As several sources told Rucriminal.info, banker Andrei Shlyakhovoy is the creator of many channels for the shadow export of dual-use sanctioned goods to Russia. This person has been confidently sitting on two chairs for a long time. While engaged in such business, he has been living in Spain for several years.
Andrei Zakharovich Shlyakhovoy was not only able to withdraw significant financial resources to Europe from the banking institutions that previously belonged to him, but also to create a system for illegally paying for sanctioned goods through his API BANK a.d. Belgrade (https://www.apibank.rs/).
Until 2018, API BANK was proudly called VTB Banka a.d. Belgrade and was the Serbian subsidiary of the Russian state-owned bank VTB. VTB Banka changed its name after its sale to a Russian investor. Shlyakhov received great assistance in acquiring the bank from Maria Stepina, a private banking consultant who, after concluding the deal to acquire the credit institution, headed its board.
Currently, the main business of API BANK is the gray conversion of Russian rubles into euros, through the Serbian dinar. Erste Group Bank AG and some other European banks operating in the Serbian market act as regular partners in these transactions. Also, through various schemes with the help of these banks, API BANK is used to pay for gray contracts of large Russian corporations for the purchase of various dual-use goods.
According to a source of Rucriminal.info, despite his PhD in economics and the honorary title of "Honored Economist of the Russian Federation", Shlyakhov's former Russian banker was a natural "black mark" of the Russian banking system. No matter what credit institution he appeared in, everything ended with the loss of his license.
According to a number of experts, Shlyakhovoy, under the cover of some very influential forces, carried out systematic activities to deliberately bankrupt credit and financial institutions. Thus, his victims were KB Agrosoyuz, Arksbank and Baikalbank, as well as UM-Bank.
Shlyakhovoy gained control over KB Agrosoyuz at the end of 2017. And after some time, problems began in the bank. Immediately after this, Shlyakhovoy left the bank's shareholders. And literally a few days later, the Central Bank raided the bank, during which not only serious problems with assets were revealed, but also the disappearance of cash worth more than one and a half billion rubles.
However, there is a funny story circulating on the market about how, on the eve of the revocation of the license of KB Agrosoyuz, its employees took 1.5 billion rubles in various currencies from the bank's cash desk in half an hour. A criminal case was even opened on this matter, which sank into obscurity. And after the revocation of Agrosoyuz's banking license, the temporary administration appointed to the bank found evidence of theft of 7 billion rubles through fictitious loans. And after the bank was declared bankrupt, the size of the "hole" in its capital grew to more than 15 billion rubles. The same thing happened with UM-Bank. In 2015, former Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Valery Yazev sold it to Andrey Shlyakhov. In March 2017, the bank changed its registration to Moscow. In mid-November 2018, the Bank of Russia revoked UM-Bank's license for numerous violations, including "implementing transactions to withdraw liquid assets to the detriment of the interests of creditors and depositors." The comments to the order to revoke UM-Bank's license emphasized that "signs of criminal offenses" were found in the actions of its management. In 2019, the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied the claim of the Bank of Russia for the forced liquidation of UM-Bank.
There is a well-known story about a strange deal made in the office of the Agrosoyuz bank under the control of Shlyakhov. As a result of this operation, a certain entrepreneur lost 200 million rubles in cash and real estate in the Moscow region worth $12 million. The investigation into this case was never launched.
Or another widely known story about how Andrei Shlyakhov cheated the son of the head of AFK Sistema Vladimir Yevtushenkov out of 1 billion rubles in the process of a real estate transaction. Moreover, he got absolutely nothing for this either.
Considering the fact that Andrei Zakharovich and members of his clan have enough of their own Russian business, but creditors have not yet “squeezed” it out for all his “exploits”, there is a guess that the banker has a serious power “roof”. It is simply impossible to explain the situations in any other way, as a result of which another would have long ago dragged out an existence in places not so remote.
They say that behind Shlyakhov there is a certain powerful Russian special service in whose interests he maintained and most likely maintains business contacts with the leadership of ... North Korea.
Thus, Shlyakhov was a participant in one extremely interesting operation, when in the summer of 2018, through the controlled bank "Agrosoyuz", in violation of the sanctions regime imposed by the UN, a large sum was transferred to one of the North Korean banks. According to a source of Rucriminal.info, this money could have been intended to finance the assassination attempt on the brother of the DPRK leader Kim Jong-nam, who was killed in Malaysia.
Alexey Ermakov
Source: www.rucriminal.info