Lev Konstantinov earned his first million at the age of 21, and at the age of 25 he was already almost an oligarch: he dressed in expensive costumes, accompanied by guards, rolled around Moscow on an armored Rolls-Royce and ruined competitors. At the same time, the guarantee of his financial success was not at all selfless work for the good of the motherland, but deception of citizens. In Russia, he created a financial pyramid that raked three trillion non-denominated rubles from purses of four million people in the country.
Biography
Lev Konstantinov was born on August 13, 1970. His father, Igor Konstantinov, taught philosophy at the higher school of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Looking at the pope, and the son became interested in philosophy, first Chinese. Mother, Leah Konstantinova, was also a teacher, worked at the Institute of Physical Education. The family moved several times until finally settled in Volgograd.
After leaving school, Leo joined the army, served as a sapper, and upon returning he got a job in the Finnish construction company Polar. Having left there, he established his own construction company, which he later reorganized into a trading one, opening several stalls in Volgograd.
Khoper-Invest
According to Kontantinov himself, the idea of creating Khopr was born in his bathhouse. In 1993, he, along with his mother, relative Tagir Abazov and his acquaintance Oleg Suzdaltsev, laid the foundation of the financial pyramid. About fifty commercial structures were created, the main of which were the Khoper-Invest investment company, as well as a check investment fund and a closed joint stock company with the same name. The activities of all these structures were aimed at attracting citizen deposits.
Residents of the country were told that they become not just investors, but co-founders of the company, and they will honestly share profits. An organized wide advertising campaign, in which famous artists Sergey Minaev and the Academy cabaret duo participated, was bearing fruit. The founders of Khopr got a lot of money, but they wanted more.
In 1993, Lev Konstantinov moved the company to Moscow and set up collection points throughout Russia. Soon there was a lot of money. Rubles were converted and under linden contracts with European firms were transported abroad.
Criminal case
At the end of 1994, the activities of the Khoper-Invest company attracted the attention of the Federal Commission for the Stock Market and Securities. Its chairman Anatoly Chubais made a statement on the use of the classic pyramidal schemes by the founders of Khopra.
After that, the company stopped paying its depositors, who at that time were about four million people. The deceived people brought statements to the police, and finally a criminal case was opened on the fact of fraud. Three hundred investigators and an even greater number of investigators investigated him. They conducted 70 documentary audits in the units of the financial pyramid. The materials received became the basis of 62 volumes of the criminal case and three volumes of the indictment.
In March 1996, Lev Konstantinov, allegedly unable to continue to conduct business due to illness, transferred the position of president of the company to his mother. He himself did not wait for the completion of the investigation of the criminal case and, together with Tagir Abazov, hastened to emigrate to Israel, taking with him millions of dollars stolen from depositors. They chose the promised land because Israel and Russia did not have an extradition treaty.
Later, scammers were put on the international wanted list. Several times the Russian authorities tried to extradite them, but they were refused.
Court
On August 6, 1997, Leah Konstantinova was arrested. She was accused of embezzling eight billion undenominated rubles. Oleg Suzdaltsev was released on his own recognizance.
On April 19, 2001, the Tagansky court of Moscow put an end to the Khopra case. The mother of Lev Konstantinov in the dock stood with dignity and claimed that she was engaged in business only in the name of the happiness of her son. For such maternal care, the court sentenced her to eight years in a penal colony. Oleg Suzdaltsev was given four years in prison and detained in the courtroom.
Judicial litigations brought nothing to the investors of the Khoper-Invest company, except moral satisfaction. The money from the sale of the company's property was primarily directed to paying off wage arrears to employees, that is, to those who were directly involved in deceiving people. The court recognized the depositors as creditors of the fifth stage.
