The Tushinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced German investor Ralph Novak to five years in prison in a case of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the press service of the capital's courts.
Together with him in this case, Ilnur Azmukhanov, the former investment director of the Swiss commercial fund Winterberg Group, was sentenced to four years in prison. In addition, Novak was fined in the amount of 800 thousand rubles, and Azmukhanov — in the amount of 500 thousand rubles. 393 million rubles were also recovered from both businessmen based on the claim of the injured party.
Novak was under house arrest during the investigation and did not come to the announcement of the verdict. “He went to court, he is an obligatory person. Maybe he's in the hospital. I don’t know where he is, we can’t get through by phone yet, neither can the inspector,” the entrepreneur’s lawyer Konstantin Elfimov told RIA Novosti.
According to investigators, in 2017, Novak and Azmukhanov, in collusion with the management of the Cyprus offshore BelkaCar LTD, illegally sold 52% of the shares of the car sharing company of the same name, without notifying the real owners of the company. In addition, both businessmen were charged with theft of a 50% stake in the Swiss company Bryanston Resources AG.
There are two more defendants in the case — the executive director of the Russian company Bryanston, Fabian Kreucher, and philanthropist Boris Zimin, both of whom are not in Russia and were arrested in absentia. Zimin, according to investigators, together with Novak and Azmukhanov, drew up a plan to steal BelkaCar shares.
The philanthropist himself called this matter political in the winter of 2023. According to him, he did not know Novak and Azmukhanov until 2019. “I must convey words of support to them, because, as it now turns out, these people are obviously being held hostage in the hope of their testimony against me,” Zimin said in a comment to RTVI.