Ex-manager at Russian car dealer gets 8-1/2 years for sending money abroad
01/09/2023 16:26
MOSCOW, Sept 1 (Reuters) - A former senior manager at
the Russian car dealership Rolf was sentenced on Friday to 8-1/2
years in prison for participating in a deal considered to
constitute an illegal transfer of funds abroad, a Moscow court
said.
Anatoly Kairo, Rolf's director of business development, was
found to have sent large sums abroad using forged documents as
part of an organised group, the Cheremushki district court said.
The Russian Investigative Committee initiated the case in
2019, saying that in 2014 Rolf had purchased shares in one of
its own subsidiaries, registered in Russia, at an inflated
price, and that the money for these shares had been transferred
to the account of a Cypriot company in an Austrian bank.
The Committee also issued arrest warrants for the company's
founder, former lawmaker Sergei Petrov, and several other Rolf
managers, but failed to find them.
Petrov, who has Austrian citizenship and was in Austria at
the time, denied all charges.
Petrov has sometimes been outspoken in his criticism of
doing business in Russia, and said in 2019 that the
investigation against him might be related to his political
stance.
Russian media said Kairo, who was taken into custody in the
courtroom on Friday, was a Ukrainian citizen.
Petrov and lawyers for Kairo did not immediately respond to
emailed questions.
In 2021, Rolf, at that time Russia's largest car dealership,
was bought by its rival Klyuchavto.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov
Editing by Kevin Liffey and Peter Graff)
((gleb.stolyarov@thomsonreuters.com;))