nor country houses were found.
On Monday, the funeral of the oligarch Alexander Mineev, who was shot dead by hitmen last week, took place. As Rosbalt managed to find out, until recently he was the owner of real estate in prestigious places in Moscow worth over $ 700 million. In the fall of 2013, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan unexpectedly searched Mineev’s capital offices as part of an investigation into the financing of militants. Shortly thereafter, over twenty buildings owned by the businessman turned out to be rewritten to some natives of the Caucasus. When the oligarch turned to law enforcement agencies, he was killed.
The funeral of Alexander Mineev took place on January 27, 2014 at the Khovansky cemetery in Moscow. They were attended by close friends of the oligarch and employees of his firms. Mineev's ex-wife and children who live in England did not dare to fly to Russia, as they fear for their safety. The Rosbalt correspondent spoke with several of the oligarch's business partners, who have recently been part of his inner circle. They told their version of the events leading up to the crime.
The interlocutors of the agency noted that Alexander Mineev was a secretive person, with an extremely difficult character. Therefore, over the years of his life, he did not have so many friends. The most famous of them are businessman Oleg Boyko and rock singer Boris Grebenshchikov (Mineev was a fan of the work of the leader of the Aquarium group).
Alexander Mineev started doing business in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the time when cooperation was flourishing. Mineev himself told his acquaintances that at that time he often had to contact representatives of the "Solntsevo" criminal group, and he knew some of its leaders personally. Then the circle of communication of the entrepreneur changed. He could often be met with senior officials of the FSB of the Russian Federation and the customs committee. This was due to the fact that Mineev was engaged in the supply of large batches of household appliances to Russia. And such a business without the help of the security forces in charge of imports was simply not possible. After some time, Mineev created the country's first chain of stores selling equipment, called "Party", which brought huge profits. In the late 1990s, Party merged with another network, Domino. The leadership in this alliance was with Mineev. However, due to the complex nature of relations with new partners, the businessman did not work out. In the early 2000s, the entrepreneur unexpectedly turned off the entire business selling household appliances, after which he and his family went to live in London. He never spoke about the reasons for such an act.
However, as Rosbalt managed to find out, Mineev could afford to stay calmly and comfortably in England. By the time of his departure, he was the owner of 21 properties in Moscow. So, he owned a shopping and office center at 88 Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a shopping center near the Taganskaya metro station, a shopping center on Kaluga Square, buildings on Lubyanskaya and Staraya Squares, etc. All these properties were registered with 18 companies: Lubyanka LLC, Na Bolshaya Polyanka LLC, U Taganka LLC, etc. The founders were offshore structures, which in turn belonged to other offshore companies. This whole long chain eventually led to Mineev. Formally, 18 firms rented out the premises to the management company (in recent years it was Evrazia LLC, which also belonged to Mineev through offshore companies), and she already subleased them. The buildings brought in a monthly income of 350 million rubles.
According to the interlocutors of Rosbalt, in England Mineev actually lived as a rentier, received money from his premises, and did not interfere in the work of top managers. However, he later got into a fight with his wife. During the divorce, the High Court of London left most of the foreign real estate to his ex-wife and children, also obliging the businessman to pay them 30 million pounds sterling.
The frustrated oligarch returned to Russia in the summer of 2012, where he decided to take over the operational management of his real estate business himself. But again, because of his difficult nature, he immediately quarreled with all the top managers, whom he then fired. According to the sources of the agency, they were replaced by people often random. Many important personnel decisions were generally made during feasts. “Sometimes it was believed that Alexander was trying every day to break the Guinness Book record for the number and variety of strong drinks consumed per day. This was largely due to the complexity of his character,” Rosbalt’s interlocutors complained.
New top managers were not checked, since Mineev actually did not have a real security service: one person was responsible for all such questions. His attention was attracted by a native of Dagestan, who received a responsible post in Eurasia. It turned out that the new top manager at different times used passports for three different names, and was also involved in various dubious stories. This was reported to Mineev, who in September 2013 fired his own protege. Together with the native of Dagestan, several minor constituent documents were lost. Back then, it didn't matter much.
And already in the first days of November, a group of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan arrived at the office of Eurasia LLC on Kutuzovsky Prospekt with a search warrant. From the submitted documents, it followed that a case on the financing of illegal armed groups was being investigated in the republic. Allegedly, during a search in one of the mountain villages, a document was found with the seal of Eurasia LLC, which gave rise to investigative actions in the office on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. According to Rosbalt's interlocutors, for some reason the visitors showed particular interest in the founding documents of the very 18 firms to which the buildings were registered. But they were not in the room. The next day, the Dagestan security officials reappeared at Eurasia LLC and interrogated the company's top managers, handing them farewell summonses with summons for interrogation to Dagestan.
Three days later, when the financial director of Eurasia LLC was leaving the office on Kutuzovsky, an unknown person of Caucasian appearance ran up to him. The attacker hit the financier on the head with a club and tried to take away a large portfolio - apparently the attacker believed that the constituent documents might be there. However, the financial director turned out to be well developed physically. He managed not only to fight off the criminal, but also rushed after him in pursuit. At that moment, a car jumped out from around the corner, knocked down an employee of Eurasia, the attacker jumped into this car and disappeared.
In December 2013, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation revoked the license from the bank, which held the accounts of 18 firms controlled by Mineev. To open new accounts in another bank, extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities were required. Having received them, the oligarch's subordinates were surprised to see that the founders of all 18 companies were offshore structures that had nothing to do with Mineev, and some natives of the North Caucasus were appointed general directors. All changes were made on fake documents. Realizing that he had lost almost everything in an instant, Mineev and his lawyers urgently imposed interim measures on the buildings through arbitration courts and filed an application with the UEBiPK of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow. While they were doing this, another blow was dealt to Mineev's business: the Eurasia management company was re-registered on an unknown offshore, and Suleymanov Omar Suleymanovich, a resident of Dagestan, became its general director in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
All events took place shortly after the New Year. Mineev realized that he simply could not resist the seizure of assets on his own. "Only then did he really 'take up his mind', change his lifestyle a bit and begin to develop a response plan, in particular, he began to create a powerful security service, attracted several retired security officials to work," Rosbalt's interlocutors said. New applications were quickly submitted to law enforcement agencies, and a pre-investigation check was launched. Strong guards were posted in all the buildings, waiting for their possible forceful capture. Also, the new heads of the security service offered to assign personal security to Mineev himself, but he flatly refused.
Since returning to Russia, the oligarch has lived in a cottage in the village of Zagoryanka, not far from Korolev, near Moscow (in this city he opened his personal office). This caused a lot of inconvenience to absolutely all the top managers of Eurasia, who almost every day had to go to their boss outside the city (Mineev himself categorically refused to appear in Moscow). He also believed that nothing threatened him in the Queen. As it turned out, he was wrong.
On January 22, 2014, the Range Rover, along with the oligarch and his driver, was driving from Zagoryanka to the office in Korolyov. Mineev was sitting in the front passenger seat. When the car stopped at a traffic light, a Mitsubishi Lancer slowed down from the driver's side and a little behind it, from the window of which a machine gun appeared. The offender fired obliquely, through the entire interior of the Range Rover. 27 bullets fired hit Mineev, he died on the spot from his wounds. The driver was not hurt. On the fact of the murder, a criminal case was initiated under Art. 105 (murder) and Art. 222 (illicit arms trafficking) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Rosbalt's law enforcement source noted that there are certain "clues" suggesting that the perpetrators of the murder were current or former militants, in connection with the investigation into the financing of which a strange search was carried out in Mineev's office by the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan. However, who exactly is behind the seizure of all the assets of the oligarch worth over $700 million is not yet known. Perhaps this will be established during the investigation of the murder.
