A former banker who was hiding in Canada has been arrested in absentia for committing fraud with the assets of a failed credit institution.

Stepan Melkonov was engaged in embezzlement from SB-Bank.

Security forces have identified 54-year-old ex-banker Stepan Melkonov as the beneficiary of the multi-billion dollar embezzlement in the collapsed Sudostroitelny Bank (SB-Bank). He was a witness in the criminal case but in 2021, he obtained a Canadian passport and fled the country. Another person involved in the investigation, former co-owner of SB-Bank Andrey Vovchenko, also relocated to Canada.

Stepan Melkonov

At the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow issued an absentee arrest warrant for Melkonov. He is a suspect in a case of particularly large-scale fraud related to the theft of SB-Bank property through assignment transactions.

In 2015, the Central Bank revoked the license of the credit organization, leaving more than 37 billion rubles in debt to depositors. In 2018, the authorities initiated a criminal case, uncovering fraud related to the alienation of the property of the SB-Bank.

It was found that just before the license was revoked, the bank’s management engaged in fictitious transactions to transfer the assets of the credit institution. The main building of the SB-Bank in Moscow on Sadovnicheskaya Street was first transferred to a closed-end real estate investment fund Mart Realty, and then sold to the Akvenga company, which was identified as a front company by the police.

The same fraudulent scheme involved the Moscow shopping and entertainment center (SEC) “Azov”, worth about 2 billion rubles, which had ties to the owners of SB-Bank. The investigation revealed that Stepan Melkonov was one of the ultimate beneficiaries of the stolen property.

Since 2020, the former banker has been summoned for questioning as a witness. Suspecting that something was amiss, he obtained a Canadian passport and fled, making stops in Greece, Armenia, the USA and Mexico before reaching Canada.

During the investigation, it was determined that Stepan Melkonov was one of the ultimate beneficiaries of the property stolen from the SB-Bank, including the Azovsky shopping and entertainment center, through affiliated companies.
In 1993, he served as chairman of the board of Post Bank, which was later liquidated by court order in 2002. He then became one of the key owners of Mobilbank, which lost its license in 2012 due to high-risk lending, investment in low-quality assets, and inadequate reserves for potential losses. The police declined to pursue a criminal case regarding the bank's issuance of non-performing loans to the Deposit Insurance Agency. Notably, the board of directors of Mobilbank included Mikhail Nefed, who acted as a lawyer for Stepan Melkonov during the arrest. It seems likely that the ex-banker Melkonov has settled in Canada, where another figure involved in the investigation, former SB-Bank co-owner Andrey Vovchenko, has also been living since 2015 and is on the wanted list.
The investigation considers him to be the organizer of fictitious transactions for the alienation of the assets of a credit institution on the eve of revocation of his license. From the documents at the disposal of the investigation, it follows that all the assignment agreements in February 2015 were concluded by Mr. Vovchenko. Three months after these operations, the former top manager, having sold his Russian property, ended up in Canada. The damage caused by them is estimated at almost 6 billion rubles.

As it became known to “Kommersant”, the former director of the lending department of Sudostroitelny Bank (SB-bank) Irina Kukarskaya and her subordinate Sergei Zykov, the investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs plans to file a new charge in the near future. Last Monday, ex-bankers were convicted in the case of embezzlement of 11 billion rubles. by issuing knowingly bad loans, now we are talking about the amount of 19 billion rubles. In total, the bankrupt credit institution owes more than 37 billion rubles to customers.
Instead of the nine years in a penal colony requested by Sergei Zykov, the court sentenced the defendant exactly half as much. Note that he has already spent three years and nine months in custody during the investigation and trial, that is, almost the entire period. Irina Kukarskaya, whom the state prosecutor asked to be sentenced to eight years, will go to a colony for only 3.5 years. At the same time, the ex-head of the SB-Bank department was under house arrest throughout the investigation. In addition, the court satisfied the requirement of the DIA to bring the defendants to subsidiary liability, obliging them to compensate the damage caused to the credit institution in the amount of 11 billion rubles.
We also note that now the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia is seeking the extradition from Latvia of the former top manager of SB-Bank Vasily Melnikov. In 2016, the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow found him guilty of falsifying bank statements (Article 172.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced him to pay a fine of 300 thousand rubles. After that, the former about. The chairman of the board of the credit institution, Melnikov, decided not to wait for more serious accusations and left the country, settling in the Baltics. Now the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs suspects him of being involved in multi-billion dollar embezzlement from the SB-Bank.