"Squeeze out" a billion. How is business taken away in Russia? - What are your next steps?
And here is an example from real life. In 2012, a subsidiary of the Industrial Group "ALSIKO" - LLC "CEOMAKS" - through the illegal alienation of 100% of the shares, immediately loses two of its industrial enterprises in the Oryol region, engaged in the extraction and processing of zeolites - OJSC "Melor" and OJSC "Promzeolite". According to experts, the total market value of enterprises at that time was more than one billion rubles. True, the “loss” was not discovered immediately, but only a few months later, when the management of ALSICO requested extracts from the official registrar and found that the business no longer belongs to them. Even more interesting details came to light in the course of litigation. It turned out that former employees of the company and business partners, including the well-known media mogul Aram Gabrelyanov, are behind the "mysterious disappearance" of the assets.
“In 2009, the Cypriot company TIG Minerel Resources Companies Ltd, whose interests in Russia are represented by the son of Aram Gabrelyanov, Ashot Gabrelyanov, and an employee of his media holding, Andrey Mushkin, bought a 49% stake in TSEOMAKS. But, apparently, this was not enough for them - they wanted to become full owners of the entire business, therefore, after some time, Aram Gabrelyanov, on behalf of TIG Minerel Resources Companies Ltd, wrote in writing to the management of ALSICO with a proposal to give his share to him for management, promising to pay off in a few years, - says CEO of ALSICO Group Alexander Kazachenko.“But since there were no agreements with him on the transfer of our share of assets and he did not give us any specific guarantees, we refused him. And soon we found out that both industrial enterprises of ZEOMAKS no longer belong to us.
As the court later established, the company's shares, using forged documents and bypassing the procedures established by law, were sold to the former shareholder of ALSICO Valery Bagdasarov and his daughter Sabine Danielyan for a ridiculous amount of 1.8 million rubles. which is almost 550 times lower than the real market value. But here's what's interesting: the documents on the alienation of assets were signed by Ashot Gabrelyanov and Andrey Mushkin. Further, the events developed as follows: after a while, the Bagdasarov family resold the shares they got so inexpensively to the same Cypriot offshore, but already for $ 2 million. And its representatives, having almost immediately gained control over OAO Melor and OAO Promzeolite, tried to resell these enterprises at their present value for $35 million. This often happens with raider schemes. However, the court, which imposed a ban on further resale of the assets of the seized companies, prevented the new offshore business owners from realizing their plans. It also became known that the same group of persons participated in the seizure of other property of ALSICO.
Sticks in the wheels
The leadership of ALSICO, of course, began to seek the return of enterprises through the courts. But it was not so easy to do so.
“Our opponents, apparently implementing a well-known raider tactic, wrote statements against ALSICO to law enforcement agencies, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee and even the FSB,” Alexander Kazachenko continues. “They spoke openly about their high patrons. But after all the checks, it turned out that the statements were false. They also tried to mislead the courts. Nevertheless, we managed to prove our case. The courts, including the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, declared the transactions for the alienation of shares invalid, they directly indicated that the documents were fake. They also confirmed the damage caused by the actions of the invaders to enterprises - about 500 million rubles. But so far we have not been able to return the seized assets.”
As it turned out, the recognition of the illegality of the alienation of shares does not automatically return control over the companies to the rightful owners. To restore the right of ownership, you need to reclaim property from someone else's illegal possession. Those are separate claims.
“Now we are engaged in them, but they continue to put sticks in our wheels. So, in relation to our enterprise, "CEOMAKS" was fabricated retroactively, we believe, a false debt to third parties in the amount of more than 300 million rubles, - Alexander Kazachenko assures. - At the same time, our opponents, without our participation, although we are the owners of a controlling stake, held a meeting of the founders of TSEOMAKS and transferred the registration of the company from Moscow to Orel. Apparently, there they expect to find support in the person of former government officials and influence the outcome of the process. In addition, in Moscow courts they are already known as raiders - this is directly indicated by court decisions. But we hope for the triumph of justice.
All these actions, ALSICO is sure, are carried out with one goal - to inflict damage and bankrupt CEOMAX. There will be no place to return the stolen enterprises. In the meantime, representatives of the injured party are “drowning” in the courts, illegally alienated enterprises continue to work for new owners, although not so successfully.
“The first two years, according to our data, things were not going well for them. At first, in order to ensure uninterrupted shipment of goods, they lured several traders from ALSICO, but still lost some key markets and a number of partners,” says Alexander Kazachenko.
Seeing how your business is being “killed”, the interlocutor admits, was hard. There is a unique deposit of zeolites in the Khotynets district of the Oryol region. But to master it, it took a lot of effort, money and time. Everything had to start from scratch: they explored the deposit, equipped it, then built a plant - all this in an open field. And only a few years later the first products appeared. Every year, production volumes grew, enterprises developed.
But it turned out that if someone likes your business, it will be taken away at any moment. And this is in the 21st century! We have a stable country where you can and should plan your future, develop your business, believing that a person with high patrons will never come and take away what he liked with impunity. After all, this causes great harm, first of all, to the business climate in Russia.
