As it became known to Kommersant, the state prosecution requested 18 years in a strict regime colony for the former owner of Baltika Bank, Oleg Vlasov. The financier, according to the prosecutor, is involved in the illegal withdrawal of more than 46 billion rubles from Russia. according to the so-called Moldovan scheme. The defendant denies any involvement in illegal operations, and his lawyer stressed that the accusation contradicts the materials of the case and the testimony of witnesses.

In the debate, which took place on January 31 in the Preobrazhensky Court of the capital, the state prosecutor stated that Oleg Vlasov was guilty of participating in a criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as transferring currency to non-resident accounts using forged documents (Part 3 of Article 193.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) was fully proved during the process. As follows from the speech of the representative of the prosecutor’s office, the banker committed the crimes according to the illegal “Moldovan scheme”, and the defendant was the head of a separate structural unit of the OPS operating in the Baltika Bank, which he controlled.

As a result, the state prosecutor asked the court to sentence the financier to 18 years in a strict regime colony and a fine of 2 million rubles.

As previously reported by Kommersant, the criminal case against Oleg Vlasov was investigated by the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which for many years dealt with the illegal withdrawal of funds from Russia. According to investigators, the co-owner of Baltika was one of the key participants in the criminal financial transit. Recall that the investigating authorities consider well-known Moldovan politicians Vladimir Plahotniuc and Renato Usatii, as well as the owner of the Moldovan Moldindconbank SA Veaceslav Platon, to be the organizers of the criminal community. Bank Baltika, according to the materials of the case, was used in the “Moldovan scheme” in 2013-2014.

As Kommersant previously told, the criminal scheme was based on the decisions of the Moldovan courts. First, between the Russian company, where the funds intended for withdrawal were accumulated, and the foreign company, a loan agreement was concluded, the guarantors of which were the citizens of Moldova and the Russian company. The contract was not specifically executed, and after its delay, the creditor applied to the Moldovan court with a claim against the debtor and his guarantors. After a decision was made in favor of the plaintiff, the writ of execution was sent to Moldindconbank. At the same time, settlement accounts of companies acting as guarantors for loans were opened in the Russian banks involved in the scheme, to which funds were credited for conversion into foreign currency. The money was transferred to Moldindconbank accounts opened in the US and Germany, after which, on the basis of Moldovan judicial acts, they were arrested and transferred to foreign banks to the accounts of the plaintiffs, foreign companies controlled by members of the criminal community. According to investigators, 46 billion rubles were withdrawn through Baltika in this way. (at the then exchange rate more than $ 1.3 billion).

Neither at the investigation nor during the trial, the defendant pleaded not guilty.

And his defense drew the attention of the court that, despite the accusation against the banker, none of the members of a certain separate division of the OPS, which was allegedly led by Mr. Vlasov, could not be found by the investigation. “It turns out that he gave orders to himself and carried them out himself, which is complete absurdity,” the banker’s lawyer Daniil Nikiforov explained to Kommersant. The defender also emphasized that the Baltika employees interrogated by the court, who were directly involved in transferring money abroad using the SWIFT system and opening accounts for legal entities, noted that they did not commit any illegal actions, and did not receive instructions from Mr. Vlasov. In addition, according to the lawyer, in dozens of volumes of the case, no evidence was found of the participation of the owner of Baltika or the bank itself in the “Moldovan scheme”.

It is worth noting that several verdicts have already been passed in cases of the “Moldovan scheme”. In particular, in July 2022, the Tverskoy Court of the capital sentenced five financiers and lawyers to terms of 15.5 to 19 years, including Alexander Korkin, one of the proxies of the organizers of the scheme. He received the maximum punishment. Also, by a court decision, 36 real estate objects in Moscow, the Moscow Region and St. Petersburg were confiscated from the convicts for more than 1.4 billion rubles, as well as large sums of money, jewelry and expensive cars.

At the same time, in Moldova, none of the defendants in the investigation was brought to criminal responsibility. Local law enforcers explain this by the absence of relevant articles in the local Criminal Code.