The interlocutors of the agency note that part of Mineev's real estate is located in places that can be considered strategically important in terms of ensuring security from a terrorist threat. The shopping and office center is located right next to Kutuzovsky Prospekt and Rublevsky Highway, along which motorcades with top officials of the state pass almost daily. The building on the Old Square is adjacent to the presidential administration. And the building on Lubyanskaya Square is located next to the headquarters of the FSB of the Russian Federation.
"Mineev's case" led to the "customers" of the murder of Khlebnikov
The investigation into the murder of tycoon Alexander Mineev may lead to the identification of "customers" of a number of other high-profile crimes committed in Russia and Ukraine. In particular, the attempt on the "right hand" of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, Gennady Korban, and the execution of the editor-in-chief of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, Paul Khlebnikov. "Threads" from all these crimes led to businessman Mikhail Nekrich.
According to a Rosbalt source in law enforcement agencies, the investigation into the execution of Alexander Mineev is gaining momentum. On New Year's Eve, the alleged organizers - Mikhail Nekrich and Boris Berezovsky's son-in-law Georgy Shuppe - were put on the international wanted list. Alexander Prokopenko, who took part in the attempted raider seizure of Mineev's buildings worth $1 billion, was also detained.
According to the interlocutor of the agency, various searches and interrogations take place almost weekly. So, several lawyers who represented the interests of Nekrich in the Russian Federation, as well as his personal bodyguards, have already given evidence. Comparing their information with operational data, representatives of law enforcement agencies began to study two more "high-profile" crimes in a new way: the attempt on Korban and the murder of Paul Khlebnikov. Now, in particular, information is being verified, according to which in 2004 it was Nekrich who could transfer a large sum of money to the leader of the "Lazan" criminal group Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev in order to organize an attack in Moscow on the editor-in-chief of Forbes. This is evidenced by both operational materials and some testimonies.
According to this version, Nekrich organized the crime not in his own interests, but for a third "unidentified" person. The main contender for this role is the now deceased oligarch Boris Berezovsky, whom Nekrich knew well, and has long been friends with his son-in-law Georgy Shuppe.
Nukhaev accepted the “order”, one might say, with pleasure, since he himself had a “tooth” against Khlebnikov. The journalist published the book "A Conversation with a Barbarian", in which the leader of the "Lazan" group, who was trying to build a political career in the West, was presented as an ordinary bandit associated with Berezovsky.
Further, Nukhaev handed over the "order" to the "authority" Lom-Ali Gaytukaev, who was in Moscow, who, according to the investigation, involved in the operation a former employee of the RUBOP of Moscow, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov (organized surveillance and the work of killers), an employee of the OPU of the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov (led surveillance) and Kazbek Dukuzov (he was directly responsible for the elimination).
In 2004, Nekrich and Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev were not only good friends, but also business partners. Together they controlled a large oil transshipment point in Odessa. Soon, another participant appeared in this project in the person of the Privat group of Igor Kolomoisky. According to the source of the agency, Nekrich has known the latter for a very long time - "from the time when both businessmen were" nobody ". However, as the interlocutor in law enforcement agencies said, Nekrich did not have a relationship with Kolomoisky's "right hand" Gennady Korban.
The result of this conflict was that in 2005 "Privat" simply pushed Nekrich and Nukhaev out of the management of the oil transshipment point. Already in March 2006, a group of Chechen killers riddled a car with Korban from a machine gun, he himself remained alive. During the investigation, the killer Arsen Dzhamburaev, as well as the "authority" Lom-Ali Gaytukaev, were arrested. The latter in Russia, according to materials received from Ukraine, was convicted of organizing an attack on Korban.
The "customers" of the assassination were never identified. For some reason, the media stubbornly listed among them the authoritative Russian businessman Maxim Kurochkin (Max Beshenny), who was in conflict with Korban over the Ozerka market. Kurochkin was shot dead by a sniper outside one of the Ukrainian courts, where he was taken to extend his arrest for fraud related to Ozerki.
However, after the emergence of new information obtained during the investigation into the murder of Mineev, Russian law enforcement officers are working out the version that Nekrich and Nukhaev could have been involved in organizing the attack on Korban, entrusting the execution of the “order” to Gaitukaev.
It is worth noting that the information collected by law enforcement officers in the "Mineev case" supplements the information received earlier by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the "Khlebnikov case" and "fits" into it.
According to Pavlyuchenkov's testimony, in the spring of 2004 Chechen "authority" Lom-Ali Gaytukaev (convicted for the murder of Anna Politkovskaya) was approached by the leader of the "Lazan" criminal group Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev (Khan) with a proposal to organize the murder of Paul Khlebnikov. Gaytukaev involved Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, who at that time was under house arrest for malfeasance, to work. Khlebnikov was placed under surveillance. For these purposes, Khadzhikurbanov, according to the investigation, attracted the then active employees of the OPU. Later, these same policemen followed Anna Politkovskaya when her assassination was being prepared.
Together with Pavlyuchenkov's subordinates, Khadzhikurbanov himself "led" Khlebnikov. At one point, he announced that he no longer needed the services of the OPU staff. According to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the brothers Magomed and Kazbek Dukuzov and their acquaintances were further involved in spying on Khlebnikov. It is noteworthy that Khadzhikurbanov never paid Pavlyuchenkov and his colleagues for the work done.
The information that Gaitukaev and Nukhaev discussed the "order for Khlebnikov" in Turkey was confirmed by another witness. This is a former militant who lived in Turkey and was close to Nukhaev. Now he is serving a sentence in Russia for a domestic crime. This witness stated that Nukhaev organized the murder of Khlebnikov not for himself, but at the request of third parties. According to him, Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev was an intermediary who transmitted orders for the murder of Khlebnikov from customers living abroad to his people in Moscow. First of all - Gaytukaev.
Yuri Vershov
Bloody battle for the gold of the "Party": the mystery of the murder of billionaire Mineev
The oligarch is killed, the inheritance is stolen - a classic version of a showdown in Russian with the participation of security officials
MK , October 1, 2015
January 27, 2014 at the Khovansky cemetery was crowded and pretentious. All the gathered businessmen, it seemed, were not mourning the late billionaire (the founder of Russia's first electronics supermarket) Alexander Mineev, but themselves. The oligarchs looked at the coffin and thought: “If a person with such connections in the FSB and intelligence was killed in broad daylight, this is a bad sign for everyone.” Everyone was afraid of redistribution.
And now the chronology of events.
Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan come to Moscow and conduct a search in the offices of Mineev. The reason is an investigation into the financing of militants.
December 2013.
Mineev discovers that over twenty buildings that belonged to him have been rewritten, including for some natives of the Caucasus. And writes statements to law enforcement agencies.
Mineev's jeep, which has slowed down at a pedestrian crossing in Korolyov near Moscow, is being shot by killers from a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Of the 27 bullets fired, seven hit right on target.
One of these days, the case of the murder of billionaire Mineev will be brought to court. GRU General Dmitry Kurylenko, businessman Boris Karamatov and lawyer Yulia Egorova will be in the dock. The son-in-law of the famous oligarch Boris Berezovsky, Georgy Shuppe, was recognized as accused in absentia and put on the international wanted list. But what was their role? And why do experts draw parallels between this murder and two more, it would seem, completely unrelated - Shabtai Kalmanovich and Boris Nemtsov?
