In the summer, the Moscow police completed the investigation of a criminal case against the leaders of the Transnational Bank. They deceived the Russian striker Alexander Radulov for 1.5 billion, and then tried to rehabilitate themselves. It turned out unsuccessfully.

lulled vigilance

Hockey players are rich and sometimes gullible guys, whose kindness and naivety are used by people who are not very clean at hand. Alexander Radulov also became a victim of fraud seven years ago.

It turned out that in 2006 he met the chairman of the board of directors of the Transnational Bank, Sergei Kononov, became friends with him and, yielding to persuasion in 2008, opened an account there, to which he transferred his salary. Radulov remained a client of the bank for seven years. During this time, in Salavat and CSKA, he earned, according to general estimates, $ 40 million. At first, everything was in order, but in 2015, the bank’s license was unexpectedly revoked. At this point, Radulov transferred half of the money earned to his account.

CSKA forward Alexander Radulov / Photo: Elena Razina

The forward, who played at that time in CSKA, found out about this by accident and, obviously, immediately contacted Kononov. During a meeting with a friend, the hockey player received promises that everything would be fine and he would not lose his money. Kononov even went ahead of the curve and, in order not to be idle talk, gave the hockey player two buildings in the center of Moscow as collateral. According to the banker, they cost significantly more than the hockey player had in his account at that moment. It seemed to calm down. But an unpleasant aftertaste still remained.

real estate scam

The reason for the revocation of the license from the Transnational Bank was the conduct of dubious operations to withdraw funds abroad in significant volumes. A criminal case was initiated against the president of the bank for falsifying financial statements, but a few months later it was closed.

And in 2018, an investigation of a new criminal case began, this time on the fact of embezzling 213.4 million rubles from depositors. According to investigators, the Transnational Bank stole them back in 2014 by issuing loans to non-existent companies. But 200 million embezzlement was only the initial amount. The total debt to creditors – not only depositors – amounted to almost 17 billion rubles, 1.5 of which belonged to the hockey player.

Alexander Radulov / Photo: © Dave Sandford / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

The investigation of the case went on for three years, Radulov was already playing in Dallas, when it suddenly turned out that Kononov had deceived him again. The cost of real estate in the center of Moscow, the value of which he assured the hockey player, amounted to only 3 million dollars – 7 times less than what the bank owed him. In addition, the land on which the property is located belongs to Moscow, and no one paid rent. So the new owner not only got rich, but got another 15 million rubles in debt.

Bail changed to arrest

At this, Radulov’s patience snapped and he turned to law enforcement agencies with a statement about fraud. The new facts that he provided allowed the investigation to change Kononov’s preventive measure from bail to arrest. In addition, as a result of the forward’s testimony and confrontations in which he participated, another bank employee, a former assistant to Kononov, was put on trial. As a result of the emergence of new data, it became known that the funds stolen from depositors and creditors were used to buy shares of Cypriot companies. The criminal case on fraud was supplemented with a new one – on money laundering.

But it seems that for Radulov this horror ended happily. Apparently, he returned almost all of his funds through the Deposit Insurance Agency. At least in March, the forward filed a lawsuit against Kononov for 255 million – 6 times less than the original amount. And already in June, the Moscow police completed the investigation of the criminal case against top managers of the bank.

It is not known whether Radulov will return the remaining millions, but now he can obviously concentrate on hockey: under a two-year contract with Ak Bars, signed in July, he will earn about 170 million rubles.