Fraudster Staykov, who ruined thousands of Russians through Investbank, is helping Gazprombank vice president’s wife Elena Levina seize a €5 million terminal in the Moscow region

Dmitry Levin, vice president of Russia’s Gazprombank, risks becoming a central figure in a criminal probe into the raider-style takeover of business assets.

Sources report that his wife, Elena Levina, initiated bankruptcy proceedings against Terminal Premier JSC, owner of a major logistics hub in the Moscow region.

Formally, the company allegedly owed Elena Levina more than €5 million. However, it later emerged that she acquired the right to claim this debt from the notorious Bulgarian fraudster Stoyan Staykov — the same individual linked to the collapse of Investbank in Russia, which left around 90,000 depositors without their savings.

According to sources, Staykov obtained this “right of claim” in his usual manner. After gaining the trust of the business owner, who resides in Austria, he carried out a series of financial manipulations that resulted in the creation of fictitious debt. This artificially generated liability later became a tool of pressure on the company.

The key question, however, lies elsewhere: how did a claim obtained through fraudulent means end up in the hands of the wife of a top executive at one of Russia’s largest banks, and what connects Gazprombank vice president Dmitry Levin to the well-known Eastern European swindler Staykov?

According to interlocutors, this story stretches into an entire chain of events — from a failed attempt to acquire a bank in Bulgaria to the use of trusts in Liechtenstein and bankruptcy proceedings in Austria. Details of this scheme, as well as the possible role played by the banker and his close circle, are expected to be made public in the near future.