About this in the investigation of the special correspondent "MK".
Hello from the 90s
This is our strangest investigation of all, because no one in our history can be trusted - not one of the security services. Why - you will understand when you know everything to the end. In the meantime, my interlocutor is a representative of the elite of the criminal world, a close friend of Yaponchik (Vyacheslav Ivankov appreciated him for his special analytical talent). The agreement is as follows: I state the facts that I managed to find out, and my interlocutor comments on them.
But first, a little about Mineev. Epoch man. Mineev was the first in Russia to start a mass trade in copiers. The company "Partiya" founded by him for the sale of electronics was the only one in the early 90s. Do you remember the advertising slogan - "out of politics, out of competition"? Then the oligarch opened a chain of stores selling luxury furniture and clothes, and at the same time bought up a lot of real estate. Some of the facilities that belonged to Mineev were located along specially guarded government highways. And he himself did not hesitate to give his companies meaningful names: for example, Lubyanka. At the time of the assassination, Mineev's property was estimated at $1 billion.
He was unsinkable, because he had "roofs" at all levels, - says one of his close friends, Pavel. - He himself lived "according to the concepts" that he adopted back then, in the 90s. At the beginning of our acquaintance, I got to his dacha for a party. Bandits, Chekists, police generals were sitting at the same table... And it turned out that this one was a classmate, this one was a childhood friend, this one was a son-in-law, and so on. With all kindred and friendly relations. And they appreciated him for the ease with which he communicated and generally looked at the world. Let's say, a businessman came to him with a big problem, and Mineev was all jokes, jokes, poured him a glass of something stronger. "Drink, lucky one!" - he says with a laugh. He took the phone, dialed the number and decided everything! Thus, he returned shoulder straps, closed criminal cases, stopped wars between entire services.
However, he was clearly not omnipotent, and from the beginning of the 2000s he began to seriously fear for his life (this, apparently, was due to the war of the security forces who “protected” furniture smuggling). I even bought myself an armored Mercedes. And then he flew away from sin away to London. The real estate that he bought in Russia brought him hundreds of millions a month (Mineev rented out the large shopping centers he owned). Everything worked like clockwork without it. What more could you want?
But Mineev, who adored "movement" (he put it that way), felt sick and bored in calm England. And he got drunk. They say that he is the author of a well-known joke about the fact that quitting drinking in a difficult time for the country is stupid and vile. But this is more of a legend, but the fact that he usually started drinking in the morning is a fact.
In search of a drive, he returned to his homeland. And by an evil irony of fate, it turned out that in 2014 Mineev was killed according to all the laws of the genre of precisely those dashing 90s in which he survived ...
There are several interesting details in the Mineev murder case: none of the bullets fired from the Kalashnikov hit the driver. The billionaire himself died immediately, without suffering. And it all happened after the assets of Mineev and his real estate strangely passed into the hands of other people. Aerobatics, right?
And I would say that this is either a talented “multi-move” or a gross blunder in the work, our analyst unexpectedly gives out. What do I see in this situation? The professionalism of the shooting - yes, the professional work of lawyers who changed the owners of Mineev's assets - yes. But a professionally committed murder is one that is not solved. Remember how they killed Shabtai Kalmanovich (a well-known producer, owner of several markets. - Author's note). His car also slowed down at a traffic light, and the barrel of a machine gun also looked out from a neighboring car, a bunch of bullets hit the target. The driver also survived. But this case "hangs" so far. And for some reason, it became known almost immediately about the "customer" Mineev. And in general, killing a person who is already screaming with might and main about the fact that his business was taken away from him is just unprofessionalism. It is clear that all those involved and suspects will soon “land” in a pre-trial detention center or be arrested in absentia. What we see in this particular case. This is no longer the murder of the former owner, but some kind of collective suicide of the raiders. And it turns out, all the work down the drain. And there are huge deadlines ahead. Do you believe in such nonsense?
The GRU General's conspiracy
For a year now, one of the suspects in the crime, the general director of the management company Mineev (she leased all his real estate) Boris Karamatov, has been sitting in Butyrka for a year now. He was arrested on charges of murder (Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), but now the case is being reclassified as fraud (Article 159).
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| photo: vesti.ru |
Boris went to an agreement with the investigation, - says his lawyer Alexei Kapichnikov. - From the very beginning, he was ready to partially admit his guilt in fraud, as he handed over to the GRU general (by the way, no one could confirm that he really has this title. - Author's note) to Dmitry Kurylenko a list with the addresses of all objects real estate. But he had no idea how it could all end. From the very beginning, Kurylenko planned to open a restaurant and was looking for premises for this business. And Boris's job responsibilities included communicating with potential tenants. That's how they met. Kurylenko told him that the restaurant should be grandiose - 3 thousand square meters. meters. And under it they picked up a room in the Mineev shopping center, located at the exit from Kutuzovsky Prospekt to Rublevka. Later, having personally met Mineev, General Kurylenko seemed to offer Boris participation in the seizure of property. The role of Karamatov was reduced to planting compromising evidence on Mineev in his house and office, after which Mineev was to be arrested on false charges of financing terrorism and transferred to the Republic of Dagestan, where he would most likely be prepared for "suicide".
Boris Karamatov claims that he not only abandoned the idea (having learned that the matter smells “wet”), but also honestly warned the boss about everything. After that, he allegedly even hid from the furious Kurylenko in a rented apartment.
During the search of Mineev's house, the Dagestan police did not really find any extremist literature. We left with nothing. However, very much "with nothing" - they seized all the constituent documents of Mr. Mineev's companies. And the property was still re-registered to nominees, and the money was withdrawn to offshores beyond the control of the oligarch. This happened, among other things, according to investigators, thanks to the company's lawyer Yulia Egorova.
So, it turns out: General Kurylenko decided to rob the billionaire and resorted to the help of his employees, as well as the Dagestan police. What's wrong here?
Are you not embarrassed that the Dagestan police did not find bags with Wahhabi literature and receipts with transfers to the terrorists' accounts from Mineev? - comments our criminal "analyst". - The security forces in such cases are put forward only on command: they say, everything is already in place, you can take it. There are no surprises in these cases. And what happened, in my opinion, is this (as with the case of Boris Nemtsov): the organizers and performers decided to switch roles. Underestimating the Caucasians, quite often they are trying to attract them only as a brute force; but they pull their people up and from simple killers they strive to turn into "owners", so to speak, to become the first violin in this orchestra. This is a rake that many have stepped on. In this case, since no terrorist literature was found, it means that the organizers were afraid that the southerners would pull the entire raider "blanket" over themselves, and did not want the billionaire to disappear forever. In general, it is more expensive to engage in joint raiding with the Dagestan security forces. No "customers" will get anything later. Apparently, they got it. And so they changed their minds about “showing” a bag with forbidden books.
Wiretapping son-in-law Berezovsky
The fact that GRU General Kurylenko is not the true customer is believed by many. Moreover, the UK itself mentions completely different probable authors of the crime - Schuppe and Nekrich.
According to investigators, the case may have been like this: Kurylenko realized that he could not organize a raider seizure of property himself, and turned to his friend, a businessman with a dubious dark past, Mikhail Nekrich. And he decided to connect his friend Georgy Shuppe, the wife of Boris Berezovsky's daughter Ekaterina. Shuppe and Nekrich, hoping for a big jackpot, allocated as much as 6 million dollars for the operation to capitalize Mineev's property. The money went mainly to lawyers, tax officials and to pay lawyers. Now Shuppe and Nekrich are wanted, arrested in absentia. And again the question is: what is wrong here?
