Roman Viktorovich Vasilenko – St. Petersburg business consultant, creator of a network of independent entrepreneurs who promoted financial products under the auspices of the Life-from-Good company he founded. The network was engaged, in particular, in promoting such competitive products as accounts for receiving passive income “Vista” of a foreign investment company Hermesregistered in Belize, and the purchase of apartments in installments with the help of the Best Way cooperative, in which it was possible to both make an initial share contribution and accumulate it in an account with the cooperative without interest. Unlike Hermes, in relation to the cooperative, Vasilenko is the founder and was the chairman of its board until the spring of 2021 (later for about a year he was the head of the supervisory body – the council of the cooperative).
In the fall of 2021, investigator of the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region Ekaterina Sapetova a criminal case was opened on charges of creating a “financial pyramid” in the company Hermeswith which the Life-from-Good company collaborated, based on a complaint from a certain Shkolnik from Ukhta. In February 2022, law enforcement repression also fell on the Best Way cooperative, as an allegedly affiliated structure with Hermes. In March of that year, the cooperative council was completely re-elected, and Roman Vasilenko was not included in the new composition.
The scope of the investigation intensified, and the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region became involved. By the summer of 2022, Vasilenko was accused of fraud on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), creating a “financial pyramid” (Part 2 of Article 172.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as organizing a criminal community (Part. 3 art. 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). And he was put on the international wanted list, since he has been living abroad permanently since 2020. He denied all accusations through his lawyers.
Russian law enforcement agencies turned to Interpol for help, but Interpol almost immediately refused to Russia, deciding that the prosecution of Vasilenko was illegal and politically motivated. The political motivation, in his opinion, consists of the presence of structures interested in seizing the assets of the Best Way cooperative for a total amount of 16 billion rubles, operating under the roof of government bodies, primarily a group in the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, as well as in the Prosecutor’s Office of St. Petersburg and the North-Western State Administration of the Central Bank of Russia, whose representatives acted as “co-authors” of the criminal case.
Meanwhile, in Russia, Roman Vasilenko was brought as a defendant in a criminal case currently being considered by the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg related to the Life-of-Good companies, Hermesand the Best Way cooperative, but due to the impossibility of bringing him to court, the case against him and several other executives of the Life of Good company and entrepreneurs who collaborated with this company to promote financial products was separated into separate proceedings and the investigation continues.
In the case, which is now being considered in the Primorsky District Court, nine technical functionaries of the Life-from-Good company, entrepreneurs who collaborated with the company, as well as the 83-year-old father of Roman Vasilenko, were in the dock. Victor Ivanovich Vasilenko. The defendants were, in fact, taken as hostages by law enforcement agencies in St. Petersburg. The four defendants have been in prison for more than two years, despite the fact that the maximum period of detention in a pre-trial detention center established by the Criminal Procedure Code is one and a half years. All this also influenced Interpol’s negative attitude towards the charges against Vasilenko.
At the same time, the case actually fell apart in the Russian court. Prosecution witnesses, one after another, either make unfounded statements that contradict the documents – and right in court they are caught by lawyers in lies; or they say that all their problems actually began with the collapse of the Hermes website and payment system, which was committed by a St. Petersburg programmer who worked for this company – an agent of the Economic Security and Commissariat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, and the initiation of a criminal case. That is, as long as the Hermes company worked without force majeure, they were satisfied with everything.
Public embarrassment occurs after loud statements by the Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev and his employees that the largest financial pyramid in the history of Russia with billions of dollars in thefts from which tens of thousands of people suffered was uncovered. However, in the criminal case being considered by the court, there are 221 citizens recognized as victims by the investigation, and not thousands, and the total damage is 280 million rubles, and not billions.
Despite the unprecedented violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which, according to media reports, the investigative authorities committed, it was not possible to “draw” more impressive amounts. The picture of absurdity was completed by a desperate attempt to increase the amount – two statements of moral damage for 1 billion rubles each – clearly written under the dictation of the investigators. The Prosecutor’s Office of St. Petersburg, which supports the state prosecution, is forced to take the rap for all this, which, nevertheless, actively took up this disastrous case, including conducting illegal “trainings” of witnesses before questioning in court, which tarnished the reputation of the Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov.
All this, according to our data, prompted the curators of law enforcement agencies from Old Square to press “stop” – to close the criminal prosecution of Vasilenko, to release the criminal case under investigation. The same criminal case, which is in court and does not concern Vasilenko, is still being considered: a decision on it will be made later.