Laid out by Anonymous International. The former owner of this business - Alexander Kazachenko - studied the materials of the correspondence, and found in it confirmation of what he managed to prove with such difficulty in court.
The published new materials (in the part that is known to me and which concerns Gabrelyanov's zeolite business) shed new light on a number of episodes about the illegal activities of this group of persons. We also have information that this Cypriot offshore TIJ represents the interests of Gabrelyanov and we have access to the financial documentation of this offshore, confirming that he is the owner of the zeolite business seized from us. At the same time, Mushkin in the courts in every possible way refused to be involved in this offshore, refused to name its real beneficiaries. Bagdasarov also claims in the courts that this offshore company is not the owner of the zeolite business. However, in these letters, Mushkin confirms that Aram Gabrelyanov and his son Ashot are the owners of the Trust behind these Cypriot offshore companies.
The following figures look especially revealing: Bagdasarov, using fake documents, seized these assets from Alsico at a price of 1.8 million rubles and immediately resold them to the Gabrelyan offshore, but at a price of $2 million. Further, in the letter, Mushkin consults with Gabrelyanov whether to sell these assets to Deko Minerals at a price of $35 million. This is if they sell immediately, and then, in the future, the price will be more expensive.
This is such a profitable business: “buy” an asset at a price of 1.8 million rubles, and sell it at a price of 35 million dollars!
From this correspondence between Gabrelyanov and Mushkin, it clearly and obviously follows that they finance Bagdasarov (they call him by his patronymic - Rachikovich). Mushkin directly writes that "resources for the war" are needed and that "the case is open and the skating rink has begun." It is clear what kind of war resources are needed and it is clear what kind of open case we are talking about - just before the date of this letter, according to Bagdasarov's statement, a criminal case was initiated against Alsiko. Bagdasarov boasted in front of witnesses how he manages the investigation. Also, in my opinion, Mushkin's phrase says a lot about that "until the passenger has landed" - the money will not be paid to Rachikovich and that Bagdasarov, "according to the concepts, should swallow it." The fact is that some time after the date of this letter, I was attacked by persons of Caucasian appearance, with the aim of stealing documents compromising this entire group of people. It has not yet been possible to prove the direct involvement of Gabrelyanov and Bagdasarov in this, but I do not believe in coincidences of this kind. In my opinion, in this letter, Mushkin reports to Gabrelyanov about the work done and asks to allocate money for further illegal activities, apparently also carried out "according to concepts."
In general, our business has progressed, but not as far as we would like. We win a lot of court cases on obvious and obvious violations of the law by our opponents, but they apply to the highest courts and there many of our winning cases are canceled and the courts return to the first instance and everything goes around again.
At the same time, a number of court decisions taken against us are clearly and obviously illegal. And nothing can be done about it. Judges, without raising their eyes, make decisions in which they reject or do not notice obvious arguments, and they answer our indignations in the same way: “If you don’t like it, complain!” Complaining, as we have already understood, is useless, we have already reached the Supreme Court and the Chairman of the Supreme Court several times - in fact, no one wants to understand anything, the materials are not studied, there are only replies, without explanation and analysis of the reasons taken against us decisions.
In fact, the court lured the original documents from us under the pretext of an examination
For example, Bagdasarov, in one of the trials, falsely accused us of allegedly stealing Alsiko shares from him. He needed this lie in order to initiate a criminal case against us and cover up his illegal acts of seizing our property. We, in order to prove our position, provided a large number of documents, but the court demanded that we submit all these documents in the original, promising to conduct their examination. After we submitted all the originals to the court, the court confiscated them from us, but did not appoint an expert examination, and made the decision against us. In fact, he lured the original documents from us under the pretext of an examination, and made the decision contrary to these documents. And what is especially significant is that the court does not return these documents back (it says - “Complain!”), And without these originals, we cannot prove our case.
It is the same with criminal cases: on the false statement of Bagdasarov, who is an accomplice of Gabrelyanov, a criminal case was opened in the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of Moscow. At the same time, they did not hide his ordered nature (they spoke openly about this in front of witnesses), and when it became clear that we were not involved in this case, but that Bagdasarov himself was involved in it, this case was immediately suspended, but another case was opened. The only thing that was done fairly: when the facts of Bagdasarov’s personal relations with the investigation in the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of Moscow became known, the criminal case was taken from the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District and transferred for investigation to the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow, and the investigator from the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District , who initiated this criminal case, was removed and transferred from the Department of Internal Affairs in the Central Administrative District - to the Lefortovo department of the SEAD of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow.
The investigation into the illegal actions of Gabrelyanov's people committed against us is not conducted at all, materials are constantly transferred from one unit to another and back. After numerous complaints to all instances (in particular, after two complaints to the Prosecutor General's Office and one complaint to the Presidential Administration), the Moscow Prosecutor's Office finally answered us that a presentation was made to the head of the Investigation Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of Moscow (like, a remark was made) for the delay in replies to us. That is, in fact - nothing!