Question: why did these people need the corpse of a billionaire after he told the police about the seizure of property? - comments our "analyst". - After all, it is obvious that in this case, all selected will be arrested, and they will not be able to use this good. When they developed the plan, they hoped that Mineev would not catch on soon - he was a heavy drinker and seriously ill with diabetes, with gangrene (according to my information, he was not a tenant at all). I don't think he would have picked up on his own. Someone helped him find out everything in time, someone advised him to urgently contact the authorities and achieve the arrest of the stolen property. This someone could not discuss the problem directly with Mineev. It was enough to contact the same top manager Boris, intimidate him with some kind of criminal case and offer to “fix everything” - urgently report to the boss about the situation. Who is this someone? Think. Obviously, he was aware of the whole situation. It is obvious that he did not want to lose the Menaean state, for which, perhaps, he had his own plans.
I start to reason. If you think about Boris Karamatov, then only a person from law enforcement agencies could intimidate him. And Berezovsky's son-in-law could "bring out" to him, unwittingly. After all, Schuppe and other former close associates of BAB are under the most strict control of the “feds”. Now imagine: for example, from wiretapping of some telephone conversations, some high-ranking security officials learn about the plans for a raider seizure of Mineev's property. But they decide not to interfere. Bye. They let it happen. They do not allow Mineev to be taken to Dagestan, they also inform him that he has been robbed (so that he can apply to the authorities and the stolen goods cannot disappear without a trace). But what's next? It is obvious that Mineev, even as a token of gratitude, will not give all his property to benefactors. And here, logically, it really makes sense to remove it beautifully.
You are right, the analyst tells me. - But by whose hands do they kill? I think it could be like this. The Caucasians did not break anything from Mineev. They realized that they were "rolled". And then it was decided to bang him indicatively. "Don't reach out to anyone." So that in the future this would not happen when they are involved in the operation, and then something is replayed.
This whole combination (received information about the impending crime, watched, and at the moment of the climax skimmed off the cream) is the old and reliable style of the security forces. You can find out who has left the service and disappeared from view since the murder. Although it is unlikely that you will succeed. So the name will remain unnamed. Perhaps this person at that time was already going to leave the authorities. While he was serving, it seemed he didn’t need to get involved in such matters. But since they are leaving soon and there will be no such chic operational information, then it is possible to pull off a profitable business, so to speak, the last, most important thing, the business of a lifetime.
A source in the special services did not deny that in the case of Mineev, their man seemed to be “lit up”. The management allegedly found out about this, and the person was fired without much fuss. But how was it really?
Where's the money, Zin?
When the notary Alexei Solovyov, who was in charge of Mineev's inheritance case, announced to his heirs that there was NOTHING, they were in shock. Solovyov did not find any property that would be recorded on the billionaire, except for three used cars. And so - no shopping centers, no bank accounts, no apartments, no houses. Relatives of the oligarch reasonably asked questions: where is the money?! Law enforcement agencies carefully answered: they say, the cunning Mineev hid everything in offshore. But what about the arrested property, transferred to front people? What with her? No answer.
And here is what the defender of top manager Boris Karamatov told us (and addressed with such a letter to the State Duma):
The investigation continues to keep my client under arrest, since only Karamatov has complete information about Mineev's offshore accounts and the intricate structure of his holding. Interested parties appoint a management company close to themselves and continue to collect rent payments of $3 million per month. There is a clear interest in keeping all property under arrest for as long as possible, and the person who owns the information and could help the heirs enter into their legal rights is in a pre-trial detention center.
By the way, it seemed suspicious to me for a long time: why was Karamatov “hidden” in the isolation ward for so long? After all, they recognized that he was not a customer and not an organizer. But now it's all coming together...
Mineev has three children. The eldest son Vsevolod seemed to want to fight for the inheritance, but then changed his mind. I tried to contact him, but friends told me that he feared for his life. He flew to Russia from the UK only once, but did not even leave the airport building (right there he was interviewed by investigators of the TFR in the Moscow region). I think nothing threatens him in reality, but someone needs him to be sure of the opposite. In general, it seems that he will not take part in the division of Mineev's inheritance.
Recently, out of nowhere, a certain girl Valeria appeared, saying that Mineev was the father of her young child. She filed a notary application for the recognition of the child as the heir. Whether she did it out of naivety, or at someone's evil instigation, is unknown. But I don't think she'll get anything (except maybe those three used cars).
The real initiators of this whole gangster story, of course, will remain in the shadows. Some performers will be imprisoned, and on this the whole story will soon be forgotten. Do you think the state or the heirs will receive at least a tiny fraction of a billion dollars? Here is the latest "leak" in the media from law enforcement officers: Mineev allegedly had no assets even abroad. Checkmate. The grandmasters certainly played one of the best games (pardon the pun) of recent times.
Eva Merkacheva
In the case of the murder of the founder of the "Party" only swindlers remained
Investigation into raider seizure of real estate valued at $1 billion completed
As it became known to "", an unexpected turn took place in the investigation into the murder of the founder and owner of the chain of household appliances stores "Partiya" Alexander Mineev. At the final stage of the proceedings, the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR for the Moscow Region divided this high-profile case into two: the alleged participants in the theft of Mr. Mineev’s real estate, estimated at $ 1 billion, will go on trial, and those accused of organizing and carrying out the murder ended up in another case, the investigation of which is ongoing.
The 49-year-old owner of the Partiya household appliances stores, Alexander Mineev, was killed in Korolev, near Moscow, on January 22, 2014. Almost from the very beginning of the investigation, the main investigative department of the TFR in the Moscow region adhered to the version that the murder was connected with the raider seizure of Mr. Mineev's property. By this time, the entrepreneur owned premises in 21 shopping centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in which, considering it unprofitable, he stopped trading, deciding to lease 110 thousand square meters. m of space for rent. At the time, they were valued at $1 billion.
The property, as established by the investigation, was issued to 18 LLC, which were managed by offshore companies in Belize and the Seychelles - Orange Cap, Milky Cap, Black Cap and Brown Cap Ltd. And their founder, in turn, was another offshore company - Crazy Dragon. The income received was accumulated on the accounts of the management company Eurasia LLC, which Alexander Mineev also owned through offshore.
Having organized a new business, Alexander Mineev left for the UK, leaving Boris Karamatov, who headed Eurasia LLC, in charge of the business.
The idea to take over the billionth fortune of Alexander Mineev, according to investigators, came to the former paratrooper Dmitry Kurylenko. He met the entrepreneur, introducing himself as a general of the SVR and offering him to open a restaurant on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. And when he became interested in the project, he suggested to his friend Boris Karamatov to steal the constituent documents of all 18,000 entrepreneurs. According to the defense, Mr. Karamatov refused to participate in the raider takeover and even resigned from the post of general director of Eurasia, nevertheless he became one of the central figures in the investigation.
His successor, Yulia Egorova, agreed to do it for him, to whom Mr. Kurylenko informed that the real estate of Alexander Mineev is expected to be controlled by Boris Berezovsky's son-in-law Georgy Shuppe, who lives in Switzerland, and Israeli businessman Mikhail Nekrich. According to investigators, the woman undertook to re-register the property to third parties for a reward of several million dollars. Dmitry Kurylenko, who expects to conclude a pre-trial cooperation agreement, subsequently informed the investigators of the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR about this. In the end, he was refused the deal, after which Mr. Kurylenko refused to testify. But the investigation gave way to his first confessions.
