St. PETERSBURG, March 25 In St. Petersburg, the organizer and participants of the scheme for illegal cashing out of money were detained, the press service of the GUMVD for the city and the Leningrad region reported.
«Employees of the economic police of St. Petersburg, as part of their work on a criminal case initiated under part 2 of article 172 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal banking), detained a 53-year-old resident of the Primorsky district, the alleged organizer of illegal activities, and three of his accomplices,» the press service reports. GUMVD.
It was established that two sisters, aged 38 and 47, were accounting and financial documentation, and their 44-year-old brother, a resident of the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region, acted as a «courier» and cashed money through ATMs of various banks in St. Petersburg.
According to the police, they conducted their activities from June 2019 to January 2023. As reported, they «organized the systematic attraction of non-cash funds of their clients, legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, to the settlement accounts of fictitious organizations controlled by them.» Subsequently, at the request of the client, under the guise of payment for the implementation of imaginary transactions, operations were carried out to cash out money and return it to customers minus a «reward» of at least 16.5% of the cashed amount. In total, the attackers created about 70 fictitious organizations to carry out illegal banking operations. For 3.5 years of «work» the income of illegal bankers amounted to at least 44.7 million rubles.
During the searches, police officers found and seized bank cards and seals of fictitious firms, mobile phones and computer equipment for accessing the bank-client system, electronic media with data on the activities of controlled organizations, funds in the amount of 3.1 million rubles, more than 37 thousand euros and more than 53 thousand dollars.
It is noted that during the arrest, the organizer of the «shadow» business tried to get rid of some of the documents and money by throwing them from the balcony of a high-rise building. His example was followed by one of the accountants, who was in no hurry to open the door of the apartment to the police officers and tried to throw a bag with financial documents and money out of the window.
The organizer and his two accomplices were detained. With respect to the 44-year-old «courier» a preventive measure was chosen in the form of a written undertaking not to leave and proper behavior.