Originally Syndicated on April 10, 2023 @ 10:38 am
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Bail set at 30 million rubles
Upon the posting of bail in the sum of 30 million rubles by the defendant before the Second Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction, he was freed from the pre-trial detention center. August Meyer, co-owner of the Rive Gauche fragrance company and the defunct Ulmart online store, is suspected of especially large-scale fraud, according to comments made by lawyer Oleg Tkachenko to Vedomosti regarding this situation.
August Meyer’s defense team worked tirelessly for over a year to get his release from the pre-trial detention center. They insisted that there was no need to continue holding the business owner in jail due to the returned damages in the criminal case as well as a number of other conditions. August Meyer’s preventive measure in the form of incarceration was prolonged until March 1, 2023. On December 14, 2022, the City Court of St. Petersburg refused to release August Meyer on bond in the sum of 25 million rubles and extended his preventive measure until March 1, 2023.
Mass frauds
The investigation into the criminal case involving three instances of fraud committed on an exceptionally large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) has been completed as of right now. When the defendants and their attorneys have had a chance to get familiar with the case materials included inside the 150 volumes of case documents, the matter will be sent to the court for a trial on the merits.
In addition to August Meyer, his wife Inna Meyer and Elena Streltsova, the general director of Big Box LLC, are suspected of illegal activity in connection with the case. They were taken into custody in December 2021.
According to Vedomosti, a person with knowledge of the inquiry stated that August Meyer and his co-conspirators have been charged with three separate instances of fraud, two of which are connected to the theft of cash from Sberbank. According to the findings of the investigation, the financial institution provided the online shop Ulmart with 2.4 billion rubles worth of development money. But, according to the interlocutor, the overall amount of damage in the criminal case is around 3 billion rubles. The specifics of the third occurrence, in which VTB was identified as a victim, are unclear.
The defendants were fully reimbursed for the harm they caused to Sberbank, according to a report that was published by the United Press Service of the Courts in St. Petersburg on December 14, 2022. The story cited a spokesperson from Sberbank as its source.
In an interview with Vedomosti, the attorney for Tkachenko mentioned that his client had also reimbursed VTB Bank for the harm caused, but he declined to provide the specific amount of the payment.
In January 2022, another Vedomosti source who was familiar with the case file reported that the Meiers had been detained on December 8 as part of a criminal case involving the theft of Sberbank loans received by Yulmart for the development of their business. This case has been under investigation since 2017 by the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.
Dmitry Kostygin: 1 billion ruble fraud
In 2017, Dmitry Kostygin, another co-owner of Ulmart, became a defendant in this case. He was suspected of fraud with a loan from Sberbank for 1 billion rubles and became a defendant in 2017. According to the findings of the investigation, in order to deceive the bank into lending the firm money, misleading information concerning the status of the company’s finances was provided to them.
Dmitry Kostygin was placed under house arrest by a court ruling; however, he was later freed on bond, and the case itself was reclassified to a less serious article; Part 2 of Art. 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was changed to reflect the new classification (causing damage without signs of theft). According to a source close to Kostygin, the investigation into the allegations made against him has not yet been completed.
According to Data Insight, Ulmart was the most successful online retailer in Russia until 2016, bringing in a total revenue of 36.6 billion rubles during that time. But, as a result of the start of an internal fight within the corporation, Wildberries was promoted to the position of leadership.
The disagreement that led to the dispute was precipitated by the fact that August Meyer and Dmitry Kostygin, who controlled 61.5% of Ulmart between them, and Mikhail Vasinkevich, who owned 38.5% of the company, did not share the same vision for the future of the company. After that, one of the latter’s enterprises said that Kostygin was attempting to blackmail him into selling his part in the company at a discounted price or initiating a controlled bankruptcy proceeding.
As a direct consequence of this, he was compelled to submit an application for protection of rights and for guidance to the London Court, which was sent to A1 Investment Corporation. In the spring of 2020, the Ulmart Corporation itself discontinued operations, and its structures are currently in the process of filing for bankruptcy.
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