It’s probably hard for a normal person to believe this, but the main reason for the numerous refusals to initiate criminal cases against these raiders is the impossibility for operatives of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of Moscow to find and interrogate Bagdasarov and his accomplices who participated in the seizure of our assets! This is such a difficult task for the investigation! Although, Bagdasarov is not hiding from anyone, moreover, together with the operational work of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of Moscow, he himself participates in searches in the Alsiko office and directly tells them where and what to look for!
Gabrelyanov's accomplices behave extremely impudently - they obviously falsify documents, forge the signatures of the company's shareholders, forge extracts from their register of shareholders ...
At the same time, Gabrelyanov's accomplices behave extremely impudently. They openly and obviously falsify documents, forge the signatures of the company's shareholders, forge extracts from their register of shareholders, forge mail notifications when scheduling meetings of shareholders, use a fake seal and letterhead of the company. I'm not talking about mass cases of giving false testimony in courts and in the investigation, and this is despite their signature on criminal liability for such acts. Almost all of these facts have been proven by the courts, many of which our opponents failed to cancel. We assume that, after all, it is expensive for them to cancel all court decisions, they cancel only part of the courts, selectively. According to some high-profile lawyers, these types of clearly wrongful judgments, and even at a high level, which are brought against us, are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for each decision. Indeed, after all, these decisions are openly signed by judges who publicly distort the law in the name of the Russian Federation. This is obvious and understandable to everyone who reads these decisions, so that the country knows these "heroes".
Also, the law enforcement agencies do not see any corpus delicti in the obvious raider seizures of the Alsico enterprises. The Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of Moscow simply cannot find any of the intruders, the Main Investigative Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow wrote off that there was no objective confirmation of criminal actions, and the Investigative Committee simply does not want to do anything - the investigator directly says that he is very busy with other matters and will only work if he is released from these cases.
The facts of direct pressure of Gabrelyanov's people (in particular, Bagdasarov and his representatives) on witnesses, attempts to bribe them and threats in order to obtain the testimony they need were revealed
Additionally, the facts of direct pressure of Gabrelyanov's people (in particular, Bagdasarov and his representatives) on witnesses, attempts to bribe them and threats in order to obtain the testimony they need were revealed. Recently, with the participation of Bagdasarov and some law enforcement officials, another fake corporate documents have been fabricated and thrown into the trial. We hope that the court, nevertheless, will appoint an examination on these documents, and we also hope that it will be objective and convict them of yet another falsification.
As it became known to The Insider, the CEO of the publishing house "News Media" Aram Gabrelyanov, his son Ashot, as well as a number of his partners were involved in the case of the illegal alienation of shares in a mining company with a market value of more than a billion rubles. The arbitration court has already recognized the fact of "illegal alienation of shares" and now investigators are working on a criminal case in which the participants may face a criminal sentence.
The plot of this story is very simple. In 2009, TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd, a Cyprus-registered company of the Gabrelyanovs, bought a 49% stake in Tseomax LLC, an enterprise that mines zeolites in the Oryol region. The second (and main) owner of Tseomax was a Russian company, the industrial group Alsiko.
Ceomax had 2 main assets:
- OAO Melor is a mining company. The main asset is a license for the Khotynets zeolite deposit, as well as a large number of different equipment (tractors, bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, etc.). The market valuation of 100% of the company's shares as of August 2012 (Otsenshchik LLC) is 889.5 million rubles.
- Promzeolite JSC is a plant that processes zeolite ore mined by Melor JSC and produces finished products from it (pet products, fertilizers, building materials). The enterprise includes several production and storage buildings, a lot of industrial equipment and machinery. The market valuation of 100% of the company's shares as of August 2012 (Otsenshchik LLC) is 121.7 million rubles.
After some time, Aram Gabrelyanov, representing the Cypriot company TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd, began to resent the fact that the company was not making a profit. He wrote several letters to representatives of the Industrial Group "Alsiko" with a proposal to either buy out his share, or, conversely, transfer the company to him and the shares to his ownership, for which he promised to pay off in 5 years (letter on the buyout of the share: 1, 2; share transfer letter: 1, 2, 3). He claimed that he could manage industrial assets much more successfully. Both of these options did not suit the Alsiko Industrial Group - there were no funds to buy out Gabrelyanov’s share (and Alsiko did not take such obligations on itself), but to transfer the company to him in ownership and management, without any specific obligations and guarantees, Alsiko also found it unacceptable. Representatives of Alsico tried to find a compromise - they offered to directly head Zeomax LLC and even give the majority on the board of directors of Zeomax LLC, but, nevertheless, not to give their share in ownership. These compromises did not suit Gabrelyanov, he wanted to be the owner.
