Inspirational lies of the press service of "Menatep”. “The Group has no affiliates in Liechtenstein and on Cyprus”. 5 Cyprus “dumps” of Yukos.
On this day 20 years ago, on August 29, 2003, against the background of the investigative actions around Yukos, the business world discussed a piece of news – the Oil Company Yukos takes credit to the amount of 1 billion US dollars at an interest of 3.5 a year.
“Analysts regard such conditions of crediting as unprecedented for Russian corporations”, pointed out various publications.
It's difficult to imagine what the solicitors from Yukos told international bankers, filling out the request to give a credit to a company some employees of which – for instance, Alexey Pichugin (murders) and Platon Lebedev (economical crimes) – were already on trial, and were under arrest.
Tough, the news about the credit for "the most transparent" group of persons rather quickly changed its tonality. As early as October 2003, came the information that Yukos managed to receive money from seven banks participating in the organization of a syndicated credit – Citigroup, Commerzbank, Credit Lyonnais, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING Bank, Societe Generale, but further cooperation was compromised.
And when the criminal activity of the “noble robbers” from the oil imperium became evident, Yukos received from Western creditor “a telegram of happiness”.
The company said that on April 23, 2004, it became a notification from the members of the syndicated pre-export credit to the tune of $1 billion about a possible credit default.
The newspaper “Kommersant" came out with the headline "Yukos received the final warning. Western banks promised it a default". This publication was placed in the column “International recognition” as if hinting to the business community that in the West everything was clear concerning Yukos.
And in spring 2006, a real emotional outpouring took place – “Foreign banks decided to deal a final blow to Yukos”:
“Foreign banks-creditors to file a case in the Arbitration Court of Moscow on declaring the Oil Company Yukos bankrupt. The legal demands of the banks were totally reasonable, as there was no hope for the revival of Yukos. In the nearest future, all its assets will be sold out", noted Gazeta.ru. So, it’s at the instigation of the foreign banks that began “the curative” procedures.
A partner with the letters “Kh”
On the very same day, on August 29, 2003, it became clear – Platon Lebedev, the henchman of Khodorkovsky, would not have a possibility to breathe the air of freedom any time soon. On the eve, the term of the detention in custody was prolonged for Platon Lebedev, the president of the Board of Directors of the CJSC International Financial Organization “Menatep”, who had been arrested on July 2. The legal defense tried to assure the court that its client was a man of crystal honesty that he was not preparing to run away, and, in general, the criminal prosecution of him should be stopped, or he should be freed on bail.
The prosecutors, on the contrary, with the materials in their hands, argued that this figurant of the criminal case should be isolated, as he could abscond. In the end, having heard the arguments of the sides, the court decided to keep Platon Lebedev in the pre-trial detention facility where he would get a possibility to study all 146 volumes of his own criminal case.
The colleagues of Leonid Nevzlin, the “genial public relations manager and intellectual”, contributed, to some extent, to the decision of the court to keep Lebedev in detention. Yuriy Kotlyar, the head of the public relations department of the group “Menatep”, commenting the statement of the Office of the Prosecutor General (“Lebedev has transferred part of his business in Switzerland, Gibraltar, Cyprus, and Liechtenstein”), was limitlessly bright: “This group has affiliates in Gibraltar, and in Switzerland. But it has no affiliates in Liechtenstein and on Cyprus”. The orator, by all appearances, was serious.
Here are five “dumps”, of which Platon Lebedev was the director. The place of registration – Cyprus. These firms mentioned in the materials of the criminal case No 18/432766-07, were used by the group of persons headed by Khodorkovsky for machinations. The “dumps”, sure enough, “were cleaned up”, as is common among those who “launder money”.
Almost all of them, as we see it, were borne, as if carbon-copied, and “died” on the same day.
But the firm “Hulley Enterprises Limited” (Number HE88949) created on Cyprus at the instigation of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev (Cyprus, 17 Sep 1997), according to the register, is still alive and even knows who is Tim Osborne.
How can one after that say “on Cyprus and in Liechtenstein the group “Menatep” has nothing”? Not to speak of other Cyprus “shell companies” which de-facto were under the control of Yukos and then emerged in the materials of various others, less noticeable criminal cases.
And, finally, “Palmus Foundation” (Liechtenstein). Had it not existed, it could have not been mentioned in the criminal case and in the verdict as a foundation through which, on August 16, 2001, Khodorkovsky ended his "carrousels" with the shares of Yukos, distributing them among the organized group of persons known within certain circles as “the main shareholders” of Yukos.
Among them, by the way, figures Leonid Nevzlin - not a simple shareholder, but the mastermind of murders and attempted murders sentenced to life incarceration. However, the investigators suspect that Nevzlin was not the sole assassins’ paymaster and that he had a partner the name of whom begins with two letters – Kh”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous story: “On this day, Khodorkovsky “leaked” his Russian henchmen from the government”. The United States federal investigators study the question of whether the bank "Menatep” legally transferred pecuniary assets through the Bank of New York. The Western spirit of Steven Theede. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on August 28, 1999, and 2003).
