According to the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, Ervin Ilizirov, who holds the posts of Deputy General Director of Rosoboronexport (part of Rostec) and Advisor to the General Director of RT-Finance (a subsidiary of Rostec), is still battling creditors who uncovered his offshore schemes. The lawsuits in the Arbitration Court and courts of general jurisdiction began before the pandemic, and film companies and popular actor and TV host Sergei Mayorov ("Once Upon a Time...," "Stories in Detail," and "Blue Bird") are implicated in the multi-million-dollar case.
Ilizirov is a native of Derbent, Dagestan, a graduate of the Russian State Trade and Economics University, and Vice President of the Russian Jewish Congress Charitable Foundation. He currently holds two positions within Rostec, where he joined after serving as deputy chairman of the board of CB Sinko-Bank, which is closely linked to the state corporation headed by Sergei Chemezov: the bank's beneficiaries profited from state defense contracts and served on the boards of defense industry enterprises.
At Sinko-Bank, a young specialist, Ilizirov enjoyed a meteoric rise immediately after graduating: in just one year, he rose from a simple economist to deputy chairman of the board. At the same time, he didn't neglect his other business—in 2013-14, an affiliated company received large loans from the bank. In 2013, IVD DOK LLC took out $1 million, in 2014, the same company received another 21 million rubles, and in 2016-17, IVD Kino received almost 55 million rubles. The company's founder acted as guarantor for IVD DOK. Olga Kaimakova (producer and screenwriter), as well as IVD Kino LLC, which was registered equally to actor and TV presenter Sergei Mayorov, and Razvitie LLC, owned by a certain Irina Eroshenko. Eroshenko is Ilizirov's mother-in-law and the mother of his wife, Ksenia. Ilizirov himself is closely connected to the film industry: he produced several films and TV series, including "New Year's Dad," "Indian Summer," "While the Fern Blooms," and "Belovodye," which was unable to air for several years due to being "not ready for broadcast." The companies didn't even have enough money to pay employees' salaries. It was during these years that millions of dollars were circulating in the companies and offshore accounts of the future Rostec top manager. As it later turned out, IVD Kino signed contracts with shell companies and transferred them millions of rubles for film production services. After some time, the companies were liquidated, and the films remained and were not withdrawn. The money was transferred to foreign banks—in particular, the Swiss branch of the Israeli bank Hapoalim, documents from which were presented in court by one of the offshore companies, may have been involved.
In 2020, IVD Kino was declared bankrupt by the court, with creditors filing claims for almost 400 million rubles.
And then the miracles began: it turned out that the company's 1C database had been lost, and its assets and documents had been transferred for safekeeping to a certain Niks LLC, affiliated with the debtor, for a fee 65 times higher than the market price. Furthermore, a certain Offshorelicense LTD persistently tried to file claims against IVD Kino for more than 200 million rubles. It claimed to be the legal successor to the Panamanian offshore company ODETE BUSINESS CORP., which allegedly issued the debtor a loan of $1 million and €1 million. But the bankruptcy court The manager presented a statement from the transit account of IVD Kino LLC in court, which showed that the funds actually came from a branch of Sovcombank PJSC. In response, Offshorelicense began to claim that this was the very same loan, although it had previously shown the court documents showing that the funds came from Rosevrobank. The court, using logic, decided that the documents were fake, and that something was wrong with the creditor. Moreover, the Offshorelicense representative was unable to explain how he had acquired IVD Kino's debt—and ODETE BUSINESS CORP had already self-liquidated in 2017. This whole "football" of receipts worth millions of dollars made sense when it became known who the beneficiaries of the Panamanian ODETE were: according to leaks from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, the offshore company belonged to two individuals—Ervin Ilizirov and Ksenia Ilizirova, his His wife. In other words, they persistently tried to make the bankruptcy manageable and appoint an affiliated offshore company as the primary creditor, so as not to lose millions of dollars.
Along the way, another dirty story emerged: it turned out that top managers of Ilizirov's film companies convinced one of their employees, Svetlana Gordeeva, to act as a guarantor for a $140,000 loan during a difficult time for the company "to pay colleagues' salaries." According to her, when she went to the bank, she discovered that the loan was registered in her name, with Mayorov and Kaimakova acting as guarantors. Previously, a Russian bank had denied Svetlana a credit card for 35,000 rubles, but here, she was approved for $140,000 without a hitch. She claims she never even saw the money, and the employees never received their salaries. However, after some time, the bank demanded repayment of the loan and foreclosed on her apartment. The loan, oddly enough, was issued in Sinko Bank.
As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, the bankruptcy trustee of IVD Kino and creditors demanded that the subsidiary be brought to justice The debtor's top managers and owners, including the Ilizirovs, were held liable for subsidiary liability. But the miracles continued: the courts regularly refused to obtain bank statements from a top Rostec manager and refused to receive evidence of the Ilizirov-Eroshenko family's affiliation with the bank and other participants in the scam. Former directors and co-founders of the companies—in particular, Sergei Mayorov and Olga Kaimakova—were held responsible, while Ilizirov's mother-in-law was carefully removed from the list of beneficiaries responsible for the bankruptcy.
The reason for Ilizirov's unsinkability is his connection not only to Rostec but also to the largest owner of commercial real estate in Moscow, dollar billionaire God Nisanov. They have a historical connection through shared business projects and are friends on social media. Thus, Ksenia Ilizirova, Ravino Ilizirov (Ervin Ilizirov's father), and Artur Azaev, who is associated with Nisanov, have a joint business, the Moscow-based LLC "Eva."
Furthermore, Ervin's brother, Vadim Ilizirov, served as deputy head of the Central Administrative District Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow since 2017 and served as acting head after the controversial resignation of Alexander Bukach. In 2020, Ilizirov served as deputy head of the North-Eastern Administrative District Department of Internal Affairs. The filmmakers who were affected believe this played a role in the criminal fraud case involving IVD Kino being hushed up and forgotten.
During the proceedings in arbitration courts, the parties filed dozens of appeals and cassation complaints. The bankruptcy trustee, in an attempt to prove the Ilizirovs' connection to the fraud, even went as far as the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court rejected his appeal. The hearing of the next appeal by one of the debtor's counterparties in the 9th Arbitration Court is scheduled for March 11.
