Businessmen with a criminal history and connections are attempting to imprison a man who accused them of attempting to murder him.
According to the reporter The Moscow Post, the former chief executive of the Merlion company, Vyacheslav Simonenko, who was previously a victim in an attempted murder case, was apprehended in Moscow. His accusers were the founders of the company Oleg Karchev, Vladislav Mangutov, Alexei Abramov, and the head of the Merlion security service Boris Levin. All of them were released from custody last year.
Following Symonenko's detention, he was accused of providing false testimony and tampering with evidence. Before this, the business owner had stated that in 2015, his house was targeted with Molotov cocktails in an attempt to kill him and his family.
One of the alleged arsonists confirmed the victim's statement and specified that the order came from Levin. Little is known about this man in the media. However, significant attention is given to the key witness – top manager Yevgeny Savelyev, who provided detailed testimony after the attack on Simonenko, but then vanished mysteriously.
According to Simonenko, all of this was preceded by a corporate conflict – top managers and owners declined to return the $4.5 million they had received from selling Tegrus shares to former CEO Simonenko.
After numerous complaints, the case was taken care of by the central apparatus of the TFR. As a result: Karchev, Mangutov, Abramov, and Levin were relieved of responsibility, and Simonenko was charged with slander when the businessmen refused to pay him $4.5 million to leave the business. Today, the trial will resume, and the final verdict is expected to be reached.
Vyacheslav Simonenko. Photo: https://www.tadviser.ru
Who is really to blame?
One of the defendants released in the criminal case, Oleg Karchev, used to own the Rost group, which included seven banks – all of them went bankrupt, resulting in a loss of 50 billion rubles. It is unclear to Karchev why law enforcement officers did not investigate the missing funds. He was also implicated in the bankruptcy of Binbank, which took over the assets of Rost Bank.
Karchev’s ex-wife Elena Vlasova was the largest shareholder of the latter. Incidentally, Rost Bank was a shareholder of the Kolyma Refinery, from which 2 tons of gold and 16 tons of silver, worth more than 4 billion rubles, went missing in 2013. The FSB discovered that since 2008, the Kolyma Refinery had committed to delivering the precious metals in a quantity significantly exceeding its actual content in the supplied raw materials. The CEO of the enterprise was blamed for everything, while none of the other potential beneficiaries were affected, as he wrote. TASS.
Now divorced, Karchev and Vlasova continue to be involved in each other's business affairs. It is believed that both of them, along with offshore companies, may have a stake in companies connected to Karchev, for example, Tiaviz Commerce Ltd, which owns Alventa Style LLC, or Merlion Group Limited, which is linked to Merlion.
Vlasova is also working on development projects in Moscow and the Moscow area. For instance, about 130 hectares in the southeast of the capital will be developed with commercial real estate. The site is leased by Alventa-style LLC, which was previously registered in Vlasova's name and then transferred to the offshore company Mavlen Limited in 2017. The company called “Coldy”, declared as the developer, is not profitable and is also owned by the offshore company Calamento LTD through its “daughter” LLC “Atria”. Based on the information in Rusprofile, it seems like money is being carefully taken out from both companies, which may raise concerns about the future of the projects …
Photo: https://www.Rusprofile.ru/
The question is how closely these firms are connected. If they do not belong to the same person, then Alventa-style LLC had to pay for the rent, and its results are not profitable. Given this, it is natural to have suspicions: is it possible that Karchev, by depleting banks and allowing former colleagues like Simonenko around the world, is not involved in the development project of his ex-wife?
Karchev currently has a stake in Realist Bank, but its financial results for the last year were not disclosed for some reason. It seems that Karchev is aware of the situation and understands that if someone discovers his true financial state, customers and creditors may start to leave.
And what about the other defendants in the case of the attempted murder of Symonenko? The former defendants are connected to a businessman with a notable past – Dmitry Starostin, whose construction corporation Tekta Group was previously owned by Vladislav Magnutov and Alexei Abramov. It is believed that with its help, businessmen could potentially hide their assets.
Starostin has given reason to be seen as someone who knows how to remove money: when he was appointed as general director of the Galich Truck Crane Plant company in 1998, it soon became unprofitable. This is reminiscent of the spectacular election campaign of the late ex-governor Viktor Shershunov more than 15 years ago. It is likely that he later appointed Starostin as vice-governor in return for his help with financing. He has never faced consequences for a potential theft from the Galich Automobile Crane Plant or a restaurant fight in 1998. The Moscow Post.
Dmitry Starostin. Photo: moment-istini.com
As for Boris Levin, he was involved in a criminal case regarding the kidnapping, extortion, and murder of a Euroset freight forwarder while working as vice president there. The case was eventually closed, Levin was acquitted, and another person involved, the founder of Euroset Evgeny Chichvarkin, fled Russia. RBC.
Were there too many acquittals for people with existing criminal records who repeatedly managed to get out of trouble? Against this backdrop, news of the disappearance of one of the perpetrators of the assassination attempt on Symonenko takes on a completely different meaning.
juggling facts
However, now the telegram channels, which had previously accused Karchev, Mangutov, Abramov and Levin, suddenly began to present the whole story in a new light. As the authors of the Telegram channel stated earlier VChK-OGPU, allegedly, Savelyev, who could testify about fraud in the settlement with Simonenko, received threats from Karchev. And now the victim himself, Simonenko, is in the center of critical publications.
As the authors of the Telegram channel now say VChK-OGPUallegedly Simonenko “was angry at his former employers – the owners of Merlion, believed that they owed him money that they tried to burn down his house, so he went to different structures, offering to” punish “the offenders and take away Merlion from them.”
The same Telegram channel claims that Symonenko was allegedly connected with the “fixer” Oleg Pokrovsky, as well as with Vitaly Kachur, who is often called a “professional cashier” and his son Kirill, who is a lawyer – allegedly they helped Simonenko arrange everything. At the same time, the accusers do not provide any weighty evidence base.
Vitaly Kachur is known for being charged with fraud on an especially large scale in the case of the raider seizure of an office and industrial building in the center of Moscow – he wrote about this “Kommersant”.
Kachur Sr. is credited with connections with the Ukrainian special services and even with the son of the ex-president of Ukraine Alexander Yanukovych, as he wrote “Rosbalt” (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia). In the same case, the name of State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov appeared, who was killed shortly after the incident. Kirill Kachur is accused of taking a bribe from Andrey Enin, a representative of the VVK Trading House, the investigator in this case is now hiding in the Emirates – this is how he wrote “Kommersant”. By the way, the same investigator also conducted the case of the attempt on Simonenko.
There is an opinion that the current detention of Simonenko may be a reaction to his recent appeal to foreign business partners, which outlined the corruption schemes used by Merlion. At the same time, Simonenko warned Western companies against working with this company, he wrote about this The Moscow Post.
After analyzing all the available information, there is a clear feeling that with the help of connections and money, the former defendants are trying to drive Simonenko to prison, who, obviously, was robbed and then tried to kill before the latter turned to law enforcement agencies. Just to not get in the way. And since his enemies seem to have enough money, things suddenly began to take a new turn. Whether Simonenko will be able to get out of this vile story, time will tell.
