The same people and companies, "cleansing" the money of Mexican drug lords, serve the interests and football functionaries

As budget money allocated for the maintenance of the Rostov football club, his vice president has turned into Spanish real estate

The statement “In Russia, part of budget money is withdrawn by officials and their partners abroad in offshore for the acquisition of elite real estate” is often perceived on faith as an axiom. But we decided to prove this as a theorem, based on facts and documents. Here is the "Theorem of the Rostov Football Club".

Anti -crisis manager

On June 30, 2014, the Interdistrict Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service (MIFNS) No. 23 in the Rostov Region issued a decision No. 53/1 (copy of the editorial office) on the involvement of Rostov football club to tax liability. The composition of the offense is non -payment of certain types of taxes (VAT and personal income tax) for the period 2010-2013. A field audit, as a result of which the club was given taxes in the amount of 80 million rubles, was carried out on the basis of the appeal of the President of the Russian Football Union (RFU) Nikolai Tolstykh. Then, I remind you, the football club and the head of the football federation had a conflict: the RFU Commission for licensing refused to issue documents to participate in competitions under the auspices of UEFA. However, in the cassation instance - the Sports Arbitration Court of Lausanne (CAS) - this decision was canceled.

We talked about some transactions that have interested tax authorities last year (see No. 80 of July 23, 2014).

A significant part of these transactions occurred for the period of the club by the club by a group of managers, including the vice-president of the football club Alexander Shikunov, under whose curators the selection service is located. As well as an employee of the breeding department and at the same time senior partner of football agent Oleg Artemov Alexei Ryskin.

Alexander Shikunov is a personality for Rostov-on-Don legendary. He returned to the team twice, saving her from departure from the Russian Premier League. For this he gained the glory of the "anti -crisis manager."

This status of chicunes must be obliged to not only select the players' teams necessary for the style of playing, but also act far beyond the game itself - using delicate methods for this.

In June 2012, the Government of the Rostov Region, which owned the control package of the Rostov football club, again turned to Shikunov for help. And he did not smash - he helped not only save the team in the elite division, but also win the Russian Cup in 2013. For a rescue operation, the club had to attract a number of qualified football players, many of whom were free agents (that is, they did not have a contract with another club), which helped to save on transfers payments. But the club generously paid for the services of some Russian and foreign football agents, who seemed to contribute to the move of players to the shores of the Don.

For a long time we tried to find out which of the transactions with the agents were real and which were fictitious.

Particular attention was attracted by the “Provision of Services for the Organization of the Labor Agreement with the Sinam-Pongol Floran Stefan, concluded between the club and the Friends & Football International LLC. This deal was the first after returning to the club of sports management (under the leadership of Alexander Shikunov). In addition, this paper seemed to be the most “mysterious” in the act of verification of the tax inspectorate: “There is no signature in the contract”, “There are no information about the agent”.

Using the investigative principle of Follow the Money (follow the money), we tracked the path of funds from the club to the final beneficiary of this deal.

What kind of money is this

To begin with, we will understand the sources of financing the Rostov football club. In March 2012, Governor Vasily Golubev signed a decree of the Government of the Rostov Region dated 05.04.2012 No. 249. The governor approved the provision “On the Procedure for Providing subsidies to clubs in gaming sports registered and located in the Rostov Region ...”. With this position, the main manager of the budget funds provided by the Rostov football club in the form of a subsidy, the Ministry of Sports of the Rostov Region was appointed, and among the reimbursable costs, the Club’s expenses to pay for the transfer of the professional athlete. Since the interpretation of the concept of “transfer” in the Rostov region was quite wide, from budget sources, the club’s expenses to pay for the services of football agents were reimbursed.

The Ministry of Sports of the Rostov Region did not respond to the request of Novaya Gazeta about which part of the budget went to pay off the club’s obligations to agents on transactions concluded in the summer and autumn 2012. But in a private conversation, an employee of the sports department said that "the transactions were completely closed at the expense of budget money."

Thus, we can assume that the expenses of the Rostov football club to pay for the services of the agent Friends & Football International LLC (FFI) under the Agreement No. 65-08/12 of 08/31/2012, worth 1 million euros for the football player of the Sinam-Pongol Floram Stephanes were reimbursed from the budget of the Rostov region. Who became the owner of this million?

