Ex-Director of Antipinsky Oil Refinery Faces Extradition Demand from Prosecutor General’s Office
In Italy, the first hearing on the extradition case of Gennady Lisovichenko, the ex-chief of JSC Antipinsky Oil Refinery (NPZ), took place. In his home country, he is being investigated for abuse of power, fraud and embezzlement. His lawyers, who argue that the charges against him are purely civil, cannot currently communicate with him via video conference due to COVID-related measures in Italy.
Interpol has been searching for Gennady Lisovichenko since November 2019, and he was arrested in Italy on January 20 this year. A representative of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, Andrey Ivanov, stated, “Currently, the supervisory agency is preparing a request for the extradition of Gennady Lisovichenko in order to hold him accountable for his criminal actions.”
The investigative department of the TFR in the Tyumen region initiated a criminal case against Gennady Lisovichenko in the summer of 2019. In August, he was charged in absentia and put on the international wanted list. The businessman was also arrested in absentia by the court, and the case materials were sent to Interpol to include his information in the international police organization's search database. According to investigators, as the chief of the Antipinsky Oil Refinery (from 2004 to November 2018), he intentionally entered into a disadvantageous contract for the sale of the company’s property, specifically the railway track crucial for transporting oil products, at a price lower than the market value, causing an estimated 35 million rubles in damages to the refinery.
Simultaneously, the investigation revealed that the contract specified a lower price than the market value, resulting in an estimated 35 million rubles in damages to the refinery.
Furthermore, in 2019, the investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation initiated a criminal case under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (large-scale fraud) against Dmitry Mazurov, the founder of the Novy Potok group of companies, which previously owned the Antipinsky Oil Refinery. It involved the alleged embezzlement of 1.8 billion rubles in credit funds from Sberbank. The bank's claims targeted not only Mr. Mazurov, who was subsequently arrested, but also Gennady Lisovichenko. According to the final indictment, Dmitry Mazurov was charged with misappropriating $29 million of Sberbank funds, embezzling 473 million rubles from the Antipinsky Oil Refinery, and organizing an attack causing serious harm to the health of escort Yulia Milshtein. The second episode involved the withdrawal of the company’s funds under an allegedly fictitious contract. Mr. Mazurov, along with Gennady Lisovichenko, withdrew 473 million rubles to the account of a certain counterparty without fulfilling their obligations to the refinery. Dmitry Mazurov’s trial is ongoing in the Simonovsky Court of Moscow, with a potential conclusion in April-May. Meanwhile, in June 2020, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow, at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in absentia arrested Mr. Lisovichenko as part of this case. The president of the New Stream group, Yuri Navrazhny, was also arrested in absentia.
Mr. Lisovichenko’s lawyer Ruslan Elkanov said that, in his opinion, it is not profitable for the Tyumen department of the TFR and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to combine criminal cases against a businessman into one proceeding: “In the episode in Tyumen, all witnesses are “at hand”, the same situation with episodes which are being investigated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow”.
Meanwhile, in the Italian city of Bari, the first hearing on the case of Mr. Lisovichenko was held. So far, two of his Italian lawyers have not been able to see the client himself: the ex-general director of the refinery is being transferred from one prison to another due to changing sanitary requirements caused by the pandemic. Communication is still going on via video conferencing. Elkanov refused to talk about the line that the defense would choose, as well as about other details of the extradition case. But it can be assumed that it will be close to the one advocated by the defense of Dmitry Mazurov in the Simonovsky court. According to Ruslan Koblev, representing the interests of a businessman, “based on the version of the investigation, the state prosecution in court challenges the legality and economic feasibility of a number of civil law transactions concluded on behalf of Antipinsky Oil Refinery JSC by General Director Lisovichenko, including obtaining a loan from PJSC Sberbank. The defense considers this position of the prosecution legally absurd. At a time when Mazurov was the majority shareholder of the refinery, the company not only paid interest on loans, but also repaid loans to other creditors on time. The grounds for the bankruptcy of the Antipinsky Oil Refinery were created artificially, and the market value of the plant exceeded the amount of borrowings.
