The Ministry of Internal Affairs put on the wanted list Dmitry Zimin (known in Russia as an individual foreign agent), son of the founder of Vimpelcom (Beeline trademark), businessman and philanthropist Boris Zimin.
“Zimin Boris Dmitrievich was born on November 24, 1968. He is wanted in accordance with the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, ”says on the card. It was not specified under which article the lawsuit was filed against the businessman.
On December 30, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow registered a petition for the arrest of Zimin’s full namesake. According to card On the court’s website, Zimin is charged with section 159 of the BD Penal Code, section 4 (large fraud). Up to 10 years in prison.
The trial of the case will be held on January 11, judge Oleksiy Krivoruchko. He is best known for prolonging the arrest of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer at Hermitage Capital in 2009, confirming the arrest of Alexei Navalny (listed as an extremist by Rosfinmonitoring), and serving sentences in the cases of RBC reporter Alexander Sokolov and actor Pavel Ustinov.
The RBC source said the investigation sought Zimin’s arrest by February 15.
The essence of the accusation
According to the TASS agency, citing the press service of the Tverskoy Court, Zimin is accused of particularly large-scale fraud, the Ministry of Internal Affairs put him on the international wanted list.
“The investigating authority requests that, in absentia, choose a preventive measure in the form of detention in relation to the accused,” writes TASS.
RBC, citing a source familiar with the case file, writes that Zimin’s case is linked to an agreement to transfer ordinary shares of the car-sharing company BelkaCar LTD.
“Defendants in a criminal case involving a particularly large-scale fraud have entered into an agreement to dispose of the ordinary shares of BelkaCar Ltd. Investigative actions are ongoing, a number of expert reviews, including economic ones, have been appointed, ”writes TASS, citing law enforcement agencies.
The agency states that German investor BelkaCar Ralph Novak and Russian company Bryanston Ilnur Azmukhanov were sent to a pre-trial detention center at the end of 2022 as part of a fraud investigation. German citizen Fabian Kroycher, co-founder of the Bryanston Group investment company, is also involved in the theft of a majority stake in BelkaCar. According to the investigators, the defendants in the case stole 52.4% of the shares of the Cypriot BelkaCar Ltd and as a result of their actions the loss amounted to 47 million euros.
In 2019, Dmitry Zimin’s company, BMT Private Equity, acquired a 100% stake in BelkaCar, a Moscow car sharing company.
Commented on the case against Zimin
In a comment to RTVI, the entrepreneur described the criminal prosecution in Russia as political.
“Politics, whatever is officially stated on the website of the Ministry of Interior. “My case is yet another sad and terrible proof of the reduction of law and the entire legal system to a tool, a weapon,” Zimin said.
“A member of the Anti-War Committee cannot be sought by the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” wrote the businessman on his Facebook page (owned by Meta, which is recognized as an extremist in the Russian Federation).
“Everything is like with people now: both the agent and the wanted man. I do not know for what occasions the search was officially conducted (I would not be surprised if it was fraud in Marya’s bakery), but I am sure that this is the same policy in Russian, ”Zmin wrote.
Activity and recognition as a foreign agent
Boris Zimin is the son of Dmitry Zimin, founder of VimpelCom and the Dynasty Foundation. In 2015, the foundation was recognized as an NPO-foreign agent and was liquidated.
In 2016, father and son founded the Zimin Foundation, an international non-profit organization that supports education and science around the world. Boris Zimin was also the founder of the Sreda Foundation (known as a foreign agent), which finances a number of media outlets: TV channel Dozhd and TV2 (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation), internet media Mediazona (including) in the register of foreign agents of the Russian Federation Ministry of Justice). Zimin Jr., like his father, provided financial support to Alexei Navalny.
Boris Zimin left Russia in 2004 and has been living in Israel since 2020.
In September 2022, the Ministry of Justice registered Zimin as a foreign agent on the private register. The agency said the businessman was added to the list because of his involvement in foreign funding and political activities. The agency cited Ukraine as its funding source.