MOSCOW, September 9 (RAPSI) —  Moscow's Gagarinsky District Court has ordered that a $22 million property owned by former government minister Mikhail Abyzov be seized, the press service of the court told RAPSI. 

The court also ruled to collect from Alfa-Bank about $31 million and about 5,6 billion rubles (near $76 million at the current exchange rate), according to the statement.

In turn, representatives of Alfa-Bank announced their intention to appeal the court decision. According to them, Alfa-Bank does not understand the essence of the claims.

Alfa-Bank believes that the claims against the bank are unreasonable. Earlier, the prosecutor's office pointed to "signs of an antisocial deal." However, the bank's actions, on the contrary, were of a purely social nature. First of all, the credit institution defended the interests of its depositors, including millions of ordinary Russian citizens. All actions of the bank were aimed at ensuring the principle of repayment of issued loans and strict fulfillment by the bank of its obligations to depositors, the press service of Alfa-Bank told RAPSI.

This May, the Moscow City Court ruled in favor of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, which sought that over 32.5 billion rubles ($435 million at the current exchange rate) worth of funds owned by Mikhail Abyzov were forfeited to the State.

In October 2020, Moscow's Gagarinsky District Court ruled to seize 32.5 billion rubles jointly and severally from Abyzov and a number of companies.

According to investigators, Abyzov, being the beneficial owner of a number of offshore commercial organizations, created and headed a criminal community: acting in complicity with other persons, he fraudulently stole funds in the amount of 4 billion rubles ($54 million) from Sibirskaya Energeticheskaya Kompaniya and Regionalnye Elektricheskiye Seti. Later, the embezzled funds were moved overseas.

The fact of the legalization of funds by Abyzov and other defendants was established thanks to effective interaction with Russian finance watchdog Rosfinmonitoring and with the assistance of the competent authorities of the Republic of Cyprus, as the Investigative Committee had informed earlier.