After a court decision to return 89% of SMZ shares to the state, trouble started for those involved in its acquisition. The first ones affected were the enterprise's director, Artur Urtaev, and Petr Kondrashev's former partner, Igor Pestrikov, who now face a criminal case. Is this the beginning of problems for the oligarch?
.jpg?v1655716080 "Not Ecoprombank Alone: The “Ring” Is Shrinking Around Pyotr Kondrashev")
Photo: kommersant.ru
Artur Urtaev, who was appointed as General Director of Solikamsk Magnesium Plant (SMZ) in May 2022, is now a defendant in a criminal case. He is accused of granting a 250 million ruble loan to the company's shareholder, Igor Pestrikov, who is currently wanted by the authorities.
The loan was secured by Pestrikov's share in the raw material supplier for SMZ, which is managed by Lovozersky Mining and Processing Plant LLC. At that time, GOKA suffered losses of almost 80 million rubles, so the loan repayment was not guaranteed.
Why was a loan issued when it was clear that it couldn't be repaid? More on this later.
Previously, the state confiscated SMZ from Petr Kondrashev, Igor Pestrikov, Sergei Kirpichev, and Timur Starostin, as it was proven that the privatization of the enterprise in the 90s was illegal.
It's important to note that during those years, the enterprise handled radioactive waste, and now it is Russia's only industrial producer of niobium and tantalum compounds. This makes its products highly in demand. Before being taken back by the state, this strategically important enterprise was owned by individuals who were not the most suitable for this type of business.
The former shareholder of the enterprise, Mikhail Dvorkovich, described the situation at SMZ as follows in an interview with The Moscow Post: “A criminal chronicle about the Solikamsk magnesium plant and its majority shareholders should be made for the country's central TV channels.” The Moscow Post's correspondent in the Perm Territory delved into the intricacies of the story.
Diverse life story
Pestrikov is known as a dubious businessman, with his name appearing in criminal reports related to the use of firearms. He was even involved in a case under the charge of “Threat to kill.” For some reason, Pestrikov had an altercation with a man in the elite cottage village “Beresta” and resorted to using a machine gun.
Pestrikov was or still is listed as the founder of a number of firms, some of which are offshore. For instance, until 2018, “Business Invest West” was connected to “SANDERS PARTNERS LTD”. On the day the company's founders changed, Pestrikov became involved. Billions are being circulated within the company, and its founders’ shares are burdened by Promsvyazbank. Could this company essentially be a front for money laundering?
According to the authors of the Banksta telegram channel, Pestrikov’s supposed 'fun' was funded by ex-State Duma deputy Ashot Yeghiazaryan, who is hiding in the United States from the secret services of at least two states and is in dispute with the US Migration Service, which accuses him of giving false information about Russian leaders in exchange for political asylum in 2011.
In 2018, Yeghiazaryan was given a seven-year prison sentence. According to investigators, Yeghiazaryan deceitfully gained control of a 20% share in Centurion Alliance worth over 1.5 billion rubles, which belonged to businessman Vitaly Smagin.
His name also appeared in a number of hard-hitting stories, such as the case of the bank 'Unicom', which was acquired by the administration of the Moscow region, amassed funds from the region's budget, and then potentially could have been looted by Yeghiazaryan, who held a senior position there. This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that the large sums of money in bonds entrusted to the future politician decreased in value over four months, and after that the missing funds were found by law enforcement agencies in one of the island’s banks.
A rather well-organized group of unfriendly 'sinkers' comes into play. But returning to the story of the SMZ, according to Kommersant, Mr. Pestrikov, acquiring his block of shares, acted in the interests of Pyotr Kondrashev. It is known that in 2019 a corporate conflict broke out between the two shareholders.
Loss of money, death of the manager and other stories surrounding Kondrashev
Kondrashev filed a lawsuit against Pestrikov, claiming that this package had actually been pledged to him since 2016, and Mr. Pestrikov transferred the papers as collateral to another creditor without his consent. What exactly did the entrepreneurs not share?
The answer may be very simple. According to informed sources who have chosen to remain anonymous, the money issued for the possibly 'fake' loan, which was mentioned at the very beginning, was essentially a 'compensation' from Kondrashev to Pestrikov.
By the way, not long ago, our publication sued Kondrashev for publishing materials that covered his activities and his dispute with Pestrikov, and was forced to agree to an amicable agreement under pressure from the latter.
Kondrashev is referred to as a Perm oligarch who currently lives in Austria. He tarnished his reputation long before the state shifted its focus to the SMZ. He was also the hidden owner of Andrey Tuev’s Ecoprombank, which has been bankrupt since 2014 – as reported by Versiya.
Around the same time, SMZ fell into the hands of Kondrashev through a number of Cypriot offshore companies. Is it possible that the plant's shares were bought with bank money? And would the plant's money have been channeled into offshore companies if the state had not intervened with its beneficiaries?
Tuev was accused of embezzlement in 2016, shortly before attempting to flee to Cyprus, but in 2021 he was extradited back to his homeland – as per Kommersant. In this scenario, it is interesting to note that, according to law enforcement officers, the former chairman of the board of the bank helped Reis LLC obtain a loan of 250 million rubles in 2013. Most of this money was supposed to go to the development company Permgrazhdanstroy LLC. However, there was no guarantee for the contract, similar to the situation with the SMZ, and the money was not returned to the lender. Do you sense the influence of master Kondrashev?
An even darker shadow is cast on this story by the unexpected death of one of the managers of Ecoprombank, Ivan Shatrov. In June 2016, after the arrest of the deputy chairman of the board of the bank, Vadim Manin, he flew to London and settled in an apartment owned by a member of the supervisory board, Alexander Gutin. And already on July 1, his body was found in this apartment. The investigation qualified the incident as “a consequence of mechanical asphyxia caused by the actions of Shatrov himself.” But who flies to London only to die?
The same question, apparently, asked the investigation. In 2017, a criminal case was initiated on the grounds of the murder of Shatrov, but due to the impossibility of identifying the culprit, it was soon terminated. According to one version, Shatrov brought to London a folder of documents about Kondrashev’s financial transactions. If this information is to be believed, there is reason to believe that the latter had a motive for committing the crime.
Now that Tuev is under investigation, who knows what they might remember Kondrashev? Judging by the way the people around him are arrested, the ring of security forces is quite tightly compressed around the throat of the oligarch. Not Ecoprombank alone…