According to the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR, after returning from London, Alexander Mineev found out about the raider seizure and turned to law enforcement agencies and arbitration courts. In response, the organizers of the raider seizure in 2013 reported to law enforcement agencies that the structures of Alexander Mineev were allegedly financing militants: they even planted a fake seal of Eurasia LLC in the pocket of the clothes of one of the destroyed members of the illegal armed formations. However, the searches conducted by the Dagestan security forces in the same year in the offices of Mr. Mineev did not yield any results. In any case, the entrepreneur escaped the arrest that the raiders were counting on.
Then, according to the testimony of Dmitry Kurylenko, Mikhail Nekrich offered him to "remove" Mr. Mineev. However, he refused, after which another performer was found - a native of Dagestan, Omar Suleimanov. It was he, according to investigators, who shot the SUV with the entrepreneur from a machine gun in Korolyov.
Having sorted out the circumstances of the high-profile crime, the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR for the Moscow Region singled out from the main case the defendants involved in fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and those involved in the murder of a businessman. The charges of fraud in the final version were brought against Dmitry Kurylenko, Boris Karamatov, Yulia Egorova, lawyer Kamil Kaziev (in arbitration he withdrew Mr. Mineev's statements of claim and re-registered his property to a third party) and the general director of one of the offshore companies Boris Prokopenko. It should be noted that initially, Messrs. Kurylenko and Karamatov were also charged with involvement in the murder of an entrepreneur, but the most serious charge was eventually dropped from them. Now all of them are getting acquainted with the materials of the 40-volume case on fraud, which, after the completion of the procedure, will be sent for approval to the prosecutor, and then to the court.
At the same time, Mikhail Nekrich, Georgy Shuppe, the ex-general director of Eurasia Satrudin Bagaudinov and Omar Suleimanov, who, according to investigators, were involved in both the murder of Mr. Mineev and the raider seizure of his assets, ended up in a case, the investigation of which is ongoing. All of them are wanted. The investigation found that the motive for the murder of the founder of the "Party" was his opposition to fraud with real estate.
Yuri Senatorov
No arrests left in $1 billion embezzlement case
Rosbalt, September 16, 2016
All those accused in the murder of tycoon Alexander Mineev were released. Their detention limits have expired.
One of the most notorious crimes of recent years remains unsolved. The prospects that the defendants will ever stand trial are very bleak.
As Rosbalt was told by a source familiar with the situation, the accused (former GRU officer Dmitry Kurylenko, lawyer Kamil Kaziev and ex-general director of Eurasia LLC Boris Karamatov) have expired the deadlines for detention. This week they were released, as a preventive measure they chose a written undertaking not to leave. The investigation will expire on September 22 and will be extended. However, the prospects that the materials will go to court seem extremely vague. In February 2016, the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Ministry of Defense submitted the indictments for approval to the Prosecutor General's Office for subsequent submission to the court. However, the supervisory authority considered that the investigation made many mistakes when crushing the materials, during the investigation itself, when qualifying the acts of the defendants. In this regard, the prosecutor's office did not approve the indictment and submit the materials to the court. They were returned to the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Moscow Region.
“In the form in which the case came to the prosecutor's office, it could not be considered by the court, it would simply “fall apart”. Moreover, there were many “gaps”: it was not established, in particular, whether Mineev alone owned this property or he had partners, whether he owned it at all, documents were not received from abroad, where all transactions with assets were processed, etc. etc., - the interlocutor of the agency expressed his opinion. - Since February, little has changed in the case, therefore, when the materials will appear in court and whether they will appear at all, it is not known. As well as it is not known whether the defendants will remain in Russia by that time. The main defendants in the case, as you know, have been hiding abroad for a long time.”
At the end of 2015, several materials were separated from the general investigation into the murder of Alexander Mineev and the theft of his assets into a separate proceeding. In particular, the case against the ex-general director of Eurasia LLC (this company managed all of Mineev's real estate) Boris Karamatov, who entered into a pre-trial agreement. He is charged under article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (large-scale fraud). In addition, the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Moscow Region (MO) separated into a separate proceeding the case against former GRU officer Dmitry Kurylenko, lawyer Kamil Kaziev (both accused of fraud) and ex-lawyer Mineev Yulia Egorova (she was charged only with Article 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - abuse of power). All the circumstances of the murder of the tycoon remained in the general investigation, the main defendants of which are Berezovsky's son-in-law Georgy Shuppe, businessman Mikhail Nekrich (the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation considers them "customers" of fraud and murder) and "authority" Sadro Bagautdinov (the alleged organizer of the execution of Mineev).
According to the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Moscow Region, Boris Karamatov worked as the general director of Eurasia LLC controlled by Mineev. This firm accumulated all the proceeds from the lease of space in 21 shopping and office centers, which were believed to belong to a magnate and cost about $1 billion. Yulia Egorova, who was the nominal director of four offshore structures that owned 18 firms, to which 21 buildings were recorded. According to the source of the agency, Karamatov was seen more than once in dubious stories, which is why he used passports for three different surnames. So, in Eurasia LLC, he was listed as Boris Khamitov.
According to investigators, Karamatov told his relative Dmitry Kurylenko that he knew the real estate ownership scheme of Mineev, who spends most of his time in England, so it is possible to seize 21 buildings. Kurylenko, according to law enforcement agencies, shared this information with his acquaintance, businessman Mikhail Nekrich living in Israel. The operation of a raider attack on Mineev's assets promised to be costly, so Nekrich decided to involve a friend in it - Boris Berezovsky's son-in-law Georgy Shuppe, who settled in London. The latter could also have insider information: at one time, Berezovsky's interests in London were represented by the same lawyers who acted on the side of Mineev's wife during her divorce proceedings with her husband.
According to law enforcement agencies, Schuppe and Nekrich initially allocated about $ 3 million for the seizure of real estate (due to various problems, the amount of expenses later almost doubled). Of these, $ 500 thousand went to bribe Yulia Egorova. With the help of hired lawyers, bribing a number of officials, the same Egorova, 18 Russian firms still managed to change owners, documents began to be prepared for the transfer of real estate to other structures. However, Mineev's subordinates, when changing bank accounts, noticed the manipulations of the raiders. The tycoon turned to arbitration courts and law enforcement agencies, the seizure of real estate was on the verge of failure.
In January 2014, Mineev was killed by hitmen in Korolyov near Moscow. Karamatov and Kurylenko were arrested in November 2014. During interrogations, they admitted that they were preparing the theft of Mineev's buildings, but categorically denied their guilt in the murder of the magnate. Allegedly, the decision to eliminate him was made personally by Nekrich, who himself organized the crime.
Yegorova has been under house arrest throughout the investigation. In the summer of 2015, lawyer Kamil Kaziev was detained, who was Mikhail Nekrich's confidant throughout this story and was involved in the legal processing of transactions with stolen firms.
Nekrich, Shuppe and Bagautdinov are wanted.
During the investigation, it became known that, perhaps, Mineev had a secret partner in real estate ownership - Konstantin Vankov, who was at the origins of the creation of the entire business by the magnate. Moreover, documents “surfaced” that, while abroad, Mineev sold his share in Russian assets to Vankov. However, the attackers, preparing the murder and raider takeover, did not know about it.
Yuri Vershov
Who captured assets of the "Party"
At the time of the murder, billionaire Alexander Mineev had already lost control of his companies.
