The Khimki City Court of the Moscow Region has recovered from the largest car dealer in the country, the Rolf company, and its founder Sergei Petrov, a total amount of 19.4 billion rubles. The Prosecutor General's Office found out that Petrov continued to manage Rolf while working in the State Duma, which is illegal. The businessman was a Duma deputy in 2007 and 2011 and repeatedly opposed high-profile government initiatives: he did not support the “Dima Yakovlev law” and the “Yarovaya package”, did not approve the annexation of Crimea. Petrov does not admit guilt in the suit of the Prosecutor General's Office. The entrepreneur claims that they are trying to take away the company from him or take revenge for politics. The Khimki court satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office in full. The property of the defendant will be turned into state revenue. The required amount was arrested on the accounts of "Rolf".

The Prosecutor General's Office believes that Petrov fictitiously transferred control of the company to his son Alexander when he began working in the Duma, but in fact continued to head Rolf and actively engage in business. From 2010 to 2016, Petrov received profit on an especially large scale from his entrepreneurial activity. At the same time, the deputy concealed and did not declare the true amount of his income.

As evidence, the Prosecutor General's Office listed transactions in which Petrov participated while working in the Duma. So, in 2010, he became a guarantor for a loan of 12.6 billion rubles, which was taken by Rolf in one of the banks. The prosecutor's office believes that in order to obtain a loan, Petrov negotiated with representatives of the bank, which is incompatible with the status of a State Duma deputy.

From 2012 to 2016, Rolf transferred large sums of money to companies controlled by Petrov, who spent their profits through offshore companies in Cyprus. Thus, according to the conclusions of the Prosecutor General's Office, Petrov received more than 11 billion rubles through controlled companies.

As another piece of evidence, the Prosecutor General’s Office indicated, with reference to FSB data, that in his free time from work in the State Duma, Petrov held meetings with the leadership of Rolf, gave him instructions, and also discussed issues of “transferring assets abroad and creating new investment projects .

Petrov's lawyer Anatoly Kupriyanov, in turn, said that the court's decision "shocked" the defendants. The lawyer emphasized that in the case of his client no solid evidence was provided.

“There are no legal grounds for such a decision. In fact, the court introduced a new punishment - civil confiscation, which is not provided for by any law in our country. This is especially true for bringing legal entities to joint liability with individuals, which is impossible in the absence of victims, and in this case there are no victims,” Kupriyanov concluded.

He added that the defense will appeal the decision.

What Petrov is famous for

The businessman was born in 1954, received a military education, but his career in the army ended when Petrov was kicked out for anti-Soviet agitation. He still has a negative attitude towards the USSR. So, Petrov said that "the entire Soviet Union stood on a lie," and called its economy "inhuman." In particular, the businessman noted that trying to rebuild a Soviet enterprise on a capitalist footing is “a waste of time.” “When we started, we didn’t take people from the“ VAZ ”services in principle: the Soviet infection, it is transferred like a virus,” Petrov explained.

After the collapse of the USSR, he founded the Rolf car sales company. Then she was among the pioneers of the market, one of the first Russian car dealers. Now it is one of the largest in the country. Rolf is a dealer of 20 automobile and one motorcycle brands, the company owns 59 showrooms. "Rolf" was the first in Russia to start selling cars on lease, started trade-in and began to give a three-year guarantee. At the moment, the company is at the stage of changing the owner, 100% of the business has decided to buy a large regional network of car dealerships "Klyuchavto".

In 2021, Petrov ranked 127th in the ranking of the richest businessmen in Russia according to Forbes with a fortune of $950 million.

Having built a business, Petrov decided to go into politics. In 2007 and 2011, he was elected to the State Duma of the 5th and 6th convocations from the Just Russia party. He was a member of the budget and taxes committee.

Petrov was one of the seven deputies who voted against the law banning foreigners from adopting Russian children (Dima Yakovlev's law). He also spoke out against the “Yarovaya package” – the document expanded the powers of law enforcement agencies, in particular, obliged mobile operators and Internet companies to store correspondence, phone calls and outgoing traffic of all Russian users and provide this data at the request of special services. In addition, Petrov was one of three deputies who did not support the annexation of Crimea, refusing to vote on this issue.As Petrov explained, in the end he became disillusioned with deputy work and left the Duma. “What I came for - to raise political competition, to guarantee at least an independent judiciary, to ensure the building of institutions - I could not achieve. There is a very large reverse wave,” he explained.

In 2019, Petrov was accused of financing the opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, the entrepreneur himself and Navalny denied this information. In the same year, the businessman fled to Austria, where he received citizenship. He is currently there and has no plans to return. Petrov connected the persecution in the Rolf case with an attempted raider takeover of the company or his deputy past.

bbabo.Net