«St Petersburg». Students. Investigation.

TRANSLATION FROM RUSSIAN

http://www.fontanka.ru/2012/10/16/135/

The Bank which counts among its shareholders the son of the former governor of St Petersburg, Matvienko, recently announced on the web that it was looking for volunteers to work for the benefit of law-enforcement authorities. Student trainees will have to organize the work of law-enforcement authorities aimed at revealing economically targeted criminal offences in the sphere of banking. Officially, the bank has already denied the existence of such trainings for students.

Recently, vacancies for students of higher and secondary educational institutions were announced on the web for training in the Bank St Petersburg. The scope of duties of future trainees included “organization of activities of

law-enforcement authorities aimed at revealing economically targeted offences and crimes in the sphere of banking », as well as “drawing up inventory lists of documents in criminal cases, drafting procedural documents». The Fontanka’s journalist did not believe what he was and called to the Bank St Petersburg. The Human resources department confirmed that the Bank recruited trainees who would not be paid. “The training will take place near Moskovskaya metro station, as far as I understand, on the basis of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Our criminal cases in banking sphere are investigated there, for example, with regard to loan indebtedness”, - they said in the Bank. According to the Bank’s employee, they have « their service » in the Chief Investigation Administration of the GU MVD of the Russian federation, where employees of the Bank St Petersburg are working, and now they need students to help them. At The Fontanka’s questions as to the possibility to get employed in such a department after the training, the Bank declared that for this employment a higher education diploma and 2-years experience are required. However, in the Bank St Petersburg, they were unable to explain why this offer is not published on their site; they just said that such offers were not published there.

In addition, two days later, the offer of training for students on the basis of the chief Investigation Administration GU MVD of the Russian Federation disappeared from employment sites. The Bank St Petersburg’s press-service denied the publication of information concerning this offer and explained that, the most likely, there was a mistake on the site which published the information about the training, and an internal investigation is in process with this regard.

The Fontanka decided to question other banks in St Petersburg about similar offers, but almost everywhere the answer was as follows: «We take students who study economic subjects”. And the press-service usually said “Our bank has a department which deals with problematic debts, their employees find out why people do not pay, they work out various payment schemes if clients encounter difficulties. If someone avoids payment, the case goes to the court. After the judgment, bailiffs start working. As you understand, we have no relation to them.”

It should be noted that the relationship between the Bank, which counts among its shareholders Sergey Matvienko, the son of the former governor of St Petersburg, and investigation authorities, had been already supposed by the businessman Vitaly Arkhangelsky and his lawyer Mikhail Nazarov. As the latter informed The Fontanka, last summer, investigation officers allowed employees of the Bank St Petersburg to the knowledge of documents which had been seized in the Bank, as well as a letter about the course of investigation of the criminal case against the businessman and the investigation officer’s opinion on the sufficiency of collected evidence. As Advocate Nazarov says, the Bank St Petersburg’s lawyers produced this information in European courts in the trial between the Bank and Arkhangelsky. But criminal cases against the businessman were suspended, and, therefore, in the advocate’s opinion, the documents might not be disclosed. «I requested the public prosecutor’s office and other authorities to explain what were that connected with. They informed me that the criminal case was not reopened, and the disclosure of documents is just an act of procedure. Then I filed a similar request asking to disclose the same documents to me, but this was refused. At present, a complaint is filed with Oktiabrsky district court against this behavior of the investigation officer, the trial should start next week”, - Nazarov said. According to him, one may not affirm that the Bank is directly connected with the investigation, but indirect facts reveal the selective attitude of law-enforcement authorities.

As The Fontanka had already informed the readers, at the end of May this year the court of Aix-en-Provence, for the second time, refused to extradite the businessman to Russia since it considered the charges against Arkhangelsky « confused and vague ». Please be reminded that, in 2010, criminal cases were initiated against the businessman. According to the investigation authorities, in March 2009, Arkhangelsky, together with unidentified people, made « Decision N°12 » on behalf of Western Terminal LLC (a group company) to obtain a loan in St Petersburg Branch of Morskoi Aktsionerny Bank OJSC. The law-enforcement authorities believe that the decision itself is an infringement of the law since officially Akhangelksy was not the only director of Western terminal and, therefore, he might not made alone decisions on large-scale transaction of the company, including loan agreements. In any way, the document was provided to the Bank which issued a positive decision and transferred to Western terminal 56,5 million rubles.

This is not the biggest debt attributed to Arkhangelsky. Oslo Marin’s loans amount to billions. The most important creditor, the Bank St Petersburg, lended about 4 million rubles t the company. VTB and Vozrojdenie Bank invested in OMG one billion each.

The businessman has his own opinion about the events. He believes that he became a victim of unlimited cupidity of Russian bankers.

Xenia Klochkova «Fontanka.ru»