The case of the ex-deputy Minister of Agriculture Bazhanov, accused of fraud for billions of rubles, will be considered in absentia

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As reported by «Kommersant», recently the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow received a criminal case against 49-year-old former Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Russia and founder of the liquidated holding company «Oil Products » Alexey Bazhanov. The case against the Russian ex-official who left for the UK will be considered in absentia.

According to court materials, Alexey Bazhanov is charged with fraud in the field of lending (part 4 of Article 159.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), fraud on a particularly large scale as part of an organized group (part 4 of Articlenbsp;159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and the legalization of funds obtained by criminal means (Part 3 of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

It is known from open sources that in 2000, 24 years ago, Alexey Bazhanov founded in the Voronezh region a group of companies «Oil Products », which was engaged in the production of vegetable oil. Bazhanov ran this business for eight years, after which he was appointed deputy head of the Federal Forestry Agency of the Russian Federation. In 2009-2010, Alexey Bazhanov worked as Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation and dealt with forestry and hunting issues.

 According to the materials of the investigation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it is known that Bazhanov is accused of having organized a withdrawal scheme through a controlled LLC with his accomplices from &Oil Products»  Vita& 1,125 billion rubles provided by the state-owned Rosagroleasing for the purchase of equipment for a plant in the village of Verkhnyaya Khava in the Voronezh Region. Later, Alexey Bazhanov was charged with embezzlement of about 10 billion rubles of loans allocated by the Russian Agricultural Bank, the Moscow Industrial Bank and Svyaz-Bank. The money was given to buy raw materials for the same creamery, there is an episode in the indictment about the legalization of these funds. Bazhanov himself spent several months in jail after the initiation of criminal cases, but after he was released, he immediately left for London. They did not want to extradite him to Russia in the UK. Currently, the assets of the holding «Oil Products » have come under the control of the Group of Companies «Benefit».

Interesting fact in 2017, Switzerland stopped its investigation against ex-deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture Alexei Bazhanov and lifted the arrest from his bank accounts.