Alexandra Udodova did not agree with the verdict.
Previous top executives of Almatel have been found guilty of fraud. The Zamoskvoretsky Court in Moscow has given the former head of the Almatel telecommunications company a 7-year prison sentence. Alexandra Gadalova. His former subordinate Konstantin Antonevich has been given a 4-year sentence. Both were found guilty of fraudulent activities related to supplying telecommunications equipment to the company and a scam involving promissory notes of Telephone 365. This information was reported by Kommersant on Tuesday.
The court fully supported the prosecution's viewpoint and acknowledged the guilt of Gadalov and Antonevich in three major fraud incidents (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) with which they were charged.
The amount of damage in the case is 550 million rubles. The court has fully addressed the financial claims against the convicts from corporate entities, totaling 98 million rubles. Simultaneously, the businessman Alexandra Udodova (the victim in the case) had a claim of 559.2 million rubles, and the court has partially approved it, ordering the convicts to pay only 308.2 million rubles.
Following the verdict, the victim was unsatisfied with the court's decision. "Interestingly, the verdict not only failed to restore Mr. Udodov's rights, but instead, it essentially sanctioned the embezzlement of his funds by the foreign company DSFC (the current owner of Almatel – "Kommersant"), by removing individuals who actually stole my client's funds," explained the businessman's representative, Vyacheslav Efimenko. The court also, according to Mr. Efimenko, ignored the chance to repay the damages to Mr. Udodov through the seized assets of Telefon 365, a 19.5% stake in Tsifra Odin LLC valued at around 250 million rubles, and a claim right amounting to 230 million rubles in the Eurasia Investments management company, where, as per the businessman, the funds he used to pay the bills are located. "My client and I believe that the core principles of justice have been violated, prompting us to appeal the verdict."
All three incidents within the case took place between 2016-2017. As per the investigation, at the end of December 2016, Gadalov, who was the managing director of Alma Group LLC at the time, and Alexander Parkhomenko, the general director of the same company (currently on the wanted list), organized a criminal group to steal funds from companies under the "Almatel" holding. Antonevich, the CEO of the Telefon 365 provider under his control, later joined the group.
In accordance with the plan developed by Gadalov and Parkhomenko, in January 2017, Tsifra Odin LLC and Telefon 365 LLC signed a contract for the supply of equipment in the amount of 78.2 million rubles, which in the end was never delivered. According to the same scheme, as the investigation believes, there was a scam with the supply of equipment for the 2Kom Company. In this case, the amount of theft amounted to 19.6 million rubles.
The largest episode of the case is connected with Alexander Udodov. In December 2017, Parkhomenko, being familiar with Udodov and knowing that he had free funds and a desire to increase them, suggested that the businessman purchase promissory notes from the Telephone 365 company in the amount of 450 million rubles. Parkhomenko convinced Udodov that he, as an investor, would make good money on interest on the redemption of securities, and the money received from Udodov would be used to purchase new assets. However, none of this happened. Having executed the transaction on December 27, 2017, the issuer paid off part of the bills within two years, but then refused to do so. All Udodov’s attempts to get his money back came to nothing.
The Almatel holding was created by Alma-Group (Kazakhstan), it includes providers Tsifra Odin, Kompaniya 2Kom, Setel, TDS+, etc. The holding operates in Moscow, the Moscow Region, Krasnodar and Tver, providing services of broadband access (BBA) to the Internet, pay TV and telephony. Its subscriber base includes about 250 thousand people.
In the spring of 2019, the bank’s license was revoked and payments on promissory notes stopped, and later it turned out that in reality there were no promissory notes on the bank’s balance sheet and the promissory notes purchased at Parkhomenko’s suggestion turned out to be invalid, and the money invested by Udodov was stolen.
