The investigation requires the arrest of the famous Cypriot corporate lawyer Christodoulos Vassiliades and the founder of the Cypriot investment company Fintailor Investments Limited, Kirill Lyushinsky. The investigation accuses both of them of laundering criminal money by an organized group on an especially large scale (clauses a, b, part 4, article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Lawyer Vassiliades came under British sanctions six months ago for providing services to billionaire Alisher Usmanov, as well as for his work as a director in the Cyprus subsidiary of Sberbank – Sberbank Investments Limited. Vassiliades is also known for his work as a licensed consultant for the Cypriot state program “citizenship by investment”; this program turned into a scandal with the massive revocation of passports from Russians.
The work of Fintailor Investments was at one time associated with the main owners of Promsvyazbank, brothers Alexey and Dmitry Ananyev, but the investment company’s lawyer denied this.
The Central Bank revoked PSB’s license in 2017. Alexey and Dmitry Ananyev left the country, and in 2019 it became known that the Cypriot authorities had questions about the passports they received under the investment program.
Russian investigators consider the Ananyev brothers to be the main organizers of the withdrawal of money from PSB. A case against the brothers was opened by the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the bankers were put on the international wanted list in August 2021.
Several cases of fraud and embezzlement of bank money were combined into one proceeding. It was then transferred to the Investigative Committee. Among the combined cases, initiated on May 4, 2016 on the fact of fraud in the acquisition by Basfor LLC of three land plots belonging to the city of St. Petersburg and located at Sestroretsk, 41st km of Primorskoye Shosse, 1. Their total cost is a consequence estimated at 9.24 million rubles, as follows from the arrest orders we studied.
On Monday, as part of this case, the Basmanny Court arrested Oleg Mikhalev in absentia.
In January of this year, the former head of the PSB project finance department, Alexander Afanasyev, was arrested in absentia for embezzlement. In the middle of last year, the Basmanny Court, as part of an episode of fraud with St. Petersburg land, placed Konstantin Popov, an employee of the state construction supervision and examination of St. Petersburg, and two entrepreneurs under house arrest.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”