Irek Murtazin, special correspondent for Novaya Gazeta. February 3, 2017
Billionaire Alexander Mineev was shot on January 22, 2014. The businessman was driving from his mansion in the village of Zagoryanka, Shchelkovsky District, to Moscow. In Korolev, on Tsiolkovsky Street, as soon as Mineev's Range Rover stopped at a traffic light, an off-road vehicle slowed down on the right, a machine gun barrel appeared in the window, and shots rang out. Later, 27 shell casings were found inside the car abandoned by the killers. Mineev was hit by seven bullets. He died instantly. Neither the driver Vyacheslav Buganov, nor bystanders were injured. All the bullets landed in a heap, in the area of the front passenger seat. This speaks to the professionalism of the killer, who did not shoot from a stop, but apparently in short bursts, sitting in the back seat behind an accomplice-driver. Despite the very inconvenient position for shooting, the Kalashnikov assault rifle did not “dance” in the hands of the killer.
Mineev did not leave a will. According to the law, four children and an elderly mother could claim his inheritance. But they got nothing. The businessman was the victim of a raider seizure of property. The fact that his assets were transferred to other owners, Mineev found out on the eve of his death. And he began to desperately fight for the return of assets. Addressed with statements to law enforcement agencies and lawsuits in courts. When, after Mineev’s death, eleven months after the fatal shots in Korolev, they managed to return the assets to the enterprises that he controlled during his lifetime, it turned out that the Hong Kong company Crazy Dragon International Limited, which was the ultimate beneficiary of all Mineev’s assets, had a new owner - the Panamanian FORUS Corp.
Vertical takeoff
The story of Alexander Mineev is a story about the absolute defenselessness of Russian business. Even having earned a huge fortune, you can lose everything in one moment. And not because of the ruin due to the economic crisis, erroneous management decisions or active actions of more successful competitors. Your assets can “float away” to other people with the help of false documents and the actions of managers whom you trusted infinitely. As happened with Alexander Mineev, one of the first multimillionaires in Russia. Here is his story.
In the early 90s, Mineev founded the Party company, the country's first chain of stores selling household and office equipment. In 1997, the "Party" grew into a network of stores "Domino", in which Mineev established a trade in luxury furniture, clothes, shoes ... The annual turnover of the "Party" and "Domino" amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 2000, a successful businessman came under the scrutiny of law enforcement agencies. A retired FSB officer who is well acquainted with the details of the confrontation between the security forces for control of smuggling channels, which resulted in the famous Three Whales case, told Novaya Gazeta that in the early 2000s, the Department of Economic Security became interested in the founder and owner of the Party and Domino FSB, at that time headed by Colonel General Yuri Zaostrovtsev. The general suspected that "Partiya" and "Domino" underestimate customs payments, and Boris Gutin patronizes Mineev. The same Gutin, who even in the KGB of the USSR "supervised" all foreign trade of the Soviet Union, in 1997-2000 headed the Department of Internal Security of the State Customs Committee of Russia (SCC), and in July 2000 was appointed Deputy Head of the State Customs Committee.
My interlocutor said that in 2001-2003, FSB operatives collected a plethora of materials about Alexander Mineev, including those confirming his informal contacts with the deputy head of the State Customs Committee, Boris Gutin. And not only with him, but also with the generals of the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office. But either the evidence base for criminal prosecution was not enough, or the patrons managed to get Mineev out of the blow, but he was not among the defendants in the high-profile criminal case on smuggling. Nevertheless, the businessman took the Three Whales case as a serious warning and began to curtail business projects. In 2003, he closed the Domino chain of stores, in 2004 he profitably sold Rost Bank, and in 2005 the Party company also ceased to exist.
Everyday life of a London rentier
Mineev began leasing retail space. In the 90s, when opening stores, the businessman immediately relied on the acquisition of real estate.
By the beginning of the century, only in Moscow, Mineev owned two dozen large shopping facilities, including a shopping center and a car dealership at 88 on Kutuzovsky Prospekt (total area 13,423.7 sq.m), a shopping center on Taganka (4409.1 sq.m. ), warehouse terminals on Krasny Mayak Street (7909.7 sq.m), Europe shopping center on Kaluga Square (5269.2 sq.m). Mineev also owned real estate in other regions of Russia.
According to the most conservative estimates, the annual income from the rental of real estate was about 5 billion rubles.
Having established a system for renting and collecting money for the use of retail space, in 2005 Mineev moved to London.
Idle life abroad was not a joy. In addition, family relationships have deteriorated. Anticipating that the matter was heading towards a divorce, and in an effort to minimize losses from the division of property, Mineev began to “hide” assets in offshore companies. And he began to tell everyone that in 2006 he retired and did not own any commercial real estate. Looking ahead, I will say that during the divorce proceedings, Mineev failed to convince the High Court of London of this. In his sworn testimony, Mineev stated: “When I left Russia in 2005, I retired. I closed my Russian enterprises. The economic and commercial climate in Russia was not very good and I didn't want to continue doing business there… My participation in all companies ceased in 2005. After I ceased commercial activities, the real estate was sold, I no longer own it and do not rent it out ... "
But the court did not believe the businessman, in fact accusing him of committing crimes, including "giving false testimony to the court." Judge Eleanor King, who considered case No. FD10F0051, after examining hundreds of documents and hearing dozens of witnesses, ruled in November 2013, in paragraph 243 of which she recorded that Mineev had been evading taxes for many years, both in Russia and in the UK, that he “keeps his business empire under complete control”, that Mineev’s employee Konstantin Vankov regularly came to London to receive instructions regarding enterprises controlled by Mineev. The High Court of London also calculated Mineev's income from leasing that part of the real estate in Russia, the ownership of which by Mineev left no doubt at the court. In paragraph 258, Judge Eleanor King stated that Mineev “… unambiguously concealed his assets. In terms of income, he no doubt earns significant property income in Russia, estimated by Knight Frank in November 2012 at $18,115,714 per annum from rent.”
"Zeroing" Mineev
Mineev could not but understand that false testimony to a court in Britain is a crime fraught with a serious prison term. Perhaps that is why, in the midst of the divorce proceedings, he left London and returned to Moscow. And actively involved in the management of their assets. He thoroughly shook up the staff, fired many managers, recruited new ones ...
By that time, all real estate was registered to eighteen LLCs established by offshore companies from Belize and the Seychelles: OrangeCap Ltd, MilkyCap Ltd, BrownCap Ltd and CepCap Ltd. The sole shareholder of the Seychelles and Belize companies was the Hong Kong company Crazy Dragon International Limited, whose ultimate beneficiary was Alexander Mineev. Operational management of real estate was carried out by Eurasia LLC.
In December 2013, the Central Bank revoked the license of the bank in which the accounts of Mineev's enterprises were opened. To open accounts in another bank, an extract from the Federal Tax Service was required. But when Mineev turned to the tax office for documents, he was surprised to learn that in all eighteen LLCs for which real estate was registered, both the founders and the management changed. Similarly, the founders and managers of offshore companies have changed. Mineev appealed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a statement about the theft of assets. Lawyers prepared documents for the start of litigation and even managed to file lawsuits with the Moscow Arbitration Court and seize the property so that it would not be resold to “bona fide purchasers”. But the case did not come to trial. On January 22, 2014, Mineev was shot dead, and soon the arbitration claims were withdrawn, the arrests on real estate transactions were lifted.
Criminal case No. 1627 on the theft of Mineev's assets was initiated by the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs only a month after his death. And on the day when automatic bursts sounded in Korolev, the Moscow Region Department of the ICR opened a criminal case No. 106556 on the fact of Mineev's murder. On April 23, both cases were merged into one proceeding.
The investigation was led by Colonel Stanislav Antonov, an investigator for especially important cases of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Moscow Region.
