Detained by the head of the MFI Menatep Platon Lebedev

Law enforcement agencies detained in Moscow the chairman of the board of directors of CJSC MFI Menatep , shareholder of the oil company Yukos Platon Lebedev.

As Interfax was told on Wednesday in the Office of Information and Public Relations of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, the basis for initiating a criminal case and the detention of Lebedev was the materials for checking the appeal of the State Duma deputy, deputy chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship Vladimir Yudin.

"Lebedev is suspected of the theft in 1994 of a 20% package of shares of Apatit OJSC, belonging to the state, in the amount of 283 million 142 thousand dollars ( article 159 of the Russian Federation of the Criminal Code ). It is currently being interrogated by investigators of the Prosecutor General’s Office," the Prosecutor General’s report said.

He owns about 7% of the shares in the Menatep group and manages personal packages of shares of top managers of the Yukos NK - about 61% of the authorized capital of the oil company.

In the latest rating of billionaires , Forbes magazine estimated Plato Lebedev at a billion dollars .

Platon Lebedev is the chairman of the board of directors of the Menatep Group, the Management of shares of the Yukos NK, Menatep St. Petersburg, NPF Progress Production, Trust Bank.

Forbes dossier on Plato Lebedev

In 2003, Plato Lebedev was included in the list of the richest people, which is annually compiled by Forbes magazine, at number 427 .

Here is the data of the magazine to Plato Lebedev:
46 years

The field of activity - oil

Condition - 1 billion dollars

Citizenship - Russia

Family status: married, three children

In 1989, Plato Lebedev headed the Department of Economic Planning in the Department of Foreign Trade in the Ministry of Geology of the USSR. In the same year, his former colleagues invited Lebedev to work in Menatep Bank - the cornerstone of the financial empire of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

As president of the bank in the early 1990s, Lebedev conducted a number of financial transactions in Switzerland and other offshore zones.

Now, being the director of the Menatep group, Lebedev acts as a “keeper” of assets of the financial empire of Khodorkovsky.

Lawyers of the MFI Menatep prepare a protest in connection with the detention of Lebedev

The head of the MFI Menatep Platon Lebedev answers on Wednesday evening to questions of the Prosecutor General’s Office. This was announced by his press secretary Yuri Kotler.

According to him, on Wednesday evening, Plato Lebedev and lawyers of the company are in the prosecutor's office and are inaccessible to comment. The spokeswoman also said that he did not have information on what basis Plato Lebedev was detained.

"We consider this detention illegal and the lawyers of the MFI Menatep are preparing a protest," Kotler said.

The Chairman of the Board of the NK Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky , commenting on the charges of the prosecutor's office, told the agency for oil information: "By the nature of the actions, this is very like what we recently read about" werewolves in uniform ", which were blackmailing the small business."

Immediately after the arrest of Lebedev, the quotes for the purchase of Yukos ADR decreased

Quotes for the purchase of American depository receipts (ADR) on the shares of the Yukos oil company in the US Offiring Market decreased on Wednesday compared to the level of the Russian trading system by almost 5.5% and by 22:00 Moscow time amounted to $ 55 per ADR (13.75 dollars per share).

So reacted the stock market to the news about the detention by law enforcement agencies of Russia, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CJSC MFI Menatep, the financial center of the oil company Yukos -Platon Lebedev.

According to Dmitry Starenko, the head of the aton investment company, the news about the initiation of a criminal case against Lebedev and a number of other employees of the Yukos NK was actually received after the closure of the Russian and European stock markets. In the American market, according to the representative of Aton, Yukos’s securities are represented only on the off -road sector, but even there they are traded without significant volumes.

“The sprada is being expanded between quotes for the purchase and sale now. Currently, the purchase costs at 55 dollars for one ADR ($ 13.75 per share), and sale at 57.5 dollars ($ 14.375 per share), but there are practically no real transactions,” Starenko said.

"Now many are calling and interested in what to do, we recommend that investors do not panic and wait for the opening of the market on Thursday," he added.

The Prosecutor General’s Office opened cases against other Yukos employees

In addition, the Office of the Prosecutor General’s Office noted, the other day the Prosecutor General’s Office charged the head of one of the Security Service of the NK Yukos Alexei Pichugin . He is accused of organizing the murder in November 2002 two people in one of the regional centers of Russia ( Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ).

In relation to Pichugin, the court authorized the preventive measure - detention, the Prosecutor General’s Office said.

Meanwhile, as Interfax told sources in law enforcement agencies, the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Central Federal District is investigating a criminal case of theft of property belonging to the state.

During the investigation, it was found that in 1998, the general director of one of the enterprises of NK Yukos - OJSC Eastern Oil Company (VNK) - R. Burganov , using the official position, assigned a package of shares belonging to the state in OJSC VNK worth more than 1 billion rubles.

According to sources, Burganov disappeared from the investigation and is currently on the federal and international wanted list.

In June 2001, he was charged with an absentee case under Article 160 of the 3rd Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (appropriation or embezzlement, that is, the theft of someone else's property entrusted to the guilty, organized by a large -scale group), he was chosen a preventive measure - detention.