| The Prosecutor General's Office on Friday brought further charges against YUKOS managers. After searches were carried out at the company's office, Svetlana Bakhmina, deputy head of the legal department of YUKOS-Moscow, was arrested. One of the YUKOS lawyers, Elena Agranovskaya, was given a written undertaking not to leave. In addition, Anton Zakharov, head of the YUKOS personnel policy department, was detained for two days on suspicion of laundering money obtained by criminal means.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, searches in the offices of YUKOS were carried out in connection with the theft of 31 billion rubles belonging to the company. through the front company Fargoil. As a result of the investigative actions taken, the Prosecutor General's Office discovered another criminal community. The deputy head of the legal department of YUKOS-Moscow, Svetlana Bakhmina, was charged under several articles of the Criminal Code. “She is accused of participating, together with lawyer Dmitry Gololobov, in the misappropriation of property and assets of the Tomskneft-VNK company in the amount of more than 18 billion rubles,” says the official statement of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Mr. Gololobov, the head of the legal department, as well as his deputy Kirill Glukhovsky, were able to avoid personal communication with investigators, since a few weeks ago they left the country after searches in their offices and homes.
Among other things, the Prosecutor General's Office suspects Ms. Bakhmina, Mr. Gololobov, as well as the chief wage and labor specialist of the YUKOS-Moscow personnel policy department, Anton Zakharov, the former deputy head of the YUKOS external debt directorate, and now the head of two companies in the offshore zone of Vladimir Pereverzin and the deputy managing partner of the ALM Feldmans law office serving YUKOS, Pavel Ivlev, in the misappropriation, transfer abroad and laundering of over $10 billion. The investigation found that “members of this group developed several schemes that made it possible to buy oil from oil refining companies at a cost of about 49 dollars per ton." And then “through sales and resales, which were carried out exclusively on paper through companies located in preferential tax zones, the cost of oil increased to an average of $150 per ton.” The resulting profit, according to investigators, was transferred to the accounts of affiliated companies Ratibor and Fargoil, and from there to offshore zones. At the same time, the suspected accomplice of these crimes, Anton Zakharov, allegedly determined the procedure and amount of payments between other participants, which were formalized as remuneration for the provision of consulting services.
Another ALM Feldmans lawyer, Elena Agranovskaya, who was arrested on December 10 by decision of the Basmanny Court, was charged under three articles of the Criminal Code - misappropriation of entrusted funds, their laundering and tax evasion. However, on Friday she was released for health reasons on her own recognizance. The YUKOS press service yesterday flatly refused to comment on the events of the past week. Ekaterina BUTORINA
|
