Key defendant in case of attempted theft of Pension Fund funds detained

In Ryazan, 27-year-old Kirill Ustinov, one of the members of a criminal group that almost stole 1.25 billion rubles from the Russian Pension Fund (PFR) in November last year, was detained. It was possible to expose the criminals, among whom were former top managers of Kuban Bank Alexander Brazhnikov and Svetlana Gorskikh, who were arrested in April 2010, and to prevent the theft of money almost at the stage of transferring it abroad. Today the Tverskoy Court of Moscow will consider the investigation's request for the arrest of Kirill Ustinov.

As they say in the Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, which is investigating this case, Kirill Ustinov was one of the key figures in the criminal chain that almost stole an unprecedented amount from the Pension Fund. The operation was carefully planned by the attackers. Let us recall that the fraudster, who turned out to be Kirill Ustinov, submitted two false payment orders to OPERA-1 at the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on Friday at the end of the working day, apparently in the expectation that the bankers would not have time to verify the legality of the payment before the beginning of next week. As follows from the documents, 1.25 billion rubles. should have been used to “finance the costs of capital investments and design work for the construction of Pension Fund facilities.” Having accepted payment slips from the client, which, as the investigation later established, were prepared by Kirill Ustinov himself, the Central Bank began transferring money. As a result, the entire amount was transferred to the account of the front company Spetstekhprom LLC in Kuban Bank. Three more days later, 1.25 billion rubles. under fictitious agreements, they were transferred in six tranches to other banks for companies with accounts in one of the banks in Cyprus (Kommersant spoke in detail about this case on November 18, 2009). The scammers were only hours away from success. However, on Monday morning, when the Pension Fund received an extract from the Central Bank about the transfer of money, it turned out that the fund had not given such an order. The leadership of the Pension Fund immediately contacted the Central Bank. As a result, the transaction was suspended and the recipients' accounts were blocked. As a result, the entire amount was returned to the Pension Fund’s accounts.

A criminal case was initiated on this fact in accordance with Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale), and employees of the Department of Economic Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation began searching for criminals. The first arrests in this case were made in April 2010, when former top managers of Kuban Bank (the license was revoked in November 2009), Alexander Brazhnikov and Svetlana Gorskikh, were behind bars. On April 21, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow authorized their arrest.

At the same time, seizures of documents were carried out in the Moscow branch of the Tver Commercial Bank KBC, in the Russian-German Trade Bank, as well as searches in the offices of front structures to whose accounts the money was transferred. Investigators also conducted searches in the apartments of those arrested. As a result, it was possible to discover “documentation incriminating the suspects.” Only Kirill Ustinov managed to escape. As it turned out, while on the run, the suspect used five mobile phones at once, changed 23 subscriber numbers over the course of a year, did not fly on planes, did not travel on trains and only used taxis. According to operatives, at the same time he participated in other scams - the FSB suspects him of a number of fraudulent activities using passports lost by citizens.

Kirill Ustinov was found in Ryazan. Moreover, this time he also almost managed to escape - someone called his mobile phone, saying that the police knew his whereabouts. He didn't have time to escape. During the searches in his apartment, about 130 seals were seized, including from arbitration courts, the Moscow Economic Crime Department and tax inspectorates, as well as documents on the financial and economic activities of various commercial organizations. They also found a passport in his name in the name of 27-year-old Sergei Prusakov, which he used to steal 1.25 billion rubles.

Yesterday Kirill Ustinov was transferred from Ryazan to Moscow. Today the Tverskoy Court of Moscow will consider the investigation's request for his arrest.

Oleg Rubnikovich

The court will evaluate the billion-dollar payment