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This is a story about yet another scheme for siphoning assets out of Probusinessbank. It didn’t appear in the published investigations, but it existed. And also—about trading in political influence.
Let me start from afar. If we trust Chez, in this photo FBK managers are being “marched under escort” by Alexander Zheleznyak and Sergey Tokmakov (the man behind Maria Pevchikh, closing the procession).
What do we know about Tokmakov?
Tokmakov is the father of Zheleznyak’s wife and the former director of Larienta Management Limited.
What do we know about Larienta?
It was a laundering link in schemes of Zheleznyak and Leontiev and held an account at the Latvian bank Trasta Komercbanka.
It appears in the minutes of that bank’s control committee meeting, where Trasta decided to limit business with it and other laundering companies of the Life group shareholders after Probusinessbank’s license was revoked.
Funds passed through it toward Wonderworks.
But that’s not all.
Larienta was used in another scheme that Zheleznyak and Leontiev employed to siphon assets out of the bank and that wasn’t mentioned in investigations.
As in other schemes, to create the illusion of stolen assets “existing,” a foreign financial company was involved.
Larienta was used to extract assets via the Italian bank Mediobanca.
The Italian bank issued bonds paying coupons linked to an investment fund’s returns. Under the bond terms, Mediobanca could settle not only in cash but “in kind”—by delivering the securities of that very “investment fund” instead of repaying in money. The bank’s reporting didn’t mention this. The fund was called Athena Balance Fund 4, run by a firm named Athena Cap.
Mediobanca bonds were issued in May 2014 and sold to Probusinessbank.
Athena Cap, using the proceeds from those bonds, extended two loans in a comparable amount to Larienta—47.5 million USD. The fund held no other issuers’ assets. It was a special‑purpose fund for routing depositors’ money into Larienta.
Probusinessbank did not disclose in its reports that behind the Mediobanca bonds sat loans to Larienta.
As expected, long after PBB’s bankruptcy, in 2018, bondholders received not cash but those very Larienta liabilities.
A small silver lining—two logistics centers, “Kotelniki” and “Krekshino,” were registered to Larienta (Chez says their revenue in 2015 was 766 million rubles, unverified). Both were pledged to Probusinessbank. Since you can’t smuggle logistics centers abroad, they landed in the bankruptcy estate.
Total damage from this scheme was assessed by the arbitration court at 1.7 billion rubles.
Think that’s all? No—there’s an incredible sequel.
According to public sources, identical instruments with a 50 million USD notional ended up on the balance sheet of another bank—Binbank. When PBB’s license was revoked and Leontiev/Zheleznyak’s offshore companies, including Larienta, abruptly stopped servicing any debts, there was a risk of non‑payment under the fund’s liabilities and, consequently, the Mediobanca bonds. Binbank got spooked—the Central Bank could realize it was being duped, that this wasn’t Mediobanca’s risk at all but a scheme to draw fake assets on the balance sheet in lieu of money long stolen. The Central Bank could have forced Binbank to top up reserves—at the time a material amount, up to 3 billion rubles—potentially leading to license revocation. So its shareholder, Mikail Shishkhanov, had to solve his own problem—Shishkhanov’s companies for a time paid the fund interest on Larienta’s loan instead of Larienta, so the bonds wouldn’t default and the façade of “real assets” could be maintained.
Now Sergey Tokmakov—the former director of Larienta—is a participant in the Azure trust, registered to his daughter, Zheleznyak’s wife. A family business with pocket parties.
If I were asked to show what corruption looks like, it looks exactly like in this photograph.
