Ronen and Miriam Averbuch's neighbors, on an upscale street in Jaffa, would never guess, but their young, likable new friends are tied to a fraud case involving the concealment of assets worth hundreds of millions dollars.
Ronen Averbuch, also known as Ruslan Pinaev, is a 32-year-old citizen of Russia and Israel. A court in London ruled Pinaev, then an investment banker, was involved in an embezzlement scheme which netted $183 million for him and his partner.
Maria Averbuch, Pinaev's wife, also known as Marija Kovarska, is a citizen of Latvia and Israel, who helped her husband in his attempt to smuggle some of that fortune - according to the court.
Pinaev's employer, until 2011, was Russian investment bank Otkritie Capital, which in May filed a petition to the Tel Aviv District Court to enforce the London court's ruling from last year.
Judge Ofra Cherniak signed a "stay of exit" order against Pinaev, at the request of the Russian bank. Otkritie's documents claim that Pinaev is wanted for arrest in London and that the allegations against him are being investigated by several countries, which followed the ruling in which the court decided Ruslan Pinaev was part of $183 million scheme.
The affair revolves mostly around an infamous bond fraud, which occurred in London, where the investment bank purchased $215 million of Argentinean bonds - that were only worth $55 million.
Another part of the affair involved Pinaev's move to poach 5 employees of a competing firm - Knight Capital - to the Russian bank. The London court determined that Pinaev defrauded the bank by demanding a $5 million "signing bonus" for each worker. Some $23 million were paid to a third party, a man who presented himself as the new employees' representative, pocketing nearly $19 million and transferring close to $5.7 million to Pinaev.
For his part, Pinaev claims the affair is an international conspiracy an attempt to cover up another massive corruption scandal, involving a senior figure “known to the Israeli public”, which was tied to the loss-generating transaction, all while implicating him in the wrongdoing.
In response to the Russian bank’s petition, Pinaev claimed that the London trial was “staged” and “cooked up” by the bank, which falsified evidence and rigged the jury, and blackmailed the judge, who had a conflict of interest.
Six-country investigation
At least six nations are investigating the affair, according to Pinaev’s claims Russia, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the UK, and the US. He has a warrant for his arrest in the UK; he was twice questioned in Switzerland after the Israeli courts allowed him to fly there for the meetings under restrictive conditions.
In the US, Pinaev claims, he was asked to make a statement about the conspiracy against him for an alleged investigation conducted by the FBI.
Recently, the Israeli courts acceded to his request to travel to the US under restrictive conditions to proffer testimony, though Pinaev presented no evidence that the FBI was conducting an investigation or that he was invited by the American agency.
Pinaev also has a wide variety of claims against the enforcement petition of the ruling against him in London. He claims the English court lacked jurisdiction in the case, saying he was a Russian resident and citizen at the time it was opened.
He further claims that dozens of the witnesses in the case took part in the conspiracy against him. In contradiction of Otkritie’s accusation, he claims to have worked for a different company in the group’s holdings which is not party to the suit. Pinaev, for his part, believes he was framed in order to provide an explanation for the disappearance of other funds.
Finally, Pinaev alleged the English judge that ruled against him was crooked; there was no evidence to back up his claim.
The London court accepted the charges against Pinaev in full and ordered the couple to pay the bank $135 million, 14.7 million Swiss francs, and £1.45 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 17, 2015
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