The ex-head of Eurofinance Mosnarbank is involved in the case of FSB Colonel Cherkalin, suspected of theft of 490 million rubles

Former member of the FSB public council and banker Vladimir Stolyarenko became one of the defendants in a high-profile criminal case in which FSB officer Kirill Cherkalin and his former subordinates were detained. Security officers are suspected of stealing hundreds of millions of rubles.

Vladimir Stolyarenko, who previously headed Eurofinance Mosnarbank, is currently hiding from the investigation. A representative of the Investigative Committee stated this on Wednesday in the Moscow City Court, TASS reports.

“Stolyarenko is suspected in the case of the theft of 490 million rubles and is hiding from the investigation along with another suspect Bondarenko (Alexander Bondarenko is a member of the board of OJSC JSCB Eurofinance Mosnarbank - TASS note ),” said a representative of the Investigative Committee.

In turn, former FSB officer Dmitry Frolov, arrested as part of the investigation of this case, in court denied the participation of Stolyarenko and Bondarenko in the criminal scheme. “As far as I know, Stolyarenko has been living abroad for more than five years, Bondarenko has not come to Russia for a year. Thus, it cannot be said that they are hiding from the investigation in this case,” Frolov said.

According to the case materials, five people are suspected of the theft of 490 million rubles: FSB Colonel Kirill Cherkalin, who for about ten years headed the 2nd Department of the FSB “K” Directorate, overseeing the Central Bank and commercial banks, his former subordinates Dmitry Frolov and Andrey Vasiliev, as well as wanted Stolyarenko and Bondarenko. Cherkalin was arrested on April 26 by the garrison military court in Moscow for two months. On April 26, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow arrested Frolov and Vasilyev until June 25.

On May 19, a video was published of searches at Cherkalin’s place, during which security forces seized at least ten bags containing 12 billion rubles in cash. This is a record seizure of black cash. The previous record also belonged to a high-ranking security official - 9 billion rubles were found during searches in the apartments of Interior Ministry Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko.

As follows from the materials of the criminal case, Frolov and Vasiliev in 2011, being active FSB officers and members of an organized criminal group, using their official position and the authority of their position, misled the victim Sergei Glyadelkin. They convinced him to transfer to them a share in the authorized capital of Yurpromconsulting LLC for a total amount of 490 million rubles. For this, they promised the victim to stop the criminal prosecution, which jeopardized the implementation of the businessman’s investment projects for the construction of residential buildings in Moscow. After receiving rights to the victim's property, everything was distributed among the group members.

Frolov and Vasiliev were previously dismissed from military service due to compromising circumstances. They do not admit guilt.

Cherkalin’s case is being investigated by the GVSU of the Russian Investigative Committee, and his former subordinates by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. According to the investigation, Cherkalin also received a bribe of $850 thousand from the head of one of the commercial firms for general patronage in the period from 2013 to 2015.

According to RBC, the defendants Stolyarenko and Bondarenko were previously on the board of directors of TNT and NTV television channels. In 2016, Kommersant called Stolyarenko a “federal-level functionary” because in 2012-2013 he was on the board of directors of Zarubezhneft, a state-owned company leading oil projects in Vietnam, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the CIS countries.

The publication "Secret of the Firm" in 2005 connected Stolyarenko with banker and "Putin's friend" Yuri Kovalchuk, in whose interests he made several transactions in the media market.

In 2010-2014, Stolyarenko was a member of the public council under the FSB of Russia. Since 2007, he also taught at the Higher School of Economics (HSE), was a professor in the department of theory and practice of interaction between business and government under the leadership of the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin. Now Stolyarenko’s page on the university’s website has been deleted, but its version dated May 12 is preserved in the Google cache .

Stolyarenko was awarded the Order of Honor in 2012 “for the achieved labor successes and many years of conscientious work.” In 2006, he received gratitude from President Vladimir Putin for his services in preparing and hosting the meeting of heads of state and government of the G8 member countries in St. Petersburg. In the same year, Stolyarenko earned the title “Best Banker of Russia.”