Ballos Anatoly Borisovich

Ballos Anatoly Borisovich

Biography

Born April 18, 1961 in the city of Moscow.

• In 1983 he graduated from the Moscow Financial Institute with a degree in International Economic Relations.

• In 1983-1991 - Economist, researcher at the All-Russian Research Institute of Scientific and Technical Information and Economics of the Building Materials Industry of the USSR Ministry of Construction Materials

• In 1991-1992 - Leading expert of the USSR State Bank.

• In 1992 - Chief Economist of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

• In 1992-2000 - Leading Expert, Manager, Executive Secretary of the Management Board, Executive Director, Financial Director of the Russian Bank for Project Financing (since 2000 - Small Business Lending Bank).

• In 2000-2002 - Consultant to Vnesheconombank of the USSR.

• In 2002-2005 - Deputy, Head of the Department of OJSC "Bank of Foreign Trade."

• In 2005-2007 - Director of the Department, Director of the Directorate of Vnesheconombank of the USSR.

• Since 2007 - Member of the Management Board of the State Corporation "Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Activity (Vnesheconombank)," Deputy Chairman of Vnesheconombank.

Corruption scandal

2012

Anatoly Ballos, general director of Nizhnovatomenergosbyt Alexander Lagutin and former deputy minister, power engineering specialists former first deputy general director of Rosgeology Stanislav Svetlitsky, according to the Kommersant newspaper^[1]are accused of trying to steal $14 million from OJSC Eurasian"." The stolen funds, according to investigators, are part of a loan issued by the state bank in 2008 for the modernization of the water supply system in, Rostov-on-Don which is being carried out as part of a comprehensive program for the construction and reconstruction of water supply facilities in the region. On the part of the state bank, this investment program is supervised by Mister Ballos, who, according to the investigation, in the spring of 2008, having entered into a criminal conspiracy with accomplices, developed a plan aimed at stealing Eurasian funds. Note that Mr. Lagutin is a member of the board of Eurasian, and Mr. Svetlitsky is the chairman of the board of directors, and before his appointment to the ministry he was the general director of the company.

To steal credit funds, according to the investigation, the suspects developed a special scheme in which, according to detectives, "other persons" participated. The latter, knowing in advance that Vnesheconombank would provide Eurasian with a loan for the purchase of Rostov's Yugvodokanal LLC, issued a deal to sell the LLC's shares, after which a certain offshore company became the "actual owner of the company," as stated in the case file. Detectives believe that it is controlled by the banker and his accomplices (the investigation does not name the company). After that, the general director of Eurasian appealed to Vnesheconombank for a loan, hiding the fact of the change of ownership of the LLC, changes in the composition of the participants of Yugvodokanal LLC were also not registered. Vnesheconombank, on behalf of which Mister Ballos spoke, issued $75 million as a loan. The shares of Yugvodokanal LLC were acquired from an offshore company, but soon the contract was terminated. However, Eurasian OJSC was returned only $61 million, and $14 million, according to the investigation, remained in the accounts of an offshore company.

A criminal case against the banker and his accomplices was initiated on March 1 on the fact of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), last Saturday the Tver District Court of Moscow considered the petitions of the investigation to choose a preventive measure to Anatoly Ballos, Alexander Lagutin and Stanislav Svetlitsky. The investigation proposed to the banker to elect house arrest, and to the other two defendants - detention. But in the end, the court refused to arrest businessmen, from whom a recognizance not to leave was taken as a result, and a preventive measure was chosen against Anatoly Ballos in the form of a bail in the amount of 5 million rubles. The deadline for making a pledge to the court's deposit account is March 6. Today, the district court will again consider the measure of restraint for the banker.

Vnesheconombank, where they categorically refused to comment on the situation for three days, confirmed yesterday that "investigative actions" were carried out in the bank as part of the investigation, and the bank is providing the necessary assistance in conducting the investigation. Lawyers for Messrs. Svetlitsky and Lagutin declined to comment. They did not comment on the investigation also in Eurasian, without responding to a written request from the editorial board. Nizhnovatomenergosbyt yesterday assured Kommersant throughout the day that the general director "is at the meeting and it is impossible to contact him."

2021: Detention on suspicion of embezzlement

Former deputy chairman of the board of Vnesheconombank Anatoly Ballos and ex-owner of SP Arkaim Alexander Lepikhov were detained in June 2021. As Kommersant wrote, they were suspected of a particularly large embezzlement (part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) of €35 million. VEB allocated this money in the form of loans for development, and then salvation from the collapse of the enterprise headed by Lepikhov. It failed to avoid bankruptcy in 2017. Both defendants pleaded not guilty.

According to the investigation, in 2009, at the origins of the scheme, in addition to the two accused, was another head of one of the departments of Vnesheconombank Ilgis Valitov. Then, from Arkaim, Vnesheconombank received a request for credit financing for the construction of a wood processing complex, and the cost of the project was significantly overestimated. But Ballos and Valitov deceived other Vnesheconombank functionaries and convinced them of the expediency of this lending. Later, they even managed to change the documents in such a way that part of the money was transferred to the accounts of a foreign company opened with the bank of the Swiss Confederation, while these finances were to go to the manufacturers of imported technological equipment for processing wood.

2022: Termination of criminal proceedings in the embezzlement case

On February 21, 2022, the Meshchansky Court of Moscow announced the termination of proceedings in the criminal case of the former deputy chairman of the board of Vnesheconombank Anatoly Ballos and the ex-owner of one of the largest timber processing enterprises in the Khabarovsk Territory, SP Arkaim, Alexander Lepikhov, who were accused of embezzling billions of rubles. The criminal prosecution was completed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Criminal prosecution of ex-deputy chairman of the board of VEB Anatoly Ballos stopped

A criminal case was also initiated against Ballos under Art. 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Abuse of authority").^[2]

2023: Recovery by the court of 10.9 billion rubles

In June 2023, the Khoroshevsky District Court of Moscow satisfied the requirements of the ВЭБ.РФ development state corporation to the former deputy chairman of the board Anatoly Ballos. Judge Ekaterina Ledeneva recovered about 10.9 billion rubles from Ballos in favor of the corporation.

The lawsuit was filed against him due to damage caused by the embezzlement of funds allocated to the ВЭБ.РФ, but the criminal case was dismissed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. The Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs accused Ballos of embezzlement of funds that Vnesheconombank allocated in the form of loans to save the Arkaim timber processing enterprise from bankruptcy.

Anatoly Ballos

Anatoly Ballos was arrested in June 2021. He, as well as the founder of the timber processing enterprise SP Arkaim LLC in the Khabarovsk Territory, Alexander Lepikhov, were accused of embezzlement on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Kommersant, citing a source, wrote that the case is related to the allocation of loans to save Arkaim JV from bankruptcy. According to the investigation, the accused squandered 10.9 billion rubles allocated by VEB under the credit line of the enterprise.

Ballos were also a defendant in a large-scale fraud case (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to investigators, in 2008, together with accomplices, he stole $14 million, which were part of a loan issued by Eurasian OJSC for the purchase of Yugvodokanal LLC. In 2013, the Moscow City Court declared the criminal prosecution of Ballos illegal, in 2015 the case was dismissed.

Initially, Kommersant recalls, the investment banker was accused of large-scale fraud committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). However, after he was blamed for the already softer 201st article (abuse of authority) when issuing a loan in the amount of $14 million to a subsidiary of VEB, Eurasian OJSC^[3]

Notes