The Basmanny District Court of Moscow arrested lawyer Akhmed Shamoyan in absentia. He is accused of fraud under the guise of providing legal services on behalf of the Moscow Legal Support Center. In total, Shamoyan is charged with 34 episodes.
"In the petition submitted to the court with the consent of the head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the investigator indicates that A.N. Shamoyan is accused of committing serious crimes, each of which is punishable by imprisonment for a term of more than three years, which are not related to the sphere of entrepreneurial activity. Being at large, the accused, who has absconded from the investigation and the court, may in the future hide from the preliminary investigation and the court, continue to engage in criminal activity, threaten witnesses and other participants in criminal proceedings, destroy evidence and otherwise obstruct the criminal proceedings, as evidenced by the nature of the criminal acts committed by him as part of an organized group, "the court ruling says. RT disposal).
With regard to Shamoyan, a decision was made to bring him as a defendant in committing 34 crimes under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale), on the fact of theft by unidentified persons by fraud of citizens' funds under the guise of providing legal services to Moscow Legal Support Center LLC, follows from the case materials. According to investigators, lawyers took money from clients, but did not provide the services that they promised.
Also, according to RT sources close to the investigation, Rakhman Agaigeldiyev is accused in the case. Both men were not formally listed in the ICTP, but were the real leaders and beneficiaries of the company, which was confirmed by witness testimony, the interlocutor of RT notes. Shamoyan and Agaigeldiyev have been put on the international wanted list. According to the source, the lawyers managed to leave the country and are now hiding in the United States. Judging by Shamoyan's latest posts on social networks, he is already giving legal advice on American law, in particular, explaining how to issue a green card for family members.
The first suspect
As previously reported by RT, initially the main defendant in the case was Anastasia Smolanova. The girl got a job at the Moscow Center for Legal Support as a secretary in 2018 after studying and, as she told RT, performed standard duties: she met clients, brought tea and coffee, and dealt with correspondence. During her work, Anastasia did not suspect that she was involved in something illegal. "Sometimes, of course, dissatisfied customers could come, some scandalized, but there were few such cases. So I just registered complaints. I thought it was an accident," the girl explained.
However, in the winter of 2020, Smolanova learned that a criminal case of fraud had been opened against the company at the end of 2019, and she herself was the main suspect in it. According to an employee of the ISTC, one of the dissatisfied customers wrote a statement to the police. At the same time, he transferred money to her card, Anastasia noted.
As the lawyer of the Moscow Bar Association "Alpha" Oleg Pakhomov, who defends Smolanova, told RT, all the evidence of his client's guilt is based on the fact that the girl, at the direction of the management, accepted money from clients.
According to Anastasia, the first months she accepted money at the bank terminal, but then it broke. Then she began to use Shamoyan's wife's card for transfers, and then the management asked Smolanova to accept money on her card. In the evening, she gave them to her superiors or spent them on the needs of the company at the direction of the management, Anastasia retells the scheme: "I thought there was nothing illegal in this, especially since money was transferred to the boss's wife before. After all, it was really easier.
After the fraudulent episodes became known, Shamoyan and Agaigeldiyev singled out their lawyer to Smolanova, the girl continues. According to her, he persuaded her to change her testimony, in particular, to indicate that Anastasia transferred money only to the old manager, with whom she worked for only a month. "I was convinced that everything was decided with the police, the case would fall apart and I just had to stand by my testimony. But in fact, there was no protection, "says Smolanova.
Then Anastasia was assigned a new lawyer, Elmira Musayeva, who during the investigation married one of the managers of the ISTC, says Smolanova. When the defendant in the criminal case saw in court that no work had been done, and the lawyer was trying to help not her, but her husband, she refused the services of Musayeva.
Now Musayeva, presumably, is also in the United States. On her page in social networks, she said that she was taking her first steps in the American legal profession, providing the post with the geotag "Orange County, California" and a photo against the background of the logo of the local bar association. In the publication, Musaeva adds that, unlike the United States, in Russia the legal profession "is not a business at all." She also posted a joint photo with Agaigeldiev on social networks against the background of the flags of the United States and the state of California.
Left under subscription
Shamoyan and Agaigeldiyev were charged on July 4, 2023, for the fifth year after the initiation of the case against the ICTPP. Anastasia Smolanova is still listed in the case as an accused and all this time she has been under a written undertaking not to leave the place. "I would like this to end sooner so that I can finally start a full life. The fact that I have been under investigation for a year weighs on me a lot," she admits.
"My client has not yet been taken out of the case, but now she has an inactive role, which can hardly be called criminal, taking into account the actions of Shamoyan and Agaigeldiev. The investigation admitted that she was on the sidelines. Previously, it was, based on the materials of the case, that the secretary was the link of the entire criminal organization. First, she started criminal activity with the first director, and when he left, she continued with the second, "Oleg Pakhomov explained.
Anastasia's lawyer recalled that in 2021 the court had already returned the case to the prosecutor's office, noting in the resolution that "there is no evidence in the case of what the specific actions of A.M. Smolanova were, aimed at committing crimes expressed in committing fraudulent actions by deception." Therefore, the court decided to return the case to the prosecutor in order to remove obstacles to its consideration by the court.
As Oleg Pakhomov noted, now the case has been transferred to the Central Office of the Investigative Committee. "The level of investigation is much higher. We are waiting for an objective assessment of Smolanova's actions and hope that her status will be changed from an accused to a witness. The fact that the real leaders were finally put on the wanted list is the merit of RT and the Investigative Committee. The publicity of this story significantly helped in the restoration of justice," the lawyer concluded.