MOSCOW, October 19 - RAPSI. On Friday the Dorogomilovsky District Court in Moscow declared four Eurasia Logistic top executives guilty of defrauding the BTA Bank of $730 million, the court told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com).
The court is now considering the sentences to be handed down to General Director Alexander Volkov, Chief Financial Officer Artyom Bondarenko, Director of Economics Alexei Belov and in-house lawyer Denis Vorotyntsev who have also been accused of fraud, including the forging of documents.
Eurasia Logistic is owned by Kazakh businessman Mukhtar Ablyazov. Eurasia Logistic develops industrial facilities in the former Soviet Union and is part of the Eurasia investment and industrial group. It has been running Class A industrial complex projects since 2005.
BTA Bank (presently known as AMT Bank) is a multipurpose financial institution with nine branches and 26 offices. According to the RIA Analytics Economic Research Center, AMT ranked seventy-first in terms of assets among Russia's top banks as of April 1, 2011.
The Moscow Commercial Court upheld the Central Bank's petition for the ATM Bank's bankruptcy in October 2011. The Deposit Insurance Agency was appointed to act as the failed bank's receiver. The Central Bank revoked AMT's license in July for forging account data. The bank's deposit portfolio was 15 billion rubles ($499.41 million).
According to the bank's website, Mukhtar Ablyazov directly owns a 19.7 percent stake in the bank.
Ablyazov has been living in the UK since 2009. The police opened a criminal case against him that year on suspicion of fraud and withdrawing funds through shell companies.
On February 16 this year Ablyazov was sentenced to 22 months in prison for breaching court orders and is now hiding from justice. The bank hopes to secure and enforce court decisions to return the $5 billion it is owed.