The Presnensky District Court of Moscow currently continues to hear every Monday a criminal case against the financial company QBF and some managers (Pakhomov, Matyukhin, Rossieva, Golubev), whom our law enforcement agencies managed to detain. The investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (investigator Shestakov) continues to investigate the sensational criminal case against the investment company QBF.
As Rucriminal.info wrote earlier, the Main Investigation Department of the RF IC is also investigating the case against three employees of the Directorate “M” of the FSB of Russia: Alexei Tsarev, Sergei Manyshkin and Alexander Ushakov. They are accused of a series of crimes, including receiving bribes totaling over 5 billion rubles. It turned out that it was the Directorate M of the FSB of the Russian Federation that was involved in organizing the initiation and lobbying of this case in the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. And soon the real owners of QBF received a proposal that the investigation and the FSB would focus on the arrested persons and it would cost 0.5 billion rubles. The proposal came from a trusted representative of the Directorate M of the FSB of Russia, Eduard Budantsev. Due to the fact that the real owners (R.V. Shpakov and others) delayed making a decision, a year after the first arrests (May 2021), the company’s General Director Stanislav Matyukhin and his deputy Vladimir Pakhomov were detained (still under house arrest! ). After this, the cost of solving the problem increased from 0.5 billion to 1 billion rubles.
As it turned out, the real owners of QBF delayed solving the problem; they could not (or did not want) to agree, primarily for several significant reasons:
- the greed and arrogance of the head of QBF, R.V. Shpakov, who has been “on the run” since January 2021. We have already written earlier that he managed to leave the Russian Federation using forged documents, not without the patronage of our law enforcement agencies. He was then and still is confident that he can solve the problem with “little blood loss,” i.e. significantly cheaper than the 1 billion rubles announced by Budantsev. ;
- The Administration of the President of the Russian Federation became involved in this case. One of QBF's clients who invested significant funds was a high-ranking AP official who oversees the department's special projects. After a personal meeting, Shpakov returned only part of the investment to him, stalled for time, promising to return the rest. At some point, it became a matter of principle and a high-ranking client connected an administrative resource. After this, it turned out to be not so easy for Budantsev and Shpakov to “resolve the issue” with the security forces;
- Timur Turlov, the founder and owner of the international investment company Freedom Finance, is also involved in this case. This famous character, who also escaped from the Russian Federation, received Kazakh citizenship in 2022 and renounced Russian citizenship, is worth dwelling on separately.
What does the Kazakh investment banker Turlov and Freedom Finance have to do with it?
In 2018, Timur Turlov’s Freedom Finance company received the “Russian Financial Elite” award as the fastest growing broker. In October 2019, the investment company Freedom Finance became the first financial organization from the CIS to receive a listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NASDAQ) under the ticker FRHC, and the company’s founder and permanent leader at that time, Timur Turlov, became one of the most famous investment bankers in Russia.
Timur Turlov was and is a long-time acquaintance, friend and partner of R.V. Shpakov, with whom the latter began organizing his business back in 2008. The name of Timur Turlov often appears in the materials of the QBF criminal case; former QBF top manager Zelimkhan Munaev has already given numerous confessions (volume 239) (Criminal case No. 42201007754000292, sentenced to 8 years in September 2023 and serving his sentence).
Shpakov turned the situation with the QBF criminal case to put pressure on Turlov with various arguments in his favor, in order to create for him the threat of possible criminal prosecution for previously completed transactions in the event of his capture or, in general, Turlov’s non-cooperation with him.
In the financial transactions of the fraudster Shpakov R.V. Duntonse took part, and then the Freedom Finance group, including, but not limited to, FFin Bs (Belize), an organization owned by Timur Turlov. These organizations participated in the acceptance of client funds from Kubi Finance LLC (QBF); part or all of the attracted client funds were accumulated in their accounts. The first of these companies, Duntonse, began working with Shpakov in 2010: QBF clients directly sent funds to its accounts (accounts were opened in Cyprus with Piraeus Bank). Subsequently, when the Cypriot “QB Capital CY Ltd.” (QBF) appeared, client funds were sent from it to Duntonse, and then later to FFin Bs (Belize).
