MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian businessman Yury Antipov was questioned by police on Monday in a fraud case connected to the alleged illegal privatisation of metals assets, the Interfax and RIA news agencies reported, citing unnamed sources.
TASS had earlier said that Antipov had been detained on fraud charges. Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. A company linked to Antipov did not respond to emailed requests for comment and Antipov could not be reached.
The move comes after Russian news agencies reported that a regional arbitration court in Sverdlovsk had ruled in favour of prosecutors seeking to nationalise three assets important to the defence industry that they said had been illegally privatised in the 1990s.
Prosecutors had sought to transfer 100% of a Chelyabinsk-based company called Etalon’s shares in three plants – the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant (ChEMK), the Serov Ferroalloy Plant and Kuznetsk Ferroalloys – to state ownership.
Interfax has reported that the lawsuit, which is being heard in a closed format, was filed against Etalon and its shareholders, namely Antipov, as founder of the ChEMK group and his wife, Lyudmila.
Forbes lists Antipov as 170th on a list of Russia’s wealthiest business people, with a fortune of $700 million as of 2021.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Alison Williams)