Long road to offshore

According to the commercial register of the American state, Delaver, where FFI is registered, the owners and management managers of the company are hidden. In accordance with the agent agreement, the intermediary company in the transaction on the transfer of Sinam-Pongol was represented by the licensed agent of FIFA, a citizen of Serbia Act Yoksimovich. According to the site Transfermarkt.com, analyzing the connection of football agents with players and publishing the cost valuation of players, FFI and Act Yoksimovich were never associated with this football player. It was not possible to get the comments of Yoksimovich - during the previous week the phone of the Serbian agent did not answer.

According to MIFNS No. 23, FFI agency remuneration was paid from the Club’s foreign exchange account on September 19, 2012 in the amount of 1 million euros (the basis for transfer No. 2 of 09/19/2012, PS 12090002/0469/0000/4/0). According to Rosfinmonitoring, funds were received from the club’s account to the Russian National Bank LLC to the counterparty account at the Atlasmont Banka AD Chernogorsk Bank. The rights to Sinam-Pongol until September 6, 2012 belonged to the Portuguese club "Sporting", but at the time of the conclusion of the employment contract, the football player was already a free agent, which is "confirmed by the written explanation of the club" received by the MIFNS No. 23.

The day after receiving the money from Rostov, with the issue of the origin of which we have already figured out, FFI entered into an agreement (document 1, document 2) with Trademarket Networks LP, registered in Scotland (Suite 1, 78 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh). The subject of the contract was “the provision of the French player Sinam-Pongol to the Russian football club Rostov, and among the special merits of Trademarket Networks LP, its actions“ for successful mediation in the transition of the French player from Sporting to Rostov ”are indicated. The employer pledged to pay 650 thousand euros to his British partner.

According to the employee of the Commission on the RFU agency activity, such transactions are “devoid of legal meaning, and therefore they are negligible - their main conditions are services that are no longer required in connection with the transition of the football player.” That is, Trademarket Networks LP could be used simply as a link for further money.

In the UK commercial register, information about the owners and management of Trademarket Networks LP is absent due to the special form of the company (Limited Partnership). However, something is known from the agreement concluded with the FFI: for example, the interests of the company were represented by a certain Taras Sokolovsky, and its settlement bank-As Privatbank, the Latvian “daughter” of the Privat group of Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.

According to the SWIFT banking system, the money was fully received by the Trademarket Networks LP in the Latvian bank on October 1, 2012. According to an employee of Rosfinmonitoring, a delay in time was due to the fact that the Privatbank protection system blocked the payment, identifying it as suspicious.

On the same day, Trademarket Networks LP transferred the previously received cash volume of another British company Drensler LLP (Suite 1, The Studio, St. Nicholas Clo Se Elstree, Herdfortshire WD 6), all in the same AS Privatbank. This company is the next link in the chain of money, and much more is known about it. According to the British commercial register, Drensler LLP was registered in 2006 and for a long time belonged to the British Milltown Corporate Services Limited and Ireland & Overseas Acquisites Limited.

These two structures are well known in the world of transnational crime: the services of the companies established by them were used by criminal groups of various countries and stripes - from the Mexican drug carthes to the Asian Triad. One of the latest facts about Milltown and Ireland & Overseas is to receive Gazenergolising controlled by him (the possible beneficiary of which was called the closest supporter of Viktor Yanukovych, the people's deputy of Ukraine Yuri Ivanyushchenko) of three billion hryvnias from the Ukrainian budget for state contracts in the energy industry.

It is noteworthy that in the financial report of Drensler LLP for 2012, there are no complete information about profitable and expenditure operations, and the company has 118 thousand pounds.

An employee of Rosfinmonitoring explains that the practice of concealment from British justice of genuine information by interferential companies is considered quite common: “This is a purely English principle: what is happening outside the country does not concern them. The account was not opened in a London bank - which means that washing formally occurred through another jurisdiction. Although the English company was used only as a screen. The banking account was almost certainly ruled from Riga, Moscow or Rostov. ”

However, for people who administered the laundering process, the source of the origin of money is not so important. But it is important for us to understand that the scope of applications for the legalization of funds is expanding at the expense of sports: “cleansing” the money of Mexican drug dealers, the same people and companies serve the interests of football functionaries.

It remains to find out what. To do this, we will return to the further movement of the money, because the Drensler LLP in Privatbank accounts did not last long.

