Category: Spain Испания

Accusation act of Troika (Tambovskaya gang) case and Gennady Petrov in Spain, June 2015

Dated of May 29, 2015. See also Russian translation.

petrov accusation act
In 2007, Spanish Special Anticorruption Prosecutor’s office started to investigate the activity of Russian members of Tambov-Malyshev (Tambovsko-Malyshevskaya, Tambovskaya) gang settled in Spain since 1998. Three main suspects, Gennady Petrov, Alexander Malyshev and Sergey Kuzmin, were targeted. Sergey Kuzmin escaped the arrest in Spain, while Petrov and Malyshev initially served in prison for about 1,5 years and were allowed to go back to Spain – under the condition to show up in court. As such, the “Troika” (three people literally – Malyshev, Petrov and Kuzmin) is described in the  accusation of 1994 in Sant-Petersburg against the Tambov-Malyshev gang of creating organized crime community , extortion, gathering slush funds and their laundering in Europe. Foot soldiers of the gang were detained with guns and cash, including a policeman Ob’edkov who is said to use work’s gun during raid attacks.

The present Spanish accusation act, submitted by prosecutors to court in 2015, attributes financial operations for total of about 50 million euros, between Liberia, Panama, Lichtenstein, Cyprus, Switzerland, Spain, Russia and others, to money laundering operations carried out in 1998-2007 by subordinates of Petrov, under pretexts of fictitious loans, consulting services and others.

Petrov failed to show up at court (as well as Malyshev or Kuzmin). The accusation was maintained against 18 defendants and then withdrawn against Vadim Romanyuk and maintained against 17 defendants by the prosecutors.

While the sentence, issued in 2018, recognized the suspicious transactions as “anti economic”, the difficulty was to prove the predicate offence when Russian authorities gave contradictory reports to Spain on the Tambov / gang, amid suspicion of strong ties of the main defendants with the Russian law enforcers and government. In 2009, Russian Prosecutor’s office sent a response to Spain on Tambov gang. But the defendant State Duma member Vladislav Reznik submitted FSB reports on Petrov . The FSB reports state that Petrov is not known to be subjected to any investigation in Russia or to be head of  a gang (p. 66, p 67 of the sentence).

In 2018, the Spanish court Audiencia nacional trusted Sankt-Petersburg’s court aquittal of 1995 and the more recent FSB reports, including of its Sankt-Petersburg branch, presented by the defence.  The Spanish court goes to assert that “Malyshevskaya gang” exists but Malyshev does not belong to it. In 1995, a victim of Malyshev Mr. Belikov said in court in Sankt-Petersburg that he mixed up Malyshev and Petrov with somebody else, points out Audiencia Nacional in 2018 aquittal. Petrov was acquitted in Sankt-Petersburg (Petrov’s former partner said, Petrov asked for everybody to contribute for a bribe back then). Malyshev was convicted for criminal possession of a weapon.

The “anti-economic” transactions from Cyprus, Panama, Liberia, and Liechtenstein to Spain by collaborators of Gennadios (Gennady) Petrov, Sergey Kuzmin, and Alexander Malishev do not indicate that the money was criminal, the sentence states. Spanish judges even acquitted two defendants who acknowledged themselves to be guilty of money laundering and of organized crime, Mikhail Rebo  [based in Germany] and Leon (Leonid) Khazine.

The Spanish sentence pretends that Petrov was not involved in organized crime, based on two reports from the Russian FSB and several more letters from different Russian law enforcement bodies, as well as on the conviction for defamation of a Russian media outlet for linking Gennady Petrov and Ilya Traber to organized crime (for background, see freedom of press in Russia . See on TBCA: evidence from monegasque police of Traber’s membership in Tambovskaya gang over Monaco and Liechtenstein’s oil trading operations. Traber failed to show up in court.

See also for background: Intercepted calls expose ties between the Tambovskaya gang, head of FSB’s Economic Security Service, and the Prosecutor of St. Petersburg.

In the sentence, the defendant, Vladislav Reznik, is recognized as a former member of the managing board of Bank Rossiya. Gennady Petrov (the main defendant who escaped from Spain to Russia) is described as co-founder and 27% shareholder of Bank Rossiya until 2003, which ought to prove the legality of his activities and his high standard of living.

The Russian-Swedish company, Petrodin (one of St. Petersburg’s municipal casino operators in the 1990s, no inactive), is also mentioned by Spanish judges as a legal entity of Petrov, explaining his wealth.

In the office of PETRODIN Joint-Venture a box with cash in plastic bag is found (1993), see search protocol of Petrodin, 1993. See also Petrodin’s casino stand , established officially for “market research”. From TBCA on Petrodin: see Petrov’s Swedish partner’s letter, 1994.

