Penza, 20 June 2016. PenzaNews. The Penza police have finished the investigation of the criminal case on client fraud in “Yugo-Zapadny” car dealership.

© PenzaNewsBuy the photo

The defendants in the case will be the general director of “Transkom,” 47, and a car dealership manager, 37, Lyudmila Fomina, senior assistant of the head of the regional Investigative Committee for media relations, told PenzaNews.

“According to investigation, one of the defendants, who worked as a head sales manager and later a general director of ‘Transkom,’ managed the process of sales of vehicles at two store locations under the ‘Yugo-Zapadny’ car dealership brand. As part of the car dealership activities, the defendant illegally apprehended the funds from clients gained through car sales and exchanges from April 2011 to June 2014, did not add the funds to the car dealership stock, and used the money as he saw fit,” she explained.

In several cases, the general director of the company had been assisted by a sales manager who wrote car sales documents for reduced prices compared to original agent agreements, she added.

“The process required investigators to conduct a large volume of work, including identifying and questioning over 150 witnesses and suffered individuals, numerous visits and storage of documents required for the case. The measures taken during the investigation allowed to recover over 24 million rubles of damages for the victims of the fraud,”Lyudmila Fomina stressed.

The criminal case has been sent to the court for review on the merits, she explained.

As PenzaNews quoted the police, the investigation by July 2014 identified 92 people who ended up falling for the “Yugo-Zapadny” Penza car dealership fraud, for a total of nearly 15 million rubles of damages.

On 20 February 2015, police colonel Yuri Ruzlyaev, head of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs department, during a report on results of the 2014 work of his institution to the Penza region Legislative Assembly, announced that the “Yugo-Zapadny” car dealership in Penza has done over 45 million rubles of fraud damages, with 155 victims located.

In August 2015, the criminal case under Part 4, Art. 159 of the Criminal Code “Fraud” against the founded and general director of “Transkom” (the legal entity behind “Yugo-Zapadny”) was transferred from the Ministry of the Interior to the Penza region Investigative Committee department.

During the preliminary investigation, the activities of the defendants – born in 1983 and 1969 – were reviewed as falling under Part 4, Art. 160 of the Criminal Code, “Misappropriation of Funds.” In addition, on 15 July 2015, one of the defendants faced another criminal case under Part 1, Art. 198 of the Criminal Code, “Tax Evasion By Physical Entity.”

Before the criminal case was transferred to the court, the defendants faced accusations under Part 3, Art. 160 of the Criminal Code, “Misappropriation of Funds.”