In January 2013, the management of Alsiko suddenly discovered that the shares of two industrial enterprises - Melor OJSC and Promzeolite OJSC - no longer belong to their subsidiary, Tseomax LLC. As it turned out, Gabrelyanov managed to win over to his side two members of the board of directors of Tseomax LLC - (Valery Bagdasarov and the former general director of Tseomax Alexei Tarasov), and then crank up the scheme when (according to Alsico) using fake documents and bypassing the procedures established by law, the company's shares were sold 250 times lower than the book value and 600 times lower than the market value. Two industrial enterprises with equipment and real estate were sold for 1.8 million rubles - you can’t even buy one excavator for that kind of money. First, the shares were sold to Bagdasarov and his closest relatives (daughter and mother-in-law), and then resold to Gabrelyanov's company - TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd. Documents approving the alienation of shares were signed (except for Bagdasarov and Tarasov) by the son of Gabrelyanov Aram - Ashot Gabrelyanov and the financial director of Aram Gabrelyanov's structures - Andrey Mushkin.
According to Alisko, at the same time, the same group of persons (Tarasov, Bagdasarov and Andrey Mushkin) made a number of attempts to alienate other property of Alsiko (patents, trademarks, cash, cars) - in total, in the amount of about 120 million rubles . Assistance in attempts to alienate trademarks from Rospatent, as follows from the discovered documents, was provided by a high-ranking employee of the Presidential Administration - Anatoly Emelianenko, who, by an amazing coincidence, also turned out to be the godfather of Bagdasarov's grandson.
A number of assets were transferred by the attackers to a Russian structure, Zeotreydresurs LLC, which belongs to Sophia Ashotovna Mirzoyan, presumably Gabrelyanov’s sister (the one to which, according to the extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Gabrelyanov’s media business is registered - News Media OJSC). Many employees of Alsiko were transferred to the same structure, including the former general director Tarasov, and it was announced by the financial director of Gabrelyanov's structures, the same Andrey Mushkin, who took an active part in the alienation of property from Alsiko to the Cypriot company TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd. Thus, the entire zeolite business of Alsico was under the control of structures associated with Gabrelyanov.
Alsico's management leads documentation confirming the preliminary collusion of all these defendants. On the evening of February 5, 2013, at a meeting of another structure of the Alsico Industrial Group, Alsico-Resource LLC, a new general director was appointed instead of Tarasov, and the very next morning, Alsico received access to all documentation and managed to partially transfer it to another office. At the same time, according to Alsico, documents were uncovered that unequivocally confirm the preliminary conspiracy of the above-mentioned group of persons to seize the assets of Alsico (preparation for which began almost six months after the events described). Two days later, on February 7, the company's office was forcibly seized by Alfa-Sigma private security company. The video from the surveillance cameras of this capture has been preserved and the leadership of Alsico claims that it is clearly visible on it that Bagdasarov and Tarasov personally led the capture. Alsico assumes that these incriminating documents were the real purpose of the capture. It is also curious that Samvel Mirzoyan was present in the seized Alsiko office (it is believed that Gabrelyanov’s nephew, the son of his sister Sofia Ashotovna Mirzoyan, who once worked in the Life newspaper. In Alsiko, with reference to Gabrelyanov’s friends, they say that he is a former boxer , but this is doubtful, because in the show "King of the Ring" Samvel Mirzoyan suffered a crushing defeat from Nikita Dzhigurda). Samvel Mirzoyan, in a private conversation, offered the programmer "Alsiko" Volnov V.I. connect the electronic payment systems of the company (during the capture of the company, they managed to block them in order to prevent theft of funds from settlement accounts). The programmer refused, after which the invaders began to make payments by contacting banks directly. In this way, during the seizure in a few days, Tarasov withdrew about 6.73 million rubles from the company's accounts, including 5.47 million rubles. to the accounts of Melor OJSC and Promzeolite OJSC, whose shares had already been transferred to Gabrelyanov's structures by that time.
And that is not all. Alsico, of course, began to seek the return of assets through the courts. On November 1, 2013, Alsico had an important court hearing with Gabrelyan's offshore TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd. In preparation for the trial, on October 31, the director of Alsico took home some of the documents on the case, including the originals, to present them to the court for review. When he drove up to the house and got out of the car, he was attacked by two unidentified men, beat him and stole a briefcase with a laptop and documents related to this case. A criminal case has been opened on the fact of the attack under the article “robbery”, but the perpetrators have not yet been found, and some of the original documents have been lost. The connection between the attackers and Gabrelyanov has not yet been established, but Alsico does not believe in the “random” nature of this event.
However, by the decision of the Court of Appeal of Moscow dated July 21, 2014, all agreements on the alienation of shares of Melor OJSC and Promzeolite OJSC from the balance of Tseomax LLC to Bagdasarov and his relatives were declared invalid. The decision of the court entered into force.
