The Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office has made public the results of a search made into the NEFTYANOY bank (Moscow).
Prosecutors say the criminal case was instigated as far back as February 16, 2005, citing Part 2, Articles 172 and 174 of the Russian Criminal Code as ’performing illegal banking transactions through the NEFTYANOY Commercial Bank’. Investigation shows that ’a strong group’ was formed in 2000 and is now operating in the bank. Its members opened accounts of different companies through which tens of billions of roubles had passed.
All deals and accounts were managed ’on behalf of front parties, with the NEFTYANOY bank operating as a main counterparty.’ Boris Nemtsov, board chairman of the NEFTYANOY concern, which unifies the bank, said that «the bank had long terminated any cash transactions.» He assures that this year the bank «has been operating in exclusively legal environment.» Furthermore, its
management has been reshuffled. With the criminal case opened, the bank managed to join the deposit insurance system in late September 2005.
According to INTERFAX CEA, as of October 1, NEFTYANOY had R6.9 billion in assets (129th place), R1.7b in capital (89th) and R514m in private deposits (258th).
Source: VEDOMOSTI, December 12, 2005
