Legal news
and practices in Russia

Bashkortostan customs opened criminal cases

Bashkortostan Customs opened two criminal cases under paragraph “a” of Part 2 of Article 193 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Art. 173.1 of the Criminal Code in respect of the director of a Ufa company that illegally transferred funds to the accounts of a foreign company through nominees

As established by the materials of the inspection carried out by the operational-search department of the Bashkortostan customs, the director of firm B (in the interests of the investigation the names of the companies were not disclosed) submitted to the bank a sale and purchase agreement with a foreign company providing for the supply of floral products to the company, according to which the goods could be delivered within 360 days after the transfer of foreign currency. On the basis of this agreement, over five million US dollars were transferred to the accounts of a foreign company within 10 months. However, all this time, the goods were not imported into Russia and were not cleared for customs.

At that moment, when the bank was concerned about the lack of supply of goods against the listed foreign currency, the head of the company presented a contract of assignment of the right of claim, under which a foreign company must deliver the goods or return the money to the new F company. After that, the entrepreneur sent information to the tax authority, on the basis of which firm B was re-registered to other persons, and also changed the address of registration.

As a result of the inspection, the officers of the operational-search department of customs found that both firms were re-registered as nominees, they did not conduct any economic activities since the “reorganization”, they did not provide reports. As a result of the activities of this one-day firm, 407 million 295 thousand 267 rubles 65 kopecks were transferred abroad, which, according to the note to Art. 193 of the Criminal Code, is a particularly large size.

In addition, the actions of this enterprising company from the Ufa city revealed signs of a crime under Art. 173.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation which are the submission to the authority that carries out the state registration of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, the data that resulted in the entry of information about nominees into the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

At present, investigative actions are being carried out in criminal cases.

Press service of the Privolzhskoye Customs Administration, tks.ru, 26 July 2016