Penza, 12 July 2016. PenzaNews. Accusations of illegal banking activities are brought against 22 members of the criminal group, which operated in Penza since 2009, two more persons involved in the criminal case are put on the federal wanted list. The head of the regional Investigative Committee branch, Lieutenant General of Justice OIeg Troshin informed PenzaNews about it.  

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“I am talking about those facts that have been 100% objectively established and what is specified in the indictment,” he said during the press conference held on Tuesday, July 12.

The Lieutenant General of Justice added that, according to investigators, the criminals involved 150 people in the criminal activities, they provided aiding in one way or another.

“[They] created more than 100 bogus firms, on accounts of which for the purpose of cashing out they attracted over 7 billion rubles from 2 thousand legal entities from all over Russia. The income from these activities amounted to not less than 90 million rubles,” the head of the regional Investigative Committee branch said.

According to Oleg Troshin, within the investigation of this criminal case it is considered to initiate another one – under Art. 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “The Legalization (Laundering) of Monetary Funds or Other Property Acquired by a Person as a Result of an Offense Committed by Him/Her.”

“Moreover, during the investigation of the criminal case, in cooperation with our colleagues, FSB officers, we established 14 more crimes of different categories. We initiated about 32 on-site tax inspections in the organizations that contacted the “illegal bank” to get services from it. Based on these materials, we initiated two criminal cases on tax crimes,” he explained.

Oleg Troshin remarked that during work on this case the investigators detected crimes related to fraud on a large scale at the “Penzalift” enterprise and money theft during the construction of the perinatal center.

“Currently this case is coming to its end. We are already now ready to bring accusations against two persons. By now we thoroughly checked and define the exact amount of loss – about 95 million rubles. Most of it was compensated by the defendants,” the head of the Penza region Investigative Committee branch noted.