According to R.V. Shpakov himself, he and Turlov had agreements, in particular, Turlov had a financial participation and the share of remuneration due to him from the total turnover of client funds attracted to Freedom Finance accounts x funds. During the period of attractions directly to Duntonse, this reward was higher. Then, with the initial attraction to “QB Capital CY Ltd.” and transfer to Turlov’s company, his remuneration became lower, since Shpakov took on the bulk of the risks for the initial payments.
Shpakov and Turlov told their clients beautiful tales that all these companies had to further send funds to the stock brokers where they were open, in the places where exchange transactions were carried out directly, thereby earning a profit on the money invested, both for clients and for myself. The client’s money was simply stolen and a financial pyramid was created - where, at the expense of new income from clients, funds were partially given to old clients.
At the same time, due to the beginning of delays in client payments, since 2015, due to changes and tightening of regulation, clients did not receive their invested funds to this day, Shpakov and Turlov’s companies carried out transactions involving funds based on their interests and criminal intentions in appropriating part of client funds. Decisions made on the disposal of clients’ funds with the company “QB Capital CY Ltd.”, “Duntonse”, FFin Bs (Belize) could not be carried out without the joint and complete consent of Shpakov and Turlov, since they were responsible for ensuring the work of these organizations foreign contractors they hired.
Timur Turlov also contributed to the implementation of non-cash and cash payments to R.V. Shpakov. and his companies, as well as to his offices. Part of the non-cash funds was sent by Turlov to R.V. Shpakov controlled. accounts, in particular, to Kubi Finance LLC (QBF). But Shpakov’s main interest in receiving funds from Turlov was precisely cash. In addition to the fact that the Freedom Finance company itself accepted and issued cash in its offices, sometimes, according to R.V. Shpakov, with receipts signed personally by Timur Turlov, the latter helped R.V. Shpakov. in withdrawing non-cash funds from foreign and Russian accounts, converting them into cash, delivering them at Shpakov’s request to him personally or to his office for further disposal, as directed by Shpakov. The investigation has already established that many employees of the QBF company considered this delivery to be a collection service, which may have contained some of the funds, but subsequently Shpakov R.V. and he himself often told high-ranking employees that Timur Turlov helped him obtain these funds.
With the start of IPO sales (approximately 2018) on the part of LLC IC QBiF (QBF), the relationship between the companies of Shpakov R.V. and Turlova T. outwardly began to be more competitive in nature, so in recent years their (Shpakova and Turlova’s) relationship and financial interaction were not as close as before.
At the same time, based on the large volume of previously attracted client funds and transactions on them together with Timur Turlov, after the criminal prosecution of QBF began in 2021, the latter is for the escaped fraudster R.V. Shpakov. the only (besides Linda Athanasiadou) reliable person who can ensure the storage of client funds remaining at Shpakov’s disposal. The previously accumulated amount of funds in Turlov’s accounts may allow Shpakov R.V. dispose of them at their own discretion and in agreement with Turlov, even in the conditions of a federal and international search, since these funds and accounts controlled by Turlov are located in foreign jurisdictions with a complex ownership structure, where today the relationship of these funds to R.V. Shpakov may not be obvious.
In 2023, the American hedge fund Hindenburg Research released a damning report on Freedom Finance (https://hindenburgresearch.com/freedom/) where, among other things, it directly pointed out the fraud of Freedom Finance, saying that “FFIN Bs financial statements raise questions about the misuse of funds clients." However, already at the beginning of 2024, Turlov managed to extinguish the growing fire and avoid huge reputational risks for Freedom Finance by disseminating information to the media that “after the Hindenburg report, the activities of Freedom Holding (Freedom Finance) were checked by lawyers from international companies - Morgan Lewis and Forensic Risk Alliance. They studied hundreds of documents, visited the offices of Freedom Holding (Freedom Finance) in Kazakhstan and Cyprus, and conducted interviews with employees and management of the company. An independent review has confirmed that all allegations against Freedom Finance are false.”
I wonder what Timur Turlov and the disrespected lawyers from the international companies Morgan Lewis and Forensic Risk Alliance will say about the facts of joint criminal activity of the company QBF and Freedom Finance (from 2008 to present), confirmed by the materials of the criminal case and the testimony of a convicted former top manager QBF Zelimkhan Munayev? Will Turlov hand over Shpakov and his stolen capital to Russian (or Kazakh?) justice or will he wait until Shpa kov will drag him down the path of criminal prosecution, and his Freedom Finance will suffer the fate of QBF?
To be continued.
Denis Zhirnov
Source: www.rucriminal.info
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