Beneficiers

On October 8, 2012, according to the SWIFT banking system, Drensler LLP transferred 167 thousand euros to the Barcelonian bank Caixabank SA to the account opened in his branch at Ibitsa Alexander Shikunov. According to the Cadastral Register of Spain, in November 2012, Alexander Shikunov and his wife Tatyana Shikunova (who probably had an equal access to the account in Caixabank SA) acquired elite apartments with an area of ​​116 square meters. meters and market value of 506 thousand euros.

Under the terms of the transaction, 123 thousand euros were paid to the former owner of real estate to repay his mortgage loan, and to pay the rest of the cost of the apartment, the spouses were taken by a mortgage loan all in the same Caixabank SA

In the future, according to the SWIFT banking system, Drensler LLP has twice transferred 50 thousand euros to the expense of Alexander Shikunov in Caixabank SA - March 19 and June 30. There could be other transactions from Trademarket Networks and Drensler - we are currently trying to get documentary evidence.

We managed to contact Alexander Shikunov and indicate him the topic of the investigation, however, the Vice President of Rostov refused to answer questions by phone, and the meeting initiated by him did not take place.

The following picture is obtained: the budget of the Rostov Region from the club was sent to the Chernogorsky bank to the company's account registered in the American state of Delaver, then migrated to the Latvian bank to the British company, whose associated persons are suspected by foreign law enforcement officers of money laundering, and then found their owner in the person of Alexander Shikunov, who purchased real estate in an elite elite The municipality of Spain is ibits.

Governor and second term

One question remains: who got the rest of the hundreds of thousands of euros, withdrawn from the club through this long chain of offshore? The statutory documents of the Rostov football club and its form of ownership (OJSC) establish a tough executive procedure for the commission of large transactions - and the payment of 1 million euros to the agent, taking into account the low balance value of the club’s assets, should be considered the decision on approval should be made by the board of directors. He was and remains completely compiled from representatives of Don bureaucracy and business elites.

Did these respected people know how budget money is used in the club? If not, it is time for them to be the first to beat the alarm, requiring at least a procedural check.

According to the employee of the Ministry of Sports of the Rostov Region, during the period of the transaction “to sign” Sinam-Pongol, Rostov’s operations was controlled by the club president, the first vice-governor Sergey Gorban, who became the mayor of Rostov-on-Don in November last year. However, he continues the interlocutor, according to large expenses, reported to the governor.

Vasily Golubev, appointed by the Governor of the Rostov Region in June 2010, has a very reverent attitude to the main sports property of the region - the Rostov football club. To understand how much he loves his team, it is enough to recall his strict reaction to the critical letter of the head of the RFU Nikolai Tolstoy, in which he reported gross financial violations in the club.

Tolstoy was far from the only person who received the governor’s turn from the gate for trying to change the situation in Rostov. Don officials and law enforcement officers who made sluggish attempts to stop the uncontrolled use of budget money by a football club.

The last “victim of football fever” was the Minister of Sports of the Rostov Region Yuri Balakhnin - for the lawsuit filed by his department to the club for unjust enrichment. From the applicant’s documents it followed that Rostov did not report on the use of 35 million rubles transferred to him in the form of subsidies in 2014. “You must help the club, not insert sticks into the wheels,” the head of the subject regarded the actions of the ministry. These words finally overwhelmed the patience of a number of employees of the regional Ministry of Sports, one of them shares: “Our actions to appeal to the court were inevitable. We must either go to prison for the misuse of money, or forcibly recover it from the club, which did not report to them either agreements or acts of work performed. We are responsible for budget money and are obliged to have documents confirming the targeted use of subsidies. ”

Meanwhile, the total volume of obligations of the football club can be more than 300 million rubles. The Federal Tax Service for the Rostov Region last December announced the identification of a tax arrears in the amount of 150 million rubles (83 million rubles have already been paid), about 150 million Rostov owed football players and the coaching staff, and the other day, one of its largest creditors-Agrofest-Don LLC, applied to the club for 100 million rubles,, and one million rubles. Contributed by the Fedcom group of entrepreneur Alexei Fedorychev.

But the administration of the Rostov region does not blame, at least publicly, in the crisis situation, the football club management system. And in principle, the state of affairs does not dramatize-on the contrary, he searches for sponsors for stable and successful activities of the club, which Golubev himself stated at a press conference in January of this year. At the same time, by the way, the main fan of Rostov announced his intention to run for the post of governor in the fall of this year, with a reservation traditional for such cases - “with the support of the President and the population”. “Anticrisis managers” from Rostov-on-Don will surely be happy for the second term of the current boss.