Stankievich Igor

Biography

2025: Prison term in the case of withdrawal from Russia 1 trillion rubles

In December 2025, the Moscow City Court recognized as legal the conviction passed by the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow to 11 former employees of the Novoye Vremya Bank for participation in an organized criminal community (OPS) and illegal banking activities. The case concerned a scheme to withdraw almost 1 trillion rubles. from Russia to the accounts of foreign companies.

The criminal group was active from late October 2009 to mid-August 2019, according to court filings. Its core was made up of the bank's owners: member of the board of directors Igor Stankevich (development of schemes), Dmitry Motorin (control over a network of one-day firms) and Olga Bodrova (work with clients and financial accounting). The only one of the organizers who appeared before the court was Svetlana Chernaya, who coordinated the work of the units. Cases against Stankevich, Motorin and Bodrova are separated into separate proceedings.

𝓲

Фото: iStock

The mechanism for withdrawing money was built on an extensive network of 1,567 companies (1,096 Russian and 471 foreign). All of them were divided into "audit" (for the appearance of legal business), "technical" (for internal transfers) and "conversion" (for buying currency and transferring funds abroad). Clients were offered services for illegal withdrawal of funds abroad under fictitious contracts with a commission of 0.3-0.7% and currency exchange with a commission of 14-21%.

All operations were managed through the specialized computer system "Portal" and the internal accounting system "EV2." Customers could remotely issue applications for withdrawals through a web portal similar to Internet banking. For communication, the participants used encrypted messengers Jitsi, Threema and Xabber, and the key division of Financiers worked from the territory of Ukraine and Cyprus.

According to the investigation, over 10 years, more than 300 thousand operations were carried out through accounts in more than 120 Russian banks. The total amount of funds withdrawn amounted to 836.2 billion rubles, $4 billion and €1.87 million. In March 2025, 11 defendants, including managers, accountants and an IT professional, received various sentences. The court appointed Denis Yakhina and Anton Kosareva (for attracting clients) 8 and 8.5 years in prison, Svetlana Chernaya - 4 years in prison.

As follows from an interview with Kommersant, the deputy head of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in Moscow, Vladimir Vazagov, the alleged beneficiary and key patron of the criminal scheme was ex-colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dmitry Zakharchenko. In May 2022, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for taking bribes totaling 1.4 billion rubles.^[1]

Notes