In addition, Alsico has been trying to open a criminal case for more than a year. However, the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District of Moscow repeatedly refused, citing that they could not find and interview the above-mentioned persons involved in the alienation of Alsiko's property (although they did not hide, it was well known where they lived and worked). On the other hand, the same Department of Internal Affairs for the Central Administrative District almost immediately opened a case against one of the subsidiaries of the Alsiko group - Alsiko-Agroprom LLC, according to the statement of the same Bagdasarov. "Alsiko-Agroprom" has nothing to do with the events described above, and the reason for initiating the case was the fact that more than three years ago "Alsiko-Agroprom" made a payment for the actually delivered chemical raw materials to the address (as later, in the process of inquiry, it turned out) one-day firms. The management of Alsiko-Agroprom LLC did not know about this nature of this company and did not check it, because the transaction was carried out under the leadership of Bagdasarov himself, and this one-day firm was proposed by him.
In general, since the 90s, the tactics of raiders have been known - after the seizure of enterprises, it is necessary to initiate criminal cases against the leaders so that they cannot actively resist the invaders. Gabrelyanov’s employees Mushkin and Bagdasarov wrote a large number of statements to Alsiko to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee, and they were drawn up very carelessly: for example, it was stated that some persons gave cash to the Alsiko structure in the amount of 35,116,818.78 rubles and 4,115,207.4 (not a penny more, not a penny less - it can be seen from the judicial acts!). Moreover, these amounts were transferred without any documents (receipts, etc.) at the Alsico office on December 31, 2011 on the New Year's holiday, when the entire office center was closed and the security services confirmed the absence of any visitors at all. The Presnensky District Court and the Moscow City Court also did not find these statements convincing.
But while the representatives of Alsico are “drown” in courts, interrogations and searches, the illegally alienated enterprises continue to work for new owners, although not as successfully as Gabrelyanov expected - the revenues at the enterprises have decreased significantly.
In the end, Alsiko managed to achieve that a criminal case regarding the theft of shares was nevertheless initiated, but for some reason it was merged with the same case No. by the CAO, without giving him any movement.
If, nevertheless, the criminal case is brought to court, then it will no longer be just about the illegal alienation of shares (which has already been proven), but about raiding and real terms may threaten the participants.
The Insider talked about some of the details of this case with a representative of the injured party, the director of Alsiko, Alexander Kazachenko.
- Alexander, initially the conflict with Gabrelyanov arose because he was dissatisfied with the lack of profit. And why, in fact, there was no profit?
- We found out later, an independent audit showed that money was withdrawn from the company through transactions with one-day companies. This was done by the operational management of the company in the person of Tarasov Alexey, we only found out about this when we got access to the accounting department. I think that Gabrelyanov did not know anything about these schemes, although his employee, Andrey Mushkin, partially participated in these schemes, we have documents about this. In addition, Gabrelyanov was dissatisfied with the fact that the project was not developing fast enough, although we tried to convince him that this was still an industrial production, it was not the same as publishing a newspaper: printed today, sold tomorrow and the money was returned. After all, this is a plant, it has certain payback periods, depreciation. But its current growth rates were not satisfactory.
- When did you realize that Gabrelyanov went into an open conflict only after you discovered that you had already lost your shares?
- There was no conflict, as such, we just realized it only a few months later, when we asked the registrar for an extract that our company was no longer the owner of the business, and before that everything was going as usual.
- What was the role of Gabrelyanov Jr.?
— Ashot Gabrelyanov was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tseomax LLC from the very beginning, and it was with him and with Andrey Mushkin that we conducted most of the negotiations when their company TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd entered the business. He approved business plans, budgets and other management documents, and chaired meetings. And also, in the end, it was he, together with Mushkin, Bagdasarov and Tarasov, who signed illegal documents, according to which the alienation of shares from Tseomax LLC was approved. It is difficult for me personally to imagine that Gabrelyanov Ashot and Mushkin Andrey could do anything serious in this business without the knowledge and sanction of Aram Ashotovich.
- And after the transfer of shares, the business began to belong to Gabrelyanov Sr.?
- The shares of these two industrial enterprises were transferred to a Cypriot company - TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd. Namely, Aram Ashotovich had a dialogue with us from this company when he bought a share in the business. Also, we have documents confirming that the representatives of this company in Russia with the rights of shareholders are Ashot Gabrelyanov and Andrey Mushkin.
Some of Alsiko's other assets were transferred to the Russian LLC Zeotraydresurs, owned, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, by Sofia Ashotovna Mirzoyan, who, we assume, is Gabrelyanov's sister. She also owns, according to the extract, 99% of the shares of News Media OJSC (Aram Ashotovich himself, being the general director, has 1% of the shares) and other media structures of Gabrelyanov. That is, this is such a basic figure in Gabrelyanov's business, the holder of his assets.
Mushkin, Bagdasarov and Tarasov made three attempts to steal all trademarks of Alsiko, about 82 signs, against this company, Zeotreydresurs. The attempts failed only thanks to the vigilance of Rospatent. Other property of Alsiko was also transferred to this company, and a number of Alsico employees, mainly sales divisions, were lured into this company in order to continue the same business.
