Introduction
The Basmanny Court of Moscow sentenced Vadim Vedenin, a former lawyer at Forus Group, to 10.5 years in prison. He was found guilty in the case of a particularly large-scale fraud involving the seizure of property of Alexander Mineev, a businessman, and founder of the Party and Domino networks, who was killed in 2014. His accomplice Yuri Afindulov was sentenced by the court to eight years in a penal colony.
The litigation on the merits in the Basmanny Court began two years ago – in March 2021. Four children of Mineev asked to recover 15.5 billion rubles from Vedenin and Afindulov, but the court partially satisfied their demands – for 9.5 billion rubles.
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Court Charges on Vadim Vedenin
As the court established, in the period from 2008 to 2010, Vedenin, Afindulov, and “other persons” illegally acquired the right to a 100% stake in the authorized capital of one of Mineev’s companies and property owned by him worth more than 65 million rubles. in Moscow. According to investigators, Vedenin accomplices prepared fictitious contracts for the sale of shares in the authorized capital of the company, according to which its legal participants allegedly sold their shares in their favor. In addition, the court found that Afindulov committed a forcible seizure of the Seven Beauties restaurant in Pechatniki with the help of a group of more than 20 people – he threatened the tenants and demanded that the premises be vacated.
Vedenin, in turn, the court found guilty of forgery in the period 2014-2016. documents and theft of a 100% stake in the authorized capital of Russian legal entities and real estate objects owned by them in Moscow and the Tver Region with a total value of more than 12.3 billion rubles. These properties belonged to Mineev. In 2014, in the center of Korolev near Moscow, he was shot dead by a killer when Vedenin Mineev stopped at a pedestrian crossing in his Range Rover car.
The businessman’s driver was not injured. As part of a murder case in 2015, the Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow detained in absentia the son-in-law of businessman Boris Berezovsky, Georgy Shuppe, and the owner of a Swiss investment company, Mikhail Nekrich. Shuppe and Nekrich do not live in Russia, they were put on the international wanted list. Subsequently, Interpol removed them from the wanted list.
The murder of Mineev is associated with a raider seizure of his property. In Moscow, the businessman owned about 20 large real estate objects, including shopping centers at the Taganskaya and Kaluga metro stations. In addition, Mineev had a huge amount of real estate in St. Petersburg and the Tver region, Alexander Aronov, chairman of the presidium of the Moscow bar association Aronov and Partners, told Vedomosti.
“In 2014, the first group of raiders, led by lawyer Bogolyubsky, during the life of Mineev, stole shares in 18 legal entities,” Aronov said. They forged documents, became members of these companies, and sold real estate to their structure. After that, Mineev, according to the lawyer, tried to resist, but he was killed.
“Then a second group of raiders appeared, this group of people included a lawyer – Vadim Vedenin,” Aronov explained. According to the lawyer, initially, in order to prevent the property from leaving, “they tried to enter, on behalf of Mineev’s mother, as heirs, into the ownership structure, which was located in Hong Kong, but it caused difficulties there.” Therefore, Vedenin with other persons’ forged documents changed the owners of the holding company and began to sue for shares and real estate back. “They returned everything back, the property to the original group, but by that time they were already the owners, and not Mineev or his heirs,” the lawyer concluded.
On February 10, 2023, the Tushinsky District Court sentenced members of the raider group to seize Mineev’s assets to long terms of three to nine years in prison.
The court-appointed lawyer Sergei Bogolyubsky nine years in a penal colony, former military Dmitry Kurylenko eight years, Kurylenko’s driver Omar Suleymanov seven years, lawyers Kamil Kaziev and Yulia Egorova five years and three years respectively. The Tushinsky court found them guilty of especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and legalization of property acquired as a result of a crime (part 4 of article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).