The prosecutor’s office of Ukraine opened a criminal case against Fridman

The Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine opened a criminal case against the co-founder of Alfa Group Mikhail Fridman on suspicion of withdrawing funds from Sens-Bank, who previously worked under the brand “Alfa Bank Ukraine”. This was reported in the press service of the prosecutor’s office of Ukraine.

According to investigators, Fridman, being a co-owner of Sens Bank (now nationalized), “brought the bank’s assets under the guise of paying royalties for the use of trademarks that previously belonged to the parent bank in Russia.” In total, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, there were withdrawn about UAH 700 million (1.77 billion rubles at the Central Bank exchange rate as of August 18) At the same time, after the ownership of trademarks was transferred to a Cypriot non-resident in 2021 and given the opportunity to use preferential taxation conditions, the defendants in the case managed to evade paying taxes in Ukraine .

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, 9 people are suspects in this case. In total, during the investigation, the accounts of five Cypriot companies were arrested, on which a total of UAH 469.4 million (1.179 billion rubles), securities in the amount of UAH 12.2 billion (30.96 billion rubles), corporate rights to UAH 3.4 million (8.629 billion rubles), as well as 738 real estate objects owned by Sens Bank, were added by the prosecutor’s office of Ukraine.

The prosecutor’s office does not name the Russian, against whom a criminal case has been initiated, but they specify that he has citizenship of Russia and Israel and controls “the activities of an international financial and industrial group, which also includes Cypriot companies and previously included a Ukrainian private bank.” According to the Ukrainian edition of “Strana”, we are talking about Mikhail Fridman.

On July 21, Sens Bank was nationalized. The process of nationalization of Alfa-Bank Ukraine began in 2022. In December, it was renamed Sense Bank. Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, reported that the nationalization of the bank would be less difficult than the nationalization of Privatbank by businessman Igor Kolomoisky, which took place in 2016. This is due to the smaller number of individuals who have deposits in this bank.

Fridman, together with Alfa Group co-founder Petr Aven, left the Supervisory Board Alfa Bank in March 2022 after EU sanctions. In March of this year, it became known that Alfa-Bank getting ready change of controlling shareholders. As a result of the transaction, the shares of Fridman and Aven may be transferred to Alfa business partner Andrei Kosogov.