Yuri Salikov was acquitted in the Troika case in 2018, on charges of money laundering of the Tambov gang funds, like all the other defendants. Several months later, Salikov was convicted by Audiencia Nacional for tax evasion for the same transactions. The Salikov and Petrov’s Spanish company Sunstar SL invested funds of unknown origin to real estate, fabricating evidence of a loan, the sentence says.

 

Spanish Russian mafia Troika case: press release of the court on “uneconomic” transcations of the defendants

Press release Audiencia Nacional Troika

“However strange, uneconomic or unconventional were the commercial operations in which the defendants invested, if the origin of the acquired, converted, transmitted or concealed property is not proven of beeing from criminal activity, there is no money-laundering offence, “explains the Chamber (translation of the last paragraph of the press release on the sentence in Troika Russian Tambov gang case).

Arrest warrant fo Vorontsov, Gofsthein (Kalashov case in Spain)

vorontsov gofsthein kalashov

Arrest warrant for several Russian and Spanish citizens in Spain, considered to be part of the criminal gang of Zakhar Kalashov (see also the sentence issued by the Supreme Court of Spain), alias Shakro, dated of 2006.

Among them Oleg Vorontsov, residing in Madrid, was also considered to be close to Gafur Rakhimov.

Vorontsov ensured efforts of Rakhimov, who is under US sanctions for drug trafficking  – “one of the leaders of Uzbek organized crime with a speciality in the organized production of drugs in Central Asia”, to become head of the AIBA boxing association in Lausanna, Switzerland.

Petition to Spanish court by the defendant Juan Untoria, Tambov gang case: Petrov was a KGB agent

Untoria petition to court

One of the defendants in Spanish “Russian mafia case” (Tambovskaya gang or Troika case), Juan Untoria Augustin, asks the judge to release him from pre-trial detention. He argues that the presumed head of the gang, Gennadi (Gennadios) Petrov was introduced to him by his classmate, Spanish intelligence officer. Mr Untoria states that the officer knew Petrov during his counter intelligence work:

“Mr. Alises belongs to the CNI, and had a relationship with Mr. Petrov when he was in the KGB, and the former was responsible for counter-intelligence at CESID. Said man told [to Untoria] that he knew an important businessman,  personal friend of the then President of Russia, Mr. Putin, since they worked together in the KGB, (where the position of the first [Gennadios Petrov] was of greater responsibility), and that this man, called Guennadios Petrov, wanted to settle in Spain and undertake a series business, in the field of real estate, and in the import and export of food products between Russia and Spain, and that, for such purposes, he needed a lawyer in Spain.

Likewise, he indicated that Mr. Petrov had highly relevant companies in Russia, among which he highlighted that of a jewelry chain, with more than three hundred and fifty stores located in the most relevant residential areas of the capital and cities of the country”.

In this petition to court, Petrov is also called a friend of State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik and then minister of communications Leonid Reiman.

Source: Journalist Jürgen Roth’s archive.

Iskander Makhmudov and Gennady Petrov’s conversation, Tambovskaya case

A phone conversation between Gennady Petrov, defendant in the Troika case of Tambovskaya gang, and Iskander Makhmudov, which took place on September, 21, 2007, at 17:36. Makhmudov promises to Petrov to “do everything right now” in response to a previous Petrov’s request.

From the Troika case, examined at Madrid’s court, 2018.

See also, the 2019’s conviction for tax evasion of the defendant Yuri Salikov, since he concealed and did not pay taxes on several million euros, arrived at the account of the Spanish company that he co-owned with Petrov.

According to the Spanish Prosecution, Yuri Salikov, calling Makhmudov “The Chinese” in his own conversations with Petrov, from pretrial detention, expected that Makhmudov pays a deposit to allow Salikov to be released.

Makhmudov is one of the richest Russia’s oligarchs denying any wronging, one of the leaders of the Russian government’s procurements together with Andrey Bokarev. Makhmudov is one of the key figures in the investigations against Izmaylovskaya gang in Germany (2010), Spain (2009-2016), the announced French Senate’s probe (in connection to the so-called Benalla case)-2019, a RICO complaint in the USA, a complaint by a kazakh entrepreneur against Makhmudov (abduction).

Archived Interpol’s warrant on Mikhail Cherny, Izmaylovskaya gang

Accessed in 2014. The arrest warrant issued by Spanish Interior was valid from 2009 till 2016 under this URL. Charges mentioned: criminal organization, money laundering. See also confirmation from Russian Prosecutor General’s office that they investigate a criminal case based on Spanish Prosecutor’s Office material since 2011. See Spanish Prosecutor’s office protest against inaction of the Russian Prosecution (2014).

In the beginning of the 90ths brothers Mikhail and Lev Cherny (Chernoy) also cooperated with Solntsevskaya and Taiwanchik (see the 2009 report by the Italian prosecutor Luigi de Ficchi , p. 12, for more details; For background, see a RICO complaint against Izmaylovskaya and its USA’s enablers.