And although in the criminal case, almost in the first weeks of the investigation, suspects, those arrested, and put on the wanted list appeared, today, three years after the execution of Mineev, all the arrested defendants in the criminal case were released from the pre-trial detention center, the case never came to trial , in September last year, investigator Antonov “left” this case.
Almost one and a half hundred volumes of collected materials Antonov handed over to another investigator. He began his work by canceling Antonov’s decision on recognizing Mineev’s children as victims in a criminal case ...
panama trail
Hong Kong-based Crazy Dragon International Limited was established on February 24, 2012. In December 2014, the company changed its owner, and on November 13, 2015, the new owner liquidated it. After liquidation, all assets were transferred to the same Panamanian company FORUS Corporation, headed by Alexander Shibakov. Alexander Kaledin has been another director of FORUS Corporation since August 2010. I can assume that it is only due to an unfortunate misunderstanding that Shibakov and Kaledin are not included in the list of the hundred richest Russians, compiled annually by Forbes magazine.
Shibakov and Kaledin also have a Russian company with a similar name - Forus Group LLC. But back on June 24, 2014, when investigator Antonov officially interrogated Shibakov, when drawing up the title page of the protocol of interrogation, in the column “place of work”, he indicated: “Crazy Dragon, director.” And during the interrogation, he testified: “In February 2014, I learned from my acquaintance, lawyer Vedenin, that he was acting as a lawyer for the injured party in a high-profile criminal case, namely the murder of Mineev. After that, I studied this issue from open sources of information. In the course of studying this issue, I became aware that all the disputed property belongs to the Hong Kong company Crazy Dragon. After that, I instructed my Chinese lawyers to look into the matter ... with a view to acquiring the assets of this organization.”
The protocol of interrogation, a copy of which is at the disposal of the editorial office, contains Shibakov's mobile phone number. I called him. The lawyer Vadim Vedenin answered me. We agreed to meet.
When I arrived at the address indicated by Vedenin, it turned out that this was the office center of the Forus Group company. At the entrance to the negotiation room there is a poster with the slogan: "True greatness is built on the consciousness of one's own strength, while false greatness is built on the consciousness of the weakness of others." And the signature is "FORUSGROUP". Vedenin, after escorting me to the negotiation room, returned a few minutes later with two more men. He introduced them to his colleagues, but did not name names. The “colleagues” themselves refused to introduce themselves… Already after the end of the conversation with the Forus Group employees, having described my interlocutors, I found out that one of them was Alexander Kaledin. Having asked to listen to an audio recording of the conversation of people who were personally acquainted with Kaledin, he was convinced that Kaledin was the “colleague” of Vedenin, with whom he returned to the negotiation room. And it was he who became the main participant in the conversation. Lawyer Vedenin and the third participant in the meeting were more silent, only occasionally adding or clarifying something.
Alexander Kaledin spoke assertively and confidently. He freely operated with dates, figures, facts. He said that at the time of Mineev's murder, all his assets had already been stolen.
It was we who achieved the return of assets that Crazy Dragon has unconditionally owned since 2012. Then it is stolen from her. By forging documents, falsifications ... - said Kaledin. - We were the first to start fighting for the return of assets. We managed to send 300 parliamentary requests with a request to investigate. Do not find good or bad, but investigate. 150 lawsuits took place, 700 judicial acts were received, and only after that it was possible to return all Crazy Dragon companies.
And it is true. Vadim Vedenin, who entered the case as a lawyer for Mineev's mother, Alla Arkadyevna, really made a lot of efforts to return the assets. But now it turns out that in the interests of the mother of the murdered man, he actually worked only until the summer of 2014. Then work began already in the interests of the new owners of Crazy Dragon - the Panamanian company FORUS Corporation.
But did Mineev own Crazy Dragon? Kaledin asked, continuing the conversation. - No, I didn't. The beneficiary of the company from the moment of registration was Konstantin Vankov (already mentioned as an employee of Mineev. - I.M.). We studied very critically, we wrote a lot of statements, we suspected that it was Vankov who organized the theft. Until we were convinced that he was the owner, we did not conduct any negotiations with him ...
And it was from Vankov, according to Kaledin, that Shibakov acquired Crazy Dragon, paying the amount with six zeros ...
But there is an interrogation protocol dated March 20, 2014, during which Vankov testified that the owner of Crazy Dragon is Alexander Mineev, I specified. - Vankov told in great detail how, on behalf of Mineev, he registered Crazy Dragon.
Do you know that, after leaving the interrogation, Vankov immediately went to the airport and left Russia? - retorted Kaledin, according to whom the investigator Antonov forced Vankov to give just such evidence.
Kaledin's version is not like the truth. If only because Vankov did not leave Russia immediately after the interrogation. The interrogation on March 20 was preceded by the February interrogation, during which Vankov told the same story. And in March, only clarified some details.
Leaving Russia, Konstantin Vankov sent a “Declaration” to the investigator in December 2014, stating that it was he who had established the Hong Kong company Crazy Dragon International Limited on February 24, 2012 and until November 2014 was the sole beneficiary of the company, and in November 2014 he ceded everything the rights of the Panamanian company FORUS Corporation represented by Alexander Shibakov.
What or who made Vankov "remember" that he was the owner of the Crazy Dragon company?
Read the answer to this question in the following issues of "New".
RIGHT TO RESPONSE
Vedenin's lawyer's response to Novaya Gazeta's article "Who Seized the Party's Assets"
Having studied the creation of the Novaya Gazeta special correspondent Irek Murtazina, he decided that for an objective picture, he would present a kind of review of the published material.
I would like to make a reservation right away that I categorically disagree with the author's version and the presentation of the material to readers. You can start with the title of the publication - "Who seized the assets of the" Party ". After reading the article, I did not find an answer to it, even in the author's interpretation. Meanwhile, this is not even a question, but a statement. That is, the author is already convinced that there was some capture.
On the one hand, there really was a seizure, which was confirmed in the materials of criminal case No. 106556, which is being investigated by the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for the Moscow Region. This capture has specific perpetrators who have been charged and who plead guilty to fraudulent activities, as well as individuals who have also been charged with similar charges, but who have not pleaded guilty. There are also persons charged in absentia because they are hiding from the investigating authorities. However, all these specific defendants, who are awaiting trial, do not arouse the interest of Novaya Gazeta special correspondent Irek Murtazin.
The text of the article under review contains information about other persons who, in the opinion of the author, seized the assets of the "Party". I draw your attention to this, not the accused, who have confessed and are awaiting trial, but other persons! But we will return to this a little later.
Let's try to understand what facts or events the author analyzed before coming to such conclusions. And here for me, as a person who is somewhat familiar with the events of the crimes, questions immediately arise about the competence of the source who advised the correspondent.
Let's start with the fact that the execution in Korolyov was carried out not from an SUV, but from a Hyundai Accent sedan with transit numbers, which was discovered a few days later near the place of execution. This information was shown on a number of central TV channels and covered in some detail in the media, but for some reason the author is confused here. Further in the article there is a statement that the heirs of the murdered man did not get anything. As a person who represented the interests of the mother of the murdered man in the hereditary and criminal case, I am well aware that the estate included several apartments in Moscow, a plot of land in the village of Zagoryansky, Moscow Region with a large house and several non-residential buildings, some amounts of money on personal accounts of the deceased. In addition, after the death of my trustee, the children of the victim also got a three-room apartment in Moscow, two dachas in the suburbs and a little later, three exclusive apartments in Moscow in an elite luxury residential complex, which, by a court decision, should have been returned to the victim after their alienation in favor of the ex-wife (materials of the criminal case No. 749321 on the application of Alexander Mineev against Irina Mineeva on the fact of fraudulent actions). And this is only the property that went to the children of the murdered after his death and the death of his mother. Separately, we can mention English property, and these are three elite apartments and a three-story house in London, worth several tens of millions of pounds, inherited by Mineev's ex-wife and his children as a result of the divorce proceedings.
