Translated material
Nine hundred billion and two kopecks
The Prosecutor General's Office has completed the investigation into the new case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev
Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev will today begin to get acquainted with their new criminal case of theft and laundering of several tens of billions of dollars . On Friday, the Prosecutor General's Office reported on the completion of the investigation and finally named the exact amount, down to the penny, that the ex-head of YUKOS and his business partner, with the help of their “accomplices,” allegedly managed to steal. In rubles, this figure looks astronomical --- 892 billion 426 million 169 thousand 398 rubles. and 02 kop. Lawyers for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have already flown to Chita to, together with their clients, begin studying the latest essay by the Prosecutor General’s Office on the topic of YUKOS.According to the lawyers themselves, reading the case materials will take them more than a month. And indeed, they have something to think about. On Friday, the official representative of the Prosecutor General's Office, Marina Gridneva, announced that the investigation into the new case of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev was completed and they were accused of “theft of state-owned shares, misappropriation of oil and legalization of proceeds from its sale.” “It has been established that Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and other persons as part of an organized group, in addition to fraudulently taking over shares of Apatit OJSC and the products of this enterprise in 1994-1996 (for which they were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment), also carried out criminal activities in the country’s oil complex,” says a message published on the official website of the Prosecutor General’s Office. By the way, although Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were found guilty by the court for fraud with Apatit shares, they were not convicted due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for this episode, and they received their eight years on charges of other crimes. True, the investigation was clearly in a hurry to complete the new criminal case and constantly made public promises about its imminent completion, so now the convicted oligarch will not have to count on the expiration of the statute of limitations. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and their “organized group” carried out the theft of shares and oil, as well as money laundering, in 1998-2003, that is, until their arrest.
The new case of the oligarchs involves a huge number of figures - tons of oil allegedly stolen in different years from different companies, billions of dollars and rubles for which it could be sold and was actually sold. On the website of the Prosecutor General’s Office, they tried to describe in as much detail as possible the ways of transferring “black gold” abroad, they even drew a diagram. But it will still be very difficult for the average person to understand the prosecutor’s research.
So, it is assumed that in 1998, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were able to take possession of a significant share of the shares of the oil producing companies OJSC VNK, OJSC Tomskneft, OJSC Samaraneftegaz and OJSC Yuganskneftegaz. At the same time, agreements were concluded between NK YUKOS and these companies, “clearly contrary to the interests of the latter, the subject of which was the establishment of organizational conditions mandatory for the parties, necessary for the unhindered acquisition of oil.” “The agreements indicated that the transfer of ownership of the products extracted as part of the well fluid from oil producing companies to NK Yukos occurs at the mouth of each specific well, immediately after its extraction from the subsoil. Thus, oil-producing enterprises were initially placed in economically unfavorable conditions for them,” the Prosecutor General’s Office believes. Crude oil, according to investigators, was purchased at prices two to three times lower than market prices and barely covered the costs of its production. All this property was legalized through sales on the domestic market to controlled oil refineries and on the foreign market to front companies “according to a complex scheme in order to confuse their illegal nature.”
This continued until 2003, and in total during this time oil worth 892 billion 426 million 169 thousand 398 rubles was stolen from VNK, Tomskneft and Samaraneftegaz. 02 kop. At the same time, the legalization of these billions was carried out in several directions. This includes the repayment of accounts payable of Menatep Bank to foreign banks, re-registered to YUKOS, and the acquisition of Eurobonds and bonds of foreign companies, and the performance of various financial and bill transactions, and the transfer of money to the accounts of foreign companies under the guise of dividends. “In total, Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and members of the organized group in 1998-2004 legalized funds in the amount of 487 billion 402 million 487 thousand 523 rubles. 59 kopecks and 7 billion 576 million 216 thousand 501 dollars 76 cents,” investigators calculated.
Now lawyers have taken to calculators. “Elementary mathematics is bad not only for us, but also for the prosecutor’s office,” said lawyer Yuri Shmidt. Adding up the data provided by the prosecutor's office about the stolen property and its value by year, the lawyers arrived at a figure of 1 trillion 304 billion 35 million 658 thousand 892 rubles. 92 kopecks “This, excuse me, is 454 billion rubles. more than in official information from the prosecutor’s office,” said Mr. Schmidt. He promised that later the defense would prove the inconsistency of the charges brought against him. In the meantime, he noted that “these figures have nothing to do with the real state of affairs.” “They arose as a result of simple arithmetic operations performed in the quiet of offices. The investigation declared all the oil produced by YUKOS oil-producing subsidiaries stolen and calculated its value (that is, the value of the “stolen”) at world market prices, said lawyer Schmidt. “In reality, there was no theft at all.”