“Juridical service” has turned out to be an affair to the amount of 462 million rubles. Cyprus allows extradition. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on April 26, 2011 and 2017.
On this day, on April 26, 2011, the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow sentenced to 13 years in colony Sergey Shimlevich, the former head of Yukos affiliate, the company “Tomskneft-VNK”.
According to the line of the investigation, Sergey Shimkevich colluded with the leadership of the company “GK Intellekt” and concluded a number of knowingly fictitious contracts. The company was to represent the interests of “Tomskneft-VNK” in arbitration proceedings, and on its accounts in the period from November 2005 to June 2006 were transferred 462 million rubles. Yet, the money was stolen and laundered through several firms under control of the “GK Intellekt”. In the end of March 20011, the court sentenced to five years imprisonment (“suspended sentence”) Olesya Gorgachyova, the general director and the chief accountant of the group of companies LLC “Intellekt”, who fully admitted her guilt and repented of her actions.
Vitaly Sakurin, a lawyer of Shimkevich, told journalists that his client, apart from imprisonment, had becjme penalties to the tune of 1 million rubles, and the term of the sentence the court had given taking into consideration the previous guilty sentence of Shimkevich, passed in 2010, on the charge of embezzlement (Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and laundering of monetary means (Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Then, Shimkevich with his associates, created an organized group which had arranged several fictitious deals with securities of different companies.
AN AFFAIR PULLED OFF BY A GROUP OF PERSONS
As was established by the Meschansky District Court of Moscow, members of the organized criminal group had managed, by false pretenses, to steal from the JSC “Tomskneft-VNK” 5.93 billion rubles. This money was set aside to settle debts owed to tax services.
For that, in the spring of 2010, under the sentence of the Meschansky District Court of Moscow, Sergey Shimkevich was sentenced to 12 years in colony, but, in view of the changes in the legislature, the Cassation Board of the Moscow City Court shortened this sentence by one year, and it consisted only of 11 years of imprisonment.
In May 2013, when half of the sentence expired, (it is counted from the moment of arrest), Sergey Shimkevich appealed to the Oktyabrsky District Court of Tomsk (the region of servicing the punishment) with a motion for an early release on parole. Taking into account the absence of infringements and objection from the part of the colony’s administration, the court decided to release Sergey Shimkevich on parole, obliging him to report to supervisory bodies and in the course of two months to find a job.
A FUGITIVE “ACCOMPLICE IN EMBEZZLEMENT” DELIVERED FROM CYPRUS
On the same day, on April 26, 2017, on demand of the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, appropriate authorities of the Republic of Cyprus extradited to Russia the Russian citizen Vyacheslav Shimkecivh, the first cousin of Sergey Shimkevich.
According to Alexander Kurennoy, an official spokesman of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, Vyacheslav Shimkevich had been accused in absentia of committing crimes under Article 33, paragraph 5, and under Article 160, paragraph 4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Accomplice to a crime of misappropriation or embezzlement, that is of stealing of other persons’ property entrusted to the convicted person, committed by an organized group or on especially large scale), as well as under Article 174.1, paragraph 3, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Legalization (Laundering) of Monetary Funds or Other Property Acquired by a Person as a Result of an Offence committed by Him/Her on a large scale).
According to the investigation’s line, Vyacheslav Shimkevich, from March 2005 to May 2006, had been an actual owner and simultaneously the deputy director of the LLC “Rekma V.G.”. During this period, as part of an organized group, he took part in embezzlement of the property of the oil producing company “Tomskneft VNK” which was an affiliate of the Oil Company Yukos, as well as of embezzlement of monetary funds of its “subsidiary” the LLC “Tomskneft-Servis”. In September 2008, he was put on the national wanted list, and in October 2008 on the international wanted list.
The court’s verdict against Vyacheslav Shimkevich and his accomplice Natalya Konovalova (extradited to Russia in November 2015) was read out by the Oktyabrsky District Court of the town Samara on August 23, 2013. They were found guilty of committing crimes under Article 33, paragraph 5, and Article 160, paragraph 4, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Accomplice to Misappropriation or Embezzlement committed by a person through his official position, by an organized group, on an especially large scale), under Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Legalizing or Laundering of Monetary Funds by an organized group). The verdict was passed in absentia – the defendants were on the international wanted list and lived outside Russia, and only their lawyers were present in the courtroom. Both were sentenced to 5 years in a general regime penal colony. The term will be counted from the moment of the apprehension of the defendants. The Judicial Chamber on Criminal Cases of the District Court of Samara by its appellate decision from November 1, 2013, upheld the verdict.
PROBLEMS WITH EXTRADITION
“The first request with regard to the fugitive was sent in 2009. In April 2012, according to the results of the courts hearings, the District Court of Larnaсa refused to extradite the defendant. It was necessary to appeal this decision, and only in March 2017, the Supreme Court of Cyprus allowed to hand over the defendant to the Russian authorities. On April 26, 2017, in the international airport of the town Larnaca, Vyacheslav Shimkecich was handed over to representatives of the Russian law enforcement agencies and transferred to Russia”, noted the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, Khodorkovsky was ratted out”. Stephen Curtis, a British lawyer and organizer of offshore “laundries” of Yukos, was a police informer. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on April 25, 2004).