It is very ugly to count other people's money, but I could not show the reader who, after reading the text, had the impression that Mineev's children and his ex-wife were starving somewhere in Khrushchev on the outskirts of Moscow.
But back to the text of the article. The author claims that, having learned about the raider seizure (which it is not clear who committed it, but this is not important for the author at the moment), Mineev began to desperately fight for the return of assets and even filed a complaint with law enforcement agencies and the courts.
Here it should be noted that Mineev never wrote any statements, and could not write, because. has never been a person who, within the meaning of the current criminal procedure law, could have suffered property damage by fraudulent actions aimed at taking possession of commercial real estate. Moreover, Alexander Mineev and the Russian and English law enforcement authorities always indicated in his explanations that he sold his business in 2005 and moved to live in the UK, so he is neither the owner of the trust nor the person who may have any property claims to real estate.
Applications were written by foreign companies from which shares in authorized capital were illegally alienated and which the investigating authorities did not want to recognize as victims for almost three years. These same companies were the initiators of arbitration cases, as a result of which, two years later, the property returned to the original owners and who still have it. This is an important clarification, because Murtazin's statement about the emergence of a new owner - the Panamanian company Forus Corporation, is at least misinformation. The property has not had any new owners since 2012.
Further chapters of the publication about the vertical rise and everyday life of the London rantier, although they contain unconfirmed figures and facts, allegedly from the life of Alexander Mineev, but in our opinion, do not require a detailed analysis, because. do not reveal the main thesis of the article, indicated in its title.
It is worth paying attention to only one, significant point, which, it seems to us, makes completely untenable Murtazin's version that Mineev began to hide property in offshore companies when he felt that the matter was heading for a divorce.
The fact is that the first foreign companies in the corporate structure of the former retail space of the Domino Party group of companies appeared in 2005, and the divorce of the Mineevs happened in Moscow on March 3, 2009, while Alexander Mineev himself found out about it even later, already when his wife, who declared in Moscow that there were no property claims, decided to divide the property in London, where they both lived at that time. The divorce itself in Moscow took place in secret from Alexander, about which he informed the English court: “I agree with the dates of the divorce in Russia and with the fact that I did not participate in this process and was not represented on it. I was not served with a notice of the trial, nor was I notified of the date of the hearing. I first became aware of the divorce proceedings in May 2010 when I was served notice of the District Court litigation that Irina had started here...of course Irina knew that I lived in London and where I lived there. She could have easily told me about the application to the Moscow court for divorce, the date of the hearing, etc... but she didn't. It seems wrong to me that someone is secretly bred, especially when the person initiating the lawsuit knew exactly where I was, but did not tell me about it ... ”(paragraph 30).
The following testimony of her ex-husband characterizes Irina Mineeva even more: “I saw Irina ... somewhere in March 2010. She invited me to dinner at her apartment in Eaton Place and I came. There were several of our mutual friends and our sons. The evening was very pleasant. I met her on other occasions when we were both in public; e.g. in shops and restaurants.
That is, Irina has already secretly divorced her husband, but for all their mutual friends, their children and Alexander himself, they are still a friendly family that is having fun. Meanwhile, with the help of London lawyers, Irina is preparing a lawsuit against her unsuspecting, and already ex-husband. During the divorce proceedings, Irina managed to quarrel with her ex-husband with their common children, with whom Alexander still maintained relations. But after Irina Mineeva tried to hand over court documents to Alexander through the children in mid-2011, he stopped all contacts with both her and her sons.
But let's leave the moral (or immoral) side of the issue out of the scope, because. it would be wrong to delve into the "dirty linen" by examining the question posed by the author of the article "Who seized the assets of the Party", probably wrong ...
It will be difficult for Russian practicing lawyers to understand some of the features and style of presentation of the plot of the case in the judicial acts of the London Court. For example, why if, as the author claims, the court, having accused Alexander Mineev of crimes (giving false testimony to the court, tax evasion for many years), nevertheless did not initiate a single criminal case against him and did not hold him accountable?
Describing further events concerning the beginning of the raider takeover, the author still does not focus on who committed it, although the defendants, as already indicated above, have been identified and prosecuted. Is it because he would like to accuse completely different people, and those who confessed to committing fraud, in Murtazin's version, as if nothing to do with it?
Apparently yes. Because further the author, avoiding important details about who and for whom the Crazy Dragon company was created and under what deal it sold its assets, claims that after its liquidation everything went to the Panamanian Forus Corporation.
Having studied in detail the available documents on transactions provided to the investigation, as a result of which foreign companies, and not heirs, were recognized as victims of fraudulent actions, we can assert that the transfer of rights to Crazy Dragon shares began and ended before the start of the process of its liquidation.
Apparently, Irek Murtazin writes about this deal in the final part of the article entitled “The Panama Trail”. Analyzing the protocol of the interrogation of Shibakov, Vankov and our meeting with him, the journalist comes to the conclusion that, apparently, he uncovered a conspiracy ..., the participants of which made Vankov “remember” that he was the owner of the Crazy Dragon company.
Irek Murtazin was prompted to do this, as he himself writes, when he discovered the Russian company Forus Group LLC (whose TIN he did not indicate, which is a pity, because I could not find such a legal entity in the tax database), poster with the signature “FORUSGROUP” at the entrance to the meeting room (it’s good that we were not in the room where the poster with the heroes of the Cuban revolution hangs), and two interlocutors who refused to introduce themselves to the journalist, citing the fact that he was deliberately biased in writing his article. Assessing one of the interlocutors, the special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta admires his confidence, assertiveness and ability to operate with dates, figures, facts, and also compliments me, estimating that a lot of efforts have really been made to return assets.
However, for some reason, it immediately comes to the conclusion that I defended the interests of Alla Arkadyevna Mineeva only until the summer of 2014, and then I switched to new owners - the Panamanian company Forus Corporation, which haunted Murtazin. Of course, I was sad to read this. But on the other hand, I attribute this to the fact that they simply forgot to tell Mutnazin that from May 2014 to October 2016. I went through all the instances up to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, where I was able to prove that until the death of my client in October 2015, I conscientiously defended her interests in the criminal case and was able to achieve some important results during the investigation.
Again, the correspondent's contradictory conclusions about the new owners, while he himself recognized my merits in the return of property to the old owners, can only mean his lack of information. And Murtazin’s completely unfounded assertions that Vankov did not leave Russia after his interrogation in March 2014 are shattered by the copy of Vankov’s foreign passport with border crossing marks that I have.
The author of the “investigation” does not consider it important to inform readers about the subsequent statements and interrogation of Vankov, who indicates that he was subjected to psychological violence by investigator Antonov and under his pressure was forced to give primary evidence. In addition, Konstantin Vankov's fears about his safety after the murder of his long-term business partner should be considered insignificant. Apparently, the journalist believes that immediately after the murder of Mineev, Vankov should have declared: “I should have been in his place”!
I would like to thank Irek Murtazin for trying to objectively understand the material, but I would like to ask in my future “revelations” to proceed more from facts, rather than versions and rumors. For our part, we are ready for any form of objective dialogue in order to dispel all speculation regarding our role in this story.