The Meshchansky court dismissed the case against Anatoly Ballo, ex-deputy head of the board of Vnesheconombank, and Alexander Lepikhov, general director of the Arkaim timber processing enterprise, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
On Monday, February 21, Lente.ru was informed by the press service of the court.
Earlier, two Russians who are scheduled to be released were accused of fraud in the amount of more than two billion rubles allocated by Vnesheconombank as a loan for the development of the enterprise. Ballo and Lepikhov denied their guilt. Now the issue of their release from custody is being decided.
According to the department, in 2009, in addition to the two defendants, the head of one of the departments of Vnesheconombank, Ilgis Valitov, was at the origins of the scheme. Then, from Arkaim, Vnesheconombank received a request for credit financing for the construction of a wood processing complex, and the cost of the project was significantly overestimated. But Ballo and Valitov deceived other functionaries of Vnesheconombank and convinced them of the expediency of this lending. Later, they even managed to change the documents in such a way that part of the money was transferred to the accounts of a foreign company opened with a bank of the Swiss Confederation, while these finances were supposed to go to manufacturers of imported technological equipment for wood processing.
The scheme worked until 2012. The fraud investigation began in 2020. Ballo and Lepikhov were detained in the summer of 2021, while Valitov managed to escape.
