Vasilyev Sergei

Biography

2024: Detention in major fraud case

On June 24, 2024, it became known that co-owners of the Russian Funds investment group Sergei Vasiliev and Konstantin Beyrit were detained in Moscow. They are suspected of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

We are talking about the case of businessman Yevgeny Novitsky. According to the investigation, the named persons conspired to sell in 2016 the NPF "First National Pension Fund." Subsequently, 3.2 billion rubles were stolen from this organization. In general, the defendants in the case are charged with embezzlement in 2018-2019 of about 8.8 billion rubles from six non-state pension funds.

In addition to Novitsky, Oleg Mezentsev, general director of Pallada Asset Management Management Company, and Olga Illarionova, ex-director of a brokerage company that was part of Pallada Group of Companies, participated in the fraudulent scheme. As part of a fraudulent scheme, at the expense of the Ural FD non-state pension fund, deliberately illiquid bonds of UNGP-Finance LLC and Delta-Finance LLC controlled by unidentified persons were purchased on the Moscow Exchange. 245.2 million and 119.1 million rubles were spent on their purchase, respectively. Subsequently, the funds of five more non-state pension funds were withdrawn in a similar way: the Commercial and Industrial Pension Fund (697.7 million rubles), the Tserikh Fund (605.2 million rubles), the Mechel Fund (3.378 billion rubles), NPF metallurgists (598.4 million rubles) and the First National Pension Fund (3.213 billion rubles).

According to the Kommersant newspaper, the 58-year-old chairman of the board of directors, general director and main beneficiary of the Russian Funds group Vasiliev and his business partner, 57-year-old Beyrit, were taken for interrogation as suspects in the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow. They deny their involvement in fraudulent actions.^[1]

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