Cyprus extradites a woman convicted in absentia in the case of embezzlement of funds from a Yukos subsidiary

The former director of Rekma V.G. LLC was extradited to Russia from Cyprus Natalya Konovalova. She was put on the international wanted list in 2008, and in 2013, a Samara court found her guilty in absentia of stealing 1.5 billion rubles from the former Yukos subsidiary, Tomskneft VNK OJSC. and sentenced to five years in prison.

On Monday, the law enforcement agencies of Cyprus, having satisfied the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, handed over the former director of Rekma V.G. LLC to the employees of the National Central Bureau of Interpol and the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. Natalia Konovalova. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported this.

Natalya Konovalova was involved in the activities of an organized crime group (OCG) that stole about 6 billion rubles. the former "daughter" of YUKOS - OJSC Tomskneft VNK (the largest oil refining company in the Tomsk region, after the liquidation of YUKOS in 2007, Rosneft and Gazprom Neft became co-owners). The organized crime group was headed, according to law enforcement officials, by the ex-manager of Tomskneft VNK OJSC, former deputy of the Tomsk Regional Duma Sergei Shimkevich. In 2005, he entered into a number of agreements on the sale of oil produced by a Yukos subsidiary with Samara-based Rekma V.G. LLC. The general director of the enterprise at that time was Natalya Konovalova, and her deputy and owner of the company was Sergei Shimkevich’s cousin Vyacheslav. The contracts with Rekma were fictitious; oil from the Samara company was sold at a price 20% below the market price. Rekma resold the oil received from the Tomsk company to its counterparties at real cost. Thus, the damage to Tomskneft amounted to more than 1.5 billion rubles. Vyacheslav Shimkevich and Natalya Konovalova subsequently cashed out these funds and used them at their own discretion.

Oil spilled into the colony

In addition, in 2006, they illegally received more than 35 million rubles belonging to Tomskneft VNK’s subsidiary, Tomskneft-Service LLC. According to the prosecution, for this purpose, Rekma V.G. LLC was included in the company’s founders. Under the guise of distributing annual profits for 2005, with the knowledge of Sergei Shimkevich, 36.2 million rubles were transferred to the accounts of the Samara company. Subsequently, the money was transferred to the accounts of the company's managers as year-end bonuses. According to kartoteka.ru , Rekma V.G. LLC was listed among the founders of Tomskneft-Service LLC from April 2005 to November 2009. The company was liquidated in April 2012.

In August 2013, the Oktyabrsky District Court of Samara found Natalya Konovalova and Vyacheslav Shimkevich guilty of complicity in embezzlement (Part 5 of Article 33 and Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as of laundering proceeds of crime (Part 3 of Art. 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced them to five years in a general regime colony each. Lawyers for the convicts appealed this decision to the Samara Regional Court, but in November of the same year the verdict was upheld.

Let us note that both decisions were made in absentia, since Natalya Konovalova and Vyacheslav Shimkevich, according to court materials, were at that time outside the Russian Federation. According to the lawyers of the convicted, they did not admit their guilt.

According to the press service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Natalya Konovalova was put on the wanted list through Interpol in December 2008, and two years later - in December 2010 - she was detained in Cyprus. However, Konovalova’s extradition was achieved four years later.

According to court materials, Vyacheslav Shimkevich was also put on the international wanted list. There was no information about his detention or extradition.

Sergei Shimkevich was sentenced in this case by the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow in March 2010. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, later the Moscow City Court reduced this term by one year. New charges and trial soon followed. This time, the former manager of Tomskneft was accused of stealing almost 460 million rubles from the company he headed. and tax evasion. On this charge, the Dorogomilovsky Court of the capital added two years to his existing sentence. The final punishment is 13 years in prison and a fine of 1 million rubles. In May 2013, after the economic part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was softened, he was released on parole.

Ekaterina Vyushkova, Samara

The verdict awaited extradition