Pugachev Sergey Viktorovich

Biography

2010: Revocation of bank license and emigration from Russia

Sergey Pugachev, until 2010 was on the Forbes list, left Russia after the revocation of the license and the bankruptcy of Mezhprombank in 2010. The Investigative Committee opened a case against him on the appropriation of property on an especially large scale.

The London detective agency Diligence, in the interests of the Deposit Insurance Agency, bribed the butler Sergei Pugachev and tried to convince the ex-banker's lawyer to testify against him in court.

Diligence collaborates with the expensive law firm Hogan Lovells, which in 2015 was hired by the DIA, which is looking for the assets of fugitive bankers abroad, NYT writes. According to the newspaper, in 2017, the head of Diligence in London, Trefor Williams, met at the bar of the Nice Hotel with Pugachev's lawyer Natalya Dozortseva. "Mixing flattery with cash offers," he invited her to oppose the client, the newspaper writes. Williams described three options with different rewards: "gold," "silver" and "bronze," writes NYT. Bronze assumed that Dozortseva would tell detectives everything she knew about Pugachev; "silver" - will give a statement under oath; "gold" - will testify against the ex-banker in court. In return, Williams promised Dozortseva "financial independence" and the opportunity to freely come to and leave Russia thanks to his contacts in Moscow.

Bureau of Investigative Journalism learned about the conversation thanks to a secret recording. The conversation was recorded by Dozortseva herself, who refused the offer of detectives and informed Pugachev about her meeting in advance. Diligence's appeal to Dozortseva was organized by Pugachev's butler and driver Jim Perrishon, an amateur pianist, a fan of Russia and its culture. Perrishon told the newspaper that in exchange for monitoring Pugachev and access to some documents, the company promised him monthly payments. "I realized that if we can recruit Natalya, we can crush Pugachev," he said. As a result, Diligence, according to Perrishon, did not pay him in full.