However, it is possible that the stolen shares have already been resold (as often happens with raider schemes). In any case, on Thursday, October 16, four more people (one of a marginal appearance, resembling a homeless man) showed up for another trial along with Gabrelyanov’s lawyers, who stated that they were the owners of the shares alienated from Tseomax.
- Bagdasarov was your partner in Alsico. How did he behave after the theft of shares was revealed?
- He stopped being a partner long before these events, more than five years ago he sold his shares, remaining just a hired manager. But, being an employee of the company, he had the opportunity to know everything from the inside and be well prepared. And after these events, he just abruptly ran away, stopped coming to the office, to work, even left small personal items in his office - books, souvenirs, notebooks. A few days later, with the help of mutual friends, they managed to call him and invite him to a meeting to explain the situation, but, unfortunately, he ran away again and was apparently afraid to appear, since he had nothing to say in his own defense. The registrar also resigned, having formalized the alienation of shares in violation of the law. And Mushkin, an employee of Gabrelyanov, comes to the monthly meetings, but behaves very unconstructively. Let's say, at some meetings, he declares "That I am not me, but just like my passport photo and cannot confirm my authority." And this is despite the fact that Mushkin knows me well and he is shown the entire volume of necessary documents for confirmation. Mushkin himself no longer shows any of his documents.
- Why was your application so reluctantly accepted at the Central Administrative District of the Central Administrative District?
“They took the application normally, they just couldn’t initiate a criminal case for about a year. We were refused four times and they did not help us with complaints to the prosecutor's office of the Central Administrative District, nor to the prosecutor's office of Moscow, nor deputy requests, nor complaints to the security service, nor complaints to the reception of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District still refused, referring to the fact that they could not find to interrogate Bagdasarov and his relatives who participated in the alienation of shares. They didn't hide though. Bagdasarov himself, in front of witnesses, said, literally verbatim, the following: "I enlisted the support of influential people and I am conducting the investigation in the Central Administrative District in a controlled manner." We are ready to confirm this statement in court. Then, when we succeeded in transferring the case to the Moscow Department of Economic Security, Bagdasarov and Mushkin were immediately "found" and interrogated. The case was sent to the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moscow, but then it was sent back to the Department of Internal Affairs of the Central Administrative District, where it has hung so far, they have not yet answered our questions. But the main thing is that the criminal case has already been initiated.
- If the court recognized the illegality of the alienation of shares, then you should be returned control over the company and its assets?
- Yes, but this does not happen automatically, separate claims are needed to restore ownership, and things are going slowly, because, for some reason, we always lose in the first judicial instances. In higher instances, where there are already more qualified judges, we win, but from our point of view, the legal issues here are quite simple, violations of laws are obvious, so the behavior of first instance judges causes us some surprise - some decisions, in our opinion, are obviously illegal . Not referring to the complainants in general, we were forced to pay attention to the behavior of some judges - both the leadership of the Arbitration Court and the Qualification Board.
- What is happening with production at the moment?
— Gabrelyanov tried to convince us that production would go better under his control, but everything turned out to be exactly the opposite. They lured several of our traders who had a client base, rented a separate office, moved there, but, according to our data, they did not become profitable, the company's turnover dropped significantly, and a number of key markets were lost.
Have you already been in contact with other media?
- We were approached by various media, including large federal ones, but everyone asks for significant money for publications. But we are not doing this in principle - we are ready to discuss, we are ready to give materials, but we will not order or pay for anything.
Separately, I want to emphasize that our situation should not be perceived politically as an attack on the progressive and patriotic leaders of News Media OJSC - there is no politics in this situation, we have always been far from this and the patriots themselves, no less than some.
- What are your next steps?
— According to the law, members of the Board of Directors of the Company, as individuals, if their decisions caused damage to the Company, are obliged to compensate for the losses caused to the Company. Among those who illegally voted for the alienation of the assets of Ceomax LLC at a price almost 600 times lower than the market price are Ashot Gabrelyanov, Andrei Mushkin, Valery Bagdasarov and Alexei Tarasov. Now they should be ready for billions of dollars in lawsuits, and we are actually preparing these lawsuits.
Aram Gabrelyanov refused to comment on the situation with the illegal alienation of shares to The Insider, citing the fact that he had been “not at all involved” for a long time and suggesting calling Andrei Mushkin. Andrey Mushkin at first declared his readiness to comment on the situation, but since Monday (October 13) he could not send any explanations, and on Friday (October 17) he stated that he would not give any comments, except that he considered “all sounding accusations are false ”And that he has evidence of this, but he does not want to provide them and is only ready to contact law enforcement agencies if the material contains false information. The Insider is ready to supplement the material with the commentary of the accused party as soon as it deigns to provide it.
© The Insider, 10/17/2014, Billion scam: why the Gabrelyanovs can get a criminal sentence, Photo, illustrations: via The Insider
As it became known to The Insider, the CEO of the publishing house "News Media" Aram Gabrelyanov, his son Ashot, as well as a number of his partners were involved in the case of the illegal alienation of shares in a mining company with a market value of more than a billion rubles. The arbitration court has already recognized the fact of "illegal alienation of shares" and now investigators are working on a criminal case in which the participants may face a criminal sentence.
