Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court will resume hearing of the claim laid by Global Gaming Expo against Bank24.ru on November 9, 2009. GGE insists on being paid 199.765 million RUR that the bank has allegedly obtained through unjust enrichment. Alfa-Bank is also involved in the case as a third party with no claims of its own.

GGE was founded by Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko. The former bank executive’s business activity involved trading on Forex foreign exchange market. Capital was attracted through private investors, who had been promised the annual yield of 30% to 200%.

Global Gaming Expo stopped paying its investors in August 2006. Alexei Kalinichenko disappeared, but was later found in Italy. He is now charged with large-scale fraud (Article 159 (part 4) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code). The Russian public prosecution authorities insisted on the court’s default judgment as to arresting the suspect. The man is also involved in over a dozen criminal suits with charges based on Article 174.1 (part 2) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (large-scale money-laundering), which could result in up to eight years in prison.

After over a year of tireless efforts, the Russian law-enforcement agencies managed to persuade the Italian authorities to extradite Kalinichenko to his home country. The Supreme Court of Italy agreed to the extradition of the suspect a month ago.