All news

Criminal case opened against Navalny brothers for fraud, money laundering

The detectives found that “Oleg and Alexei Navalny misappropriated over 55 million roubles from the trading company in a fraud
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, December 14 (Itar-Tass) —— The criminal case was opened against the Navalny brothers for fraud and money laundering, spokesman for the Russian Investigation Committee Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Friday.

“The Main Investigation Department of the Russian Investigation Committee opened a criminal case against Alexei Navalny, his brother Oleg Navalny and other people for the crimes under Article 159 Part 4 clauses a, b, and Article 174.1 Part 2 of the Criminal Code for a massive fraud, which was committed by an organized criminal group, and for the legalization of the funds, which were acquired in the criminal way, by a criminal group in a preliminary conspiracy and with office abuse,” Markin said.

“The detectives found that Alexei Navalny had founded the main press subscription agency, in which his acquaintance, who had no relation to its further operation, was a nominal founder and the general director,” Markin said. “In 2008 Oleg Navalny, who worked as the head of the domestic post delivery department in a subsidiary of the Post of Russia federal state unitary enterprise that was specialized in the automated mail distribution hubs, defrauded a representative of a trading company with the foreign capital that conducted the commercial operation in Russia to conclude a contract for the gross mail delivery by the main press subscription agency. Meanwhile, the services for the freight shipments were planned to provide at the deliberately overstated prices and not through Navalny’s company, which lacked the material base for this operation, but with the assistance of another shipping company, which Oleg Navalny’s acquaintance ruled,” Markin noted.

The detectives found that “from August 2008 to May 2011 this shipping company provided the mail delivery services to a foreign trading company on the Yaroslavl-Moscow route. For these services the trading company transferred a much larger sum than the volume of the freight shipments to an account of the main press subscription agency.

“With the real cost of freight shipments to the tune of more than 31 million roubles, which were actually made by the shipping enterprise, over 55 million roubles were transferred to the account of the main subscription agency for the alleged shipping services,” Markin said.

Thus, the detectives found that “Oleg and Alexei Navalny misappropriated over 55 million roubles from the trading company in a fraud. The Navalny brothers spent a larger part of this sum for their own needs, and transferred over 19 million roubles from this sum to the account of the Kobyakovo willow weaving factory, at which the Navalny brothers were among the founders, in order to legalize the funds acquired in the illegal way on false grounds and under the contracts for the alleged rent of non-residential housing, for the raw materials and other relevant materials.”

“The investigation actions are being taken to gather more evidence for the involvement of the Navalny brothers in this crime,” Markin said in conclusion.

Meanwhile, Alexei Navalny is accused of masterminding the Kirovles property misappropriation and he was put on recognizance not to leave the city. This criminal article envisages up to ten years in prison and a possible additional fine of up to one million roubles. Thus, the budget in the Kirov Region sustained more than 16 million roubles of damages.