Baku, Fineko/abc.az. The Anti-Corruption Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan continues blowing fraudsters and corrupt officials in the country’s private banks – another hotbed of them was exposed in RoyalBank OJSC.

The PGO informs that an investigation of a criminal case against senior officials of RoyalBank’s Khazar branch finished, and the bill of indictment was submitted for consideration of the Baku Court of Grave Crimes.

The Prosecutor’s Office reports that the investigation established the fact of fraud and legalization of illegally obtained money. Thus, Khazar branch’s head Rinad Mammadov together with branch’s pay and cashier officer Rasif Aliyev, specialist Ayaz Shiraliyev and others have appropriated 459,571 manats by entering into the Bank’s computer system dummy information (credit contracts, withdrawal receipts, etc.) on provision of false credits to 92 citizens (Jamil Aliyeva, Nailya Pashayeva and others). Due to the funds appropriated in this way the Khazar branch’s head illegally bought a plant on production of building materials, located in Gobu settlement of Absheron district, organized company Caspian-017 Production and legalized 163,338 manats.

As a result of investigation the GPO brought an action against Rinad Mammadov on the following Articles of the Criminal Code: 179.3.2 (embezzlement), 193-1.3.2 (legalization of criminally obtained money or other property), 308.2 (abuse of official position) and 313 (forgery). Branch’s employees Rasif Aliyev was prosecuted under Articles 179.3.2 (embezzlement) and 308.2 (abuse of official position), Ayaz Shiraliyev, Ramin Kerimov and Apyshova Hussein - under Articles 32.5 and 179.3.2, Tamara Guliyeva, Iftikhar Hasanov, Orhan Aghayev and Samir Atakishiyeva – under Article 308.2, Rauf Gasimov under Article 308.1.

Mubariz Bayramov, former chairman of the Gobu settlement municipality, was put on trial in accord with Article 308.1 for allotting the land area of 0.1 hectares to Rinad Mammadov.

This is not the first case of fraud and money laundering in RoyalBank OJSC.

As far back as 2010 the Anti-Corruption Department investigated a case initiated against Anar Gashimov, the head of Royal Bank’s branch Paytaxt, who embezzled other’s property in a way of document falsification. In particular, when holding the office of branch’s head Gashimov forged documents on acceptance of deposit and managed to embezzle 50,259 manats of one of the Bank’s depositors.

At that time, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, as a result of the audit in RoyalBank, imposed restrictions on accepting deposits in RoyalBank. Precisely after the CBA’s audit the Anti-Corruption Department took measures to define the RoyalBank’s employees involved in violation of processes of attracting deposits, lending and other banking operations.

Not a lot of time, in fact, has passed, and again the same criminal incident took place in RoyalBank, though in another branch and on a slightly different (larger-size) scheme. Probably, RoyalBank made no conclusions from the first case, and does not make them from the current criminal case. At the same time question raises: is it worth to use services of RoyalBank where you can be “given” fictitious loans and your deposits can been stolen?

18.04.2012 09:18