The former co-owner of the Azbuka Vkusa and Coffee House chains, accused of embezzling $83.5 million, was returned to pre-trial detention due to contacts with “unidentified persons.”

The Moscow Meshchansky Court tightened the preventive measure and sent to pre-trial detention the former co-owner of the Azbuka Vkusa and Coffee House chains, Kirill Yakubovsky, accused of embezzling investor funds in the amount of $83.5 million. The reason for this was the defendant’s violation of the terms of house arrest. This, according to the investigation, was expressed in the defendant’s visits to a medical center, a cafe, a market and a bank. The defense insists that the businessman did not violate the preventive measure, and intends to appeal the decision.

The Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is investigating a case of fraud on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country)), applied to the court to change the preventive measure for 55-year-old Kirill Yakubovsky. As part of it, Yakubovsky was previously charged with theft of $83.5 million. The funds, according to investigators, were received in 2012-2015 from businessmen who, on behalf of their offshore companies, provided loans to finance the current activities of the holding company VMHY Holdings Limited. The beneficial owner of a 25% share in it was Kirill Yakubovsky at that time.

However, in the fall of 2016, interest payments on the loans stopped, and the money was never returned. The victims in the case were entrepreneur Mikhail Vishnyakov, as well as four companies that lent money to the holding: Bronzeway Holdings Limited LLC, Ashaya Investment Limited LLC, Ari Solutions Corp LLC and International Commercial Union CJSC.

In April 2023, Kirill Yakubovsky, as well as the general director of one of the holding’s subsidiaries, Ppfin Holding LLC Svetlana Bezrukova, ended up in a pre-trial detention center. They did not admit their guilt. In particular, Yakubovsky insisted that he had nothing to do with the conclusion of loan agreements, with payments for which problems arose after the 2014 currency crisis. Moreover, a significant part of the contracts were drawn up after he left the holding and ceased cooperation with it.

Both defendants did not stay in the pre-trial detention center for long – just two months later, in June 2023, the Meshchansky court transferred both of them to prison. House arrest.

Under its terms, the businessman living on Leningradsky Prospekt was prohibited from leaving the apartment without permission from the investigator, as well as from communicating with witnesses, victims and defendants. At the same time, Yakubovsky was allowed to contact lawyers, court employees, as well as close relatives and the investigators themselves, but he was not allowed to use the telephone, the Internet, or send postal or telegraphic messages.

As the investigator stated in court, the defendant ignored these prohibitions. So, according to her, returning from investigative actions on October 20, the defendant went to Coffeemania on 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, and then visited the Sberbank office on Bolshaya Gruzinskaya. And on November 13, on the way to the medical institution of Bosco Clinic LLC, he again went into a cafe, and, returning from the doctors, looked into the Leningradsky market. On December 13, on the way to the clinic, Yakubovsky again visited “Coffeemania”, where he met with an unknown woman, and after visiting the medical center, he met with three other unknown ladies, proceeding with them to the “Novikov” restaurant, and then home.

Yakubovsky’s lawyers denied that their client violated the terms of house arrest. They indicated that their client visited the clinic with the permission of the investigator, who explained to the defendant that he could stop at a cafe on the way to relieve himself, or go to a store to buy groceries. At the same time, he did not communicate with the participants in the criminal case, but met with his lawyer for a few minutes in a coffee shop, after which he met with his daughters (Yakubovsky is the father of five children).

However, the prosecutor and representatives of the victims supported the petition to change the preventive measure for the businessman. After staying in the deliberation room for 1.5 hours, the judge granted the investigation’s request and imprisoned Kirill Yakubovsky in a pre-trial detention center until March 15. The businessman’s lawyer, Victoria Burkovskaya, said that the defense does not agree with the decision and intends to seek its reversal in the Moscow City Court.

“The defense considered and continues to consider the criminal prosecution of Yakubovsky illegal,” she told Business FM. “The investigation is at its final stage and has obtained enough evidence, which the defense has already been familiarized with, including the results of examinations. From them it follows that Yakubovsky was absolutely not involved in the acts imputed to him. We believe that his prosecution should be terminated due to his lack of involvement. In this regard, we consider the accusation to be far-fetched, and the change in the preventive measure for Yakubovsky to be illegal and unfair.” The lawyer emphasized that the violations referred to by the investigator were not violations. And her client was not allowed to communicate “solely and only with participants in criminal proceedings, but none of them were indicated in the investigator’s petition.” She emphasized that during the investigation, her client did not miss or be late for a single investigative action.

According to the defense, Germany previously refused to extradite to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) another person involved in the case – Yakