Translated material
Astrakhan syndrome
The securities of Moscow exporters almost sank the Caspian fleet
The capital's intelligence services brought to court the first of a series of criminal cases initiated as part of the investigation into another large-scale scam involving the so-called false export. According to operatives, about 140 Moscow companies took part in it, which in 2001 alone managed to receive $800 million from the budget through fraudulent transactions. As it turned out, the scammers processed all such transactions through the Astrakhan customs, in connection with which the FSB and the Department of Internal Security After the start of the investigation, the State Customs Committee carried out another “big cleanup” in the port of Astrakhan.Employees of the Department for Economic Crimes of the South-Eastern District of Moscow came to the “Astrakhan” channel of false exports when the Ministry of Internal Affairs, at the request of the government, began sweeping inspections of all export transactions. As is known, the state undertakes to return to exporters the value added tax (VAT) - 20% of the cost - which is levied immediately after its sale. But by the end of 2000, the situation with this provision became critical, since a significant part of official exports were fictitious contracts. Fraudsters, sending either rubbish abroad or sending nothing at all, en masse presented fake export documents, demanding to pay “their” VAT.
As part of such an audit, in the summer of 2001, UBEP operatives requested from the tax inspectorates of their district documents for all exporters who wanted to refund VAT, and soon turned their attention to two companies - AvtoVAZ-Invest CJSC and ESTELES LLC. The first is quite well known in business circles - AvtoVAZ-Invest is one of the main suppliers of metal to VAZ, and shortly before this it won the tender for the sale by the Ukrainian government of shares in the Zaporozhye Aluminum Plant (ZALK). "ESTELES" was more modest - it did not participate in high-profile projects, did not even have an office and consisted only of a director and an accountant.
As detectives found out, both companies carried out a strange deal almost simultaneously in May 2001. AvtoVAZ-Invest purchased a batch of bearings worth 33.5 million rubles from a certain Tekhservistrast LLC, and then resold them to the USA at a loss to itself, for which it demanded 5.5 million rubles from the Ministry of Taxes. ESTELES, according to the document, sent - also to the USA, and also to its own detriment - a batch of domestic electrical contactors and sensors worth 259.6 million rubles. This company, accordingly, wanted to reimburse 43.2 million rubles from the budget. Moreover, the cargo of both companies (in transit through Iran) was sent through the same forwarding companies, the same Astrakhan customs office on the same ship “Captain Ezovitov”.
Businessmen provided the inspection with all the documents necessary to receive money - export contracts, bank statements about receipt of money for goods, customs marks, transaction passport, etc. But as soon as the UBEP began checking the origin of electrical equipment and bearings, they immediately came across shell companies. Thus, it turned out that the director of Tekhservistrast, Andrei Ong, who allegedly signed contracts for the sale of bearings, was actually serving time in a colony. And the director of the main company supplying bearings - Grandar LLC - turned out to be a drunkard collective farmer from the Klinsky district of the Moscow region (by the way, 30 more companies were registered under his name). At the request of the UBEP employees, the Astrakhan customs office initially confirmed that the cargo of AvtoVAZ-Invest and ESTELES had been sent abroad, but after the State Customs Committee began checking in Astrakhan, they refused the previous answer.
It is interesting that the expert on maritime transportation, whom the operatives turned to, after studying the voyage report of “Captain Ezovitov”, said that from the amount of iron that the capital’s businessmen allegedly sent on it, the ship should have immediately sunk from overload. Later, the captain of the ship confirmed that he left on that voyage with a batch of boards and did not see any bearings or electrical equipment. In Moscow, for its part, an audit of transaction documentation carried out at the request of the UBEP showed that no currency from abroad was received into the bank accounts of firms, there were no funds sufficient for transactions in their accounts at all, all transactions were of an intra-bank nature and VAT was included in the budget did not arrive. Accordingly, there is nothing to return to the “exporters”.
After the initiation of criminal cases of fraud, AvtoVAZ-Invest immediately abandoned its claims to the budget, while ESTELES continued the fight, and began to demand an additional $500 thousand in penalties. Moreover, according to the UBEP, after the refusal of the Ministry of Taxes, ESTELES filed an arbitration against the tax authorities, which, despite the investigation data, forced the federal treasury to transfer 43 million rubles to the company.
Investigators, meanwhile, recently sent the first case from the “Astrakhan” series to court - against AvtoVAZ-Invest manager Andrei Blokhintsev. The investigation into other participants in the scam - the management of this and several dozen other companies - is still ongoing. Considering that after an inspection of the Astrakhan port in Moscow, about 140 companies were discovered that registered themselves as “exporters,” investigators from almost all district police departments of Moscow have to deal with their cases.