The plot of this story is very simple. In 2009, the Gabrelyanovs TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd, registered in Cyprus, bought a 49% stake in Tseomax LLC, an enterprise that mines zeolites in the Oryol region. The second (and main) owner of Tseomax was a Russian company - the Alsiko industrial group.
Ceomax had 2 main assets:
In January 2013, the management of Alsiko suddenly discovered that the shares of two industrial enterprises - Melor OJSC and Promzeolite OJSC - no longer belong to their subsidiary, Zeomax LLC. As it turned out, Gabrelyanov managed to win over to his side two members of the board of directors of Tseomax LLC - (Valery Bagdasarov and the former general director of Tseomax Alexei Tarasov), and then crank up the scheme when (according to Alsico) using fake documents and bypassing the procedures established by law, the company's shares were sold at 250 times lower than the book value and 600 times lower than the market value. Two industrial enterprises with equipment and real estate were sold for 1.8 million rubles - you can’t even buy one excavator for that kind of money. First, the shares were sold to Bagdasarov and his closest relatives (daughter and mother-in-law), and then resold to Gabrelyanov's company - TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd. Documents on the approval of the alienation of shares were signed (except for Bagdasarov and Tarasov) by the son of Aram Gabrelyanov - Ashot Gabrelyanov and the financial director of Aram Gabrelyanov's structures - Andrey Mushkin.
According to Alisko, at the same time, the same group of persons (Tarasov, Bagdasarov and Andrey Mushkin) made a number of attempts to alienate other property of Alsiko (patents, trademarks, cash, cars) - in total, in the amount of about 120 million rubles . Assistance in attempts to alienate trademarks from Rospatent was provided by a high-ranking employee of the Presidential Administration - Anatoly Emelianenko, who, by an amazing coincidence, also turned out to be the godfather of Bagdasarov's grandson.
A number of assets were transferred by the attackers to a Russian structure - Zeotreydresurs LLC, which belongs to Sophia Ashotovna Mirzoyan, presumably Gabrelyanov's sister (the one on which, according to the extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Gabrelyanov's media business is registered - News Media OJSC). Many employees of Alsiko were transferred to the same structure, including the former general director Tarasov, and it was announced by the financial director of Gabrelyanov's structures, the same Andrey Mushkin, who took an active part in the alienation of property from Alsiko to the Cypriot company TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd. Thus, the entire zeolite business of Alsico was under the control of structures associated with Gabrelyanov.
The leadership of Alsico cites all these defendants confirming the preliminary collusion. On the evening of February 5, 2013, at a meeting of another structure of the Alsico Industrial Group, Alsico-Resource LLC, a new general director was appointed instead of Tarasov, and the very next morning, Alsico received access to all documentation and managed to partially transfer it to another office. At the same time, according to Alsico, documents were uncovered that unequivocally confirm the preliminary conspiracy of the above-mentioned group of persons to seize the assets of Alsico (preparation for which began almost six months after the events described). Two days later, on February 7, the company's office was forcibly seized by Alfa-Sigma private security company. The video from the surveillance cameras of this capture has been preserved and the leadership of Alsico claims that it is clearly visible on it that Bagdasarov and Tarasov personally led the capture. Alsico assumes that these incriminating documents were the real purpose of the capture. It is also curious that Samvel Mirzoyan was present in the seized Alsiko office (it is believed that Gabrelyanov’s nephew, the son of his sister Sofia Ashotovna Mirzoyan, who once worked in the Life newspaper. In Alsiko, with reference to Gabrelyanov’s friends, they say that he is a former boxer , but this is doubtful, because in the show "King of the Ring" Samvel Mirzoyan suffered a crushing defeat from Nikita Dzhigurda). Samvel Mirzoyan, in a private conversation, offered the programmer "Alsiko" Volnov V.I. connect the electronic payment systems of the company (during the capture of the company, they managed to block them in order to prevent theft of funds from settlement accounts). The programmer refused, after which the invaders began to make payments by contacting banks directly. In this way, during the seizure in a few days, Tarasov withdrew about 6.73 million rubles from the company's accounts, including 5.47 million rubles. to the accounts of Melor OJSC and Promzeolite OJSC, whose shares had already been transferred to Gabrelyanov's structures by that time.
And that is not all. Alsico, of course, began to seek the return of assets through the courts. On November 1, 2013, Alsico had an important court hearing with Gabrelyan's offshore TIG Mineral Resources Company Ltd. In preparation for the trial, on October 31, the director of Alsico took home some of the documents on the case, including the originals, to present them to the court for review. When he drove up to the house and got out of the car, he was attacked by two unidentified men, beat him and stole a briefcase with a laptop and documents related to this case. A criminal case has been opened on the fact of the attack under the article “robbery”, but the perpetrators have not yet been found, and some of the original documents have been lost. The connection between the attackers and Gabrelyanov has not yet been established, but Alsico does not believe in the “random” nature of this event.
Separately, I want to emphasize that our situation should not be perceived politically as an attack on the progressive and patriotic leaders of News Media OJSC - there is no politics in this situation, we have always been far from this and the patriots themselves, no less than some.
- What are your next steps?
By law, members of the Board of Directors of the Company, as individuals, if their decisions caused damage to the Company, are obliged to compensate for the losses caused to the Company. Among those who illegally voted for the alienation of the assets of Ceomax LLC at a price almost 600 times lower than the market price are Ashot Gabrelyanov, Andrei Mushkin, Valery Bagdasarov and Alexei Tarasov. Now they should be ready for billions of dollars in lawsuits, and we are actually preparing these lawsuits.
Aram Gabrelyanov refused to comment on the situation with the illegal alienation of shares to The Insider, citing the fact that he had been “not at all involved” for a long time and suggesting calling Andrei Mushkin. Andrey Mushkin at first declared his readiness to comment on the situation, but since Monday (October 13) he could not send any explanations, and on Friday (October 17) he stated that he would not give any comments, except that he considered “all sounding accusations are false ”And that he has evidence of this, but he does not want to provide them and is only ready to contact law enforcement agencies if the material contains false information. The Insider is ready to supplement the material with the commentary of the accused party as soon as it deigns to provide it.
The other day, Anonymous International posted a new portion of letters from the array of Aram Gabrelyanov (details about the first portion), from which we learn some new details about his raider seizure of business, foreign real estate, Navalny's hacked correspondence and some other stories.
Interview with a businessman who became a victim of this raider takeover.
Another story is connected with the penthouse, which Gabrelyanov was looking for himself on Cap Antibes (as follows from the correspondence). Then Gabrelyanov reacted to the publication, saying what the penthouse will give to whoever finds it. He also wrote that it was “wife’s correspondence with a travel agent who selected a villa in Antibes for the grandchildren’s summer vacation”. But, based on other letters, it follows that it was a sale, and the cost ranged from 2 to 6 million euros.
Moreover, he, along with his wife, looked after another apartment in another NATO country - in the USA. More specifically, in California, for 3.9 million euros:
On Twitter, Gabrelyanov replies to someone, “By the way, I don’t have real estate abroad! Why should I be afraid, what have I stolen? And on Facebook he formulates more streamlined: “I earned a lot, I pay all taxes. So put the subtext, luxury real estate abroad shove yourself ... "
Even if we assume that Gabrelyanov did not buy an apartment either on the Cote d'Azur or in California, he still has foreign real estate. As follows from one letter, he has an apartment in Paris, registered offshore:
Despite all this, Gabrelyanov poses as a great patriot: "If you find a compromise where I betrayed my family, children, Motherland, my president, those whom I consider my true friends, write." The Russian president, as you know, is also a big fan of luxury real estate, so in this sense, Aram Gabrelyanov and Vladimir Putin really have no differences. But still, the luxurious official and unofficial residences of the president are located in Russia, and not in those countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia and which are regularly criticized by Gabrelyan's publications.
And here is another interesting letter in which Aram Gabrelyanov discusses the hacking of Yulia Navalnaya's mailbox with MIT CEO Alexander Shelukhin (who also served as a volunteer adviser to Vice Mayor Alexander Gorbenko). It was MIT, commissioned by the mayor’s office, that became the organizer in support of the mayor’s office in dozens of different media (including Gabrelyanov’s), which, however, did not prevent Gabrelyanov from later placing in his publications an “order” from the Presidential Administration against Gorbenko himself (including the story about how , as the mayor's office allegedly sponsored Navalny). But in 2013, it was still good between Gabrelyanov and Gorbenko, Navalny was their main common enemy. Anonymous International suggests that it was MIT that could be behind the hacking of Navalny's mail (implemented, it is believed, in Germany by hacker Sergei Maximov, who poetically called himself "hacker Hell"). True, there is no evidence that the mayor's office was involved in this hack, and the hack itself took place back in 2011, long before the elections, when Sobyanin was hardly interested in Navalny's mail.
There are other interesting details in the new portion of the correspondence. It turns out that during the mayoral election campaign in Moscow in 2013, notes on behalf of candidate Nikolai Levichev (who for some time replaced Sergei Mironov as chairman of A Just Russia) were written by Gabrelyanov's ex-employee Samvel Nalbandyan, and Gabrelyanov gave him wise advice: less criticize Sobyanin and more - Navalny. It is difficult to say how these wise advice influenced the result, but in the end, Levichev then took the last place and lost his chairmanship in the party.
So far, only one bet of 10 bitcoins (about $6.5 thousand) has been made on the lot with Gabrelyanov’s correspondence, and Gabrelyanov himself promised 1,000 bitcoins for reliable information about those behind Anonymous International. This amount is equivalent to $645,000, and the willingness to part with it so easily only adds credibility to the information published in this array.