Zamoskvoretsky district court of Moscow has sentenced entrepreneur Savely Burstein up to six years in prison (citizen of Israel; in 1997 he received a refugee status in the U.S.); he was convicted of complicity in the embezzlement in 2002, and of the subsequent laundering $ 20 million that belonged to the Central Bank of Turkmenia. Mr. Burstein himself argued that he had only helped familiar banker transmit the cashed money, being unaware it had been abducted from the Turkmens.

As it follows from the sentence, the theft of the funds from the Central Bank of Turkmenia was discovered in September 2002. Then the German security services found that Arslan Kakaev (killed in St. Petersburg in 2003) - officer of the Department of Correspondent Banking and International Payments under the Department of International Operations of the Central Bank of Turkmenia - having access to the codes of international bank payments SWIFT, charged $ 41 million off the pending account of the Central Bank in Deutsche Bank and sent it to other foreign banks. In particular, approximately $ 20 million he sent to the Latvian Parex Bank. And he also moved $ 20 million to the Moscow Russian Depositary Bank (RDB); Savely Burstein was involved in stealing of that money.

According to the court, after Arslan Kakayev transferred $ 20 million in the RDB, on the advice of Savely Burstein the money was put on an account opened on a false passport in the name of a Vietnamese citizen Vu Phuong Nam. After that, Chairman of the board of the bank Dmitry Leus (sentenced in 2004 to four years), took $ 700 thousand as a commission and ordered to cash the remaining $ 19.3 million. This amount was transferred to the Index Bank, and from there, under the version of the court, Savely Burstein, together with Asoltan Niyazova - Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank (a wanted woman) picked up the entire amount on his BMW X5 to transfer to it to other accomplices in the crime. Then Savely Burstein presented false passports to ordinary employees of the banks.

According to investigators, most of the funds removed by Mr. Burstein were subsequently invested by Ms. Niyazova in the hotel business in the Czech Republic. Incidentally, in the summer of 2008 Savely Burstein was detained there as well. hiding after the beginning of a scandal around the theft of funds from the Central Bank. In the same 2008 he was extradited from the Czech Republic to Russia.