A Tyumen resident accused of stealing money from Konstantin Strukov was detained in Odessa

In Odessa, Tyumen businessman Alexey Mikhailovsky was detained, accused of stealing more than 127 million rubles from Konstantin Strukov, a deputy of the Chelyabinsk Legislative Assembly and owner of the Yuzhuralzoloto group. The prosecutor's office of the Tyumen region has already transferred documents for his extradition to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, which will negotiate with the Ukrainian authorities on the extradition of the businessman. Representatives of Mr. Mikhailovsky are confident that there was no crime in his actions, and his criminal prosecution was initiated due to the high status of the victim.

Senior Assistant Prosecutor of the Tyumen Region Elena Melnikova announced the detention in Ukraine of the director of the Tyumen company "Trading House Termoplast", 41-year-old Alexei Mikhailovsky, yesterday. “The detention took place at the end of October in Odessa. He was taken into custody. At the moment, the prosecutor’s office of the Tyumen region has transferred to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation the materials necessary to send a request to the competent authorities of Ukraine to extradite Alexey Mikhailovsky to Russia,” explained Elena Melnikova, clarifying that the businessman is accused under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Fraud”) committed on an especially large scale").

According to Kommersant's information, the materials of the criminal case indicate that the victim was a deputy of the Chelyabinsk Legislative Assembly and owner of the Yuzhuralzoloto group, Konstantin Strukov. According to the investigators of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Tyumen Region, who were investigating the criminal case, Mr. Mikhailovsky in April 2009 offered Konstantin Strukov his services for collecting debts from one of the Tyumen companies controlled by Tyumenenergobank OJSC (the license was revoked in December 2008). As noted in the case materials, back in October 2008, the deputy provided this company (whose name was not disclosed by the investigative authorities) with a loan in the amount of 94.5 million rubles at 13.5% per annum. However, payments stopped after the bank began having problems in December 2008. At the time when Mr. Strukov agreed to Alexei Mikhailovsky’s offer of assistance in collecting debts, the amount of debt amounted to 127.7 million rubles. As a result, the deputy entered into an agency agreement for debt collection with LLC Trading House Termoplast, which was represented by Alexey Mikhailovsky. However, in the end, the investigation believes, the contract was not fulfilled: all the money that the intermediary received from the debtor was allegedly misappropriated by Mr. Mikhailovsky.

In March 2011, the criminal case against Alexey Mikhailovsky was transferred to the Sovetsky District Court of Chelyabinsk (the decision on jurisdiction was made due to the presence of the victim in this region). As explained in the district court, the case was considered only until August last year, when the defendant unexpectedly disappeared from court. “The case is suspended for now. The resumption of the hearings will take place after his extradition,” the court explained to Kommersant. It is noteworthy that it was thanks to this criminal case that the Sovetsky District Court for the first time tested the operation of a video communication system in practice. According to it, the judge communicated with most of the prosecution witnesses who are in Tyumen. For example, as participants in the trial told Kommersant, during the criminal case the court heard testimony from the former owners of Tyumenenergobank, Vladimir Nozdrachev and Ruslan Umarov. During the trial, the defendant, who did not consider himself guilty, even apologized to Konstantin Strukov, to which he replied that he was “not much poorer” from his actions (at that time Mr. Strukov occupied 126th place in the list of the richest businessmen in Russia according to Forbes).

Yesterday we were unable to contact Konstantin Strukov. It was not possible to get a comment from his lawyer Sergei Fedkin.

Representatives of the accused businessman believe that there was no corpus delicti in the actions of Alexei Mikhailovsky. “These are ordinary civil relations. In addition, it should be noted that the criminal prosecution against him began after the victim received almost all of his money - and this was heard even in court. However, apparently due to the status of the victim, they decided to organize criminal prosecution against Mikhailovsky,” explained Kommersant’s interlocutor, who is familiar with the accused businessman.

Igor Lesovskikh

Businessman of marriageable age