The thing we'd been talking about so much stopped being a mystery today. Business Ombudsman Boris Titov declassified the contents of the list of entrepreneurs who would like to return to their homeland from the UK. It's about those who have problems with the law. Negotiations with them turn out to have begun back in 2017. Someone wrote, "Please, protect my interests, I'll be put in prison at home." An idea to help appeared at the presidential level. Meanwhile, Titov met with all of them personally in the Pushkin House of London on February 3.
16 people in total. But it'll go beyond the UK. Representatives were appointed to negotiate with runaway businessmen in Spain, Cyprus, the OAE, and the USA. Everywhere they ran and are still running to.
But many people were surprised after seeing the English list. For example, a Rostov citizen Andrei Kakovkin, a St. Petersburg resident Vladimir Zuzin, and Konstantin Dyulgerov from Nizhny Novgorod. They were waiting for Yevgeny Chichvarkin, but he isn't there.
Anastasiya Yefimova will tell about the defendants.
- Who are all these people?
- They're different, but they have wealth and criminal cases in common. Their names would seem familiar but they aren't. Titov's list consists of 16 names the majority of which aren't famous.
Boris Titov, Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs' Rights: "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed because there are no famous names. We are addressed by the people who think that they aren't guilty. They are sure they aren't guilty and they're sure that with our help they'll be able to settle their problems in a just way".
According to the published list, for example, Alexander Delis thinks he isn't guilty as well as Pavel Vlasyuk and Alexander Baigushev. They are the founders of the Kvartstroy development company. They took money to build residential complexes in several Russian towns but never gave the apartments to shareholders.
Vladimir Yerkin, head of the shareholders' group: "At first, they kept in touch with us, with the Ministry of Construction and the Leninsky District Administration. We discussed some plans to finish the project, made some roadmaps, but then they disappeared. These people disappeared. By this moment, we have made some decisions and found some money, including, partly, the budget funds. And these people started popping up all of a sudden, the situation is very strange".
Formally, the document is called "The list of businessmen who wish to come back to Russia." It can be easily explained. A law on criminal funds came into force in Britain a month ago. According to it, rich foreigners, including Russians, must submit to the authorities the information about the sources of their funds. If they seem suspicious to the officials, they'll be confiscated and transferred to the state budget.
Alexander Nekrasov, journalist: "Clever people warned our Russian businessmen as long ago as in the 1990s for them to be careful with taking their money out and hiding it in the West. Because, as they said, there'd be a moment when Western governments and special services might visit them and demand to "loan" this money, let's put it this way. That's what's happening now".
But despite this law, despite the fact that their names were voluntarily and quite openly included in the published list, many of these businessmen aren't showing love to their homeland. For example, Konstantin Dyulgerov, a defendant in the cases of fraud and bribery. In his blog, he claims that Russian athletes were rightly banned from the Olympics. He also calls Russia "a lawless state". He doesn't seem to miss here much. Alexey Shmatko is convicted of a massive scale fraud as a member of an organized group. He's happy that his daughter left Russia.
Oleg Makarenko, journalist: "Well, they did get caught. I don't really believe that they miss homeland birches so much. I think they want to come back for exclusively economic reasons. Being a big businessman in Russia is safer now than in the West. There are two options. In the West, they either become the so-called rentiers, that is they live on a small interest from their funds, or they come back to Russia where there are more opportunities to conduct business."
But there are criminal cases which prevent from getting such an opportunity. To drop charges is more important for many than a chance to come back home. But, there are other examples. Sergey Kapchuk, or, as he calls himself, Sergey Windsor, convicted of a fraud in buying a two-billion worth apartment, says from abroad that he loves Russia. He claims that he's ready to shake any helping hand offered.
We're still to understand whether expectations were overrated. But we already know that there'll be no universal formulas in this story. Each case is promised to be reviewed individually.
- Anastasiya Efimova has told about interesting personae from Titov's list.
