The former leader of the DIA leaves the Central Bank without working there for even six months. The reason might be the security forces' potential interest in his “achievements” at his previous job?
.jpg?v1658996777 "Isaev flies like a falcon: was the ex-head of the DIA scared of the security forces?")
Yury Isaev, who has served as deputy chairman of the Central Bank for just under six months, will resign at the start of next month. While at the Central Bank, he supervised matters concerning currency control, combating money laundering, and terrorism financing.
Isaev has a quite extensive background. He worked in numerous credit and monetary institutions. Before joining the Central Bank, he spent a lengthy ten years as the general director of the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA).
DIA is a government agency that compensates depositors of banks where an insured event has occurred.
As per Forbes, Isaev is leaving due to health reasons and might require long-term treatment. The Moscow Post.
Lawyers in gold
During Isaev's leadership at the DIA, the department faced disgrace more than once. A notable incident was when a creditor of Prombusinessbank complained about the DIA's actions as a bankruptcy trustee. The plaintiff, Avtocenter company, alleged that the DIA overvalued the services of the lawyers responsible for monitoring the repayment of debts by Prombusinessbank.
And this money came from the creditors themselves. During the bank's bankruptcy, over 1 billion rubles were spent on lawyers’ services, as reported by Vedomosti.
The situation is not unique. There were instances where lawyers' expenses accounted for half of the entire bankruptcy estate. In the case of Prombiznesbank, the plaintiff claimed that the lawyers sometimes did not take any actions to recover debts on behalf of creditors.
Additionally, it's worth noting that the DIA is a generous sponsor of the state. Could it be possible that Isaev simply sought to make extra money in such a straightforward manner?
This is a reasonable assumption, considering the court's attention to the bonuses paid to lawyers. According to Interfax, in 2019, 6 million rubles previously paid as a “success fee” to hired lawyers were recovered from the DIA in favor of MIFTS No. 50 in Moscow as part of the bankruptcy of Holding Credit Bank.
As part of the bankruptcy of Prombusinessbank, the Let’s Go! structure was taken by creditors. The DIA sold it to the controversial Sovcombank, which offered a price two times lower than the market price. Later, Sovcombank sold Let’s Go! to its own management and a group of investors, including the head of the DIA’s subsidiary – the bank “Russian Capital” Mikhail Kuzovlev. Is this not Isaev’s doing?
“Effective” DIA work
When analyzing the company's overall performance, it can hardly be considered effective. Previously, The Moscow Post provided an analysis based on the company's performance, concluding that the efficiency of the structure under Isaev's leadership amounted to a mere 1.6% of the damage caused by dishonest bankers, while any arbitration manager works at a level of 20-25%.
Isaev himself stated that 70% of the time when the DIA files lawsuits, they are ineffective in terms of getting money.
In this situation, it is not understood why the DIA structure exists and why significant state injections go into it.
Where does the state corporation’s money end up? Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
After the Prombiznesbank scandal, the DIA, via Isaev, announced that it would employ 1.5 thousand of its own lawyers. Based on estimates, 4-5 for each case. The average salary of such a specialist is 65-70 thousand rubles. If we calculate the expenditures, it costs the budget about an additional 1.2-1.4 billion rubles a year.
But if we look into the past of the DIA, we will see even more interesting things – for example, in 2015, the DIA requested a loan of 20 billion rubles from the Central Bank, because it had used up its own funds. How, then, such generous fees to lawyers? By the way, just a month after receiving the funds, the DIA spent 1.9 billion (instead of the originally planned 1 billion) rubles to furnish its office.
I wonder how he supervised money laundering issues at the Central Bank. If, as in the DIA, it is obvious that Nabiullina could have some objections …
We reached the wallets of the population
In 2017, Tatfondbank (TFB) depositors sued the DIA. The fact is that those depositors who, before the arrival of the DIA, re-registered their accounts for other individuals, dividing large deposits into small ones, were simply “saved” by the DIA from their deposits. The department regarded the actions as suspicious. This was reported by “Business Online”.
As a result, when the institution went bankrupt, about 3.9 thousand TFB depositors were left out with demands for payment of 4.4 billion. And did this amount go into the pocket of dealers from the DIA?
Furthermore. In 2018, depositors who had already received money faced a demand from the DIA to return them. Allegedly, the depositors knew that the bank was “on the verge of a foul” and had no right to earn on their savings. “How could we know this, if on December 2 my son withdrew 659 thousand rubles, and returned it on the 5th?! How could we, ordinary people, know about this?! Then we would not put the money back!” – quotes one of the women who received the demand “Business Online”.
influential circle
All these intricacies allow Isaev to associate with the oligarchs brothers Arkady and Igor Rotenberg without punishment. During his successful career, he managed, in the position of first deputy chairman and head, to lead Dynamo, a sports society that is linked with them.
According to rumors, Isaev promoted their interests in the sale of SMP Bank, and also promised to resolve issues with the law of the former owners of Mosoblbank for donations to Dynamo. SMP-Bank received a total of 55 billion rubles from the DIA, the money went to reorganize Mosoblbank.
Isaev also worked for a long time under the watchful eye of the current head of Sberbank, German Gref, as Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation. Then about a year in Rusal – connected to Oleg Deripaska, and at the same time an adviser to the first deputy head of the FSB, Vladimir Pronichev. So wherever you look, there are influential people behind Isaev’s back.
Spiteful critics claim that Isaev was allegedly close to the highest echelons of the FSB – to the ex-head of Department “K” Viktor Voronin and his former subordinate, ex-head of the banking department of the FSB Kirill Cherkalin. The latter became famous just for covering bankers with their unscrupulous deeds. In 2019, he got caught and ended up behind bars, Lenta.ru wrote.
According to PASMI (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation), Cherkalin allegedly named Deputy Isaev Valery Miroshnikov as his agent from the DIA. Shortly before that, the latter disappeared from the radar – he quit and fled abroad.
Is Isaev going on an indefinite vacation?
It seems that something similar can now happen with Mr. Isaev, who climbed higher and higher, and suddenly, for no reason at all, quit. We can hardly talk about the inefficiency of the latter. After all, how many cases do we know when Elvira Nabiullina keeps very controversial managers near her.
Take, for example, Vladimir Chistyukhin, the deputy head of the Central Bank. During his leadership of the insurance market, about 5 billion state rubles leaked through the Respect company in an unknown direction. This was written by “Kommersant”.
During the proceedings, it turned out that the Central Bank did not even know who the true head of the company was. How was the license issued then? Chistyukhin just shrugged. And he sits. And they even tipped him to Nabiullina’s place.
Isaev at the post in the Central Bank has not even had time to disgrace himself, so his sudden departure can rather be regarded as a flight. Moreover, the flight, apparently, is from the past in the DIA, to which a pile of questions has accumulated during the period of his leadership. The “long-term treatment” referred to by Forbes indirectly confirms the hypothesis.
Taking into account the fact that Nabiullina recently announced the upcoming clearing of the banking sector, and Isaev is a new person for her, incomparable with Chistyukhin in terms of proximity to the head of the Central Bank, he has something to fear.
There is reason to believe that in Russia we will be able to observe Mr. Isaev for a very, very short time, and then he will fly a “falcon” for his former deputy Miroshnikov and that’s it.
