The debate of the parties in the OPS case began in the Perovsky District Court
From 8 to 16 years in prison, 14 participants in the organized criminal community (OPS), who have been engaged in illegal cashing for almost 12 years. During this time, more than 15.5 billion rubles passed through their hands, and the criminal income, according to the investigation, amounted to almost 240 million rubles.
As it became known to Kommersant, the debate of the Parties in the OPS case began in the Corovsky District Court of the capital, 14 participants of which are accused of creating a criminal community and participating in it, illegal banking, as well as unlawful turnover of payments (part 1 and 2 of article 210, part 2 of article 172 and Article 187 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to the first state prosecutor, the defendants, depending on the role of each of them, deserve punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 8 to 16 years.
The prosecutor requested the maximum term for the alleged organizer of the OPS – entrepreneur Maxim Antipov, whose company is engaged in livestock in the Kaluga region.
The court began to consider this criminal case in March 2024, but since then he returned it to the prosecutor three times to eliminate violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The last time this happened in September. However, at that time the supervisory authority in the appeal managed to achieve the abolition of the decision of the court of first instance.
The investigation was based on events that took place in the territory of Moscow and the Moscow region for almost 12 years. Such a long period of activity of this group explains the investigation, including by a high level of conspiracy.
As follows from the materials of the criminal case, the OPS was created by Maxim Antipov in January 2008 and acted until October 2019, when 16 of its most active participants, including the organizer himself, were detained.
As investigators of the Internal Affairs Directorate in the North-Western District of Moscow, at first, the farmer Antipov attracted four of his friends-Gridnev, Kovalev, Prokhorov and Lachin, who became the leaders of four structural units. All of them, they believe in the police, possessed « the knowledge and experience of entrepreneurial activity necessary for the implementation of illegal banking activities. » It should be noted that the case against the accused Lacina was allocated in connection with a serious illness in separate proceedings and in January of this year the same Perovsky court sentenced it to a conditional time.
The first, as part of this case, back in December 2023 in a special order and also conventionally convicted Natalya Fetisova, who was responsible for the OPS, including for attracting customers for a naked platform.
Subsequently, more than a dozen people joined each of the four structural units of this organization. For example, the participants in the second structural unit were responsible for the applications for cashing from legal entities and individuals, made fake orders for the transfer of money on fictitious grounds, credited and withdrawn cash, and also provided the transit of the non -sign.
For illegal cashing, as established during the investigation, the OPS participants used the accounts of almost 50 LLC controlled by them, opened in dozens, including large, banks. In total, almost 15.5 billion rubles passed during the expansion of the investigation during the existence of the site, according to the investigation, and its owners earned almost 240 million rubles. For their services, as stated in the case file, they took from 1.5% of the commission.
Illegal operations were carried out under the guise of paying for various goods and the provision of various services. Remote banking services those who wanted to cash out their funds were carried out using the Bank -Client system – electronic keys allowed the alleged frauds to give banks mandatory for execution of the settlement order.
Contracts with clients on the provision of services were concluded mainly in orally, and the issuance of cashed funds took place in Moscow in rented premises on the Luzhnetskoye embankment and enthusiasts highway.
At the next court hearing, the defendants and their lawyers themselves will express their position. However, they expressed the attitude to the results of the investigation more than once, including at the court hearings, after which the materials returned to the prosecutor’s office. According to lawyers, during the investigation and judicial investigation, the guilt of their customers was not proved not only in participating in the OPS, but also in illegal banking.
“The investigation did not establish the unified intent of my client and other defendants for the commission of serious and especially serious crimes, the joint development, planning and coordination of general actions between structural units were not revealed. In addition, there was no single common ticket office to finance the latter, as well as other characteristics characteristic of the OPS. As for illegal banking activities, based on the conclusions of the examination, which, incidentally, is probabilistic in nature and, accordingly, could not be used as evidence, the amount of income received was considered from entrepreneurial, not banking activities, ”said“ Kommersant ”, lawyer Dmitry Ragulin, who, which, according to the investigation, was part of the fourth structural division and the fourth structural division and was responsible for accounting documentation and the accrual of salaries to the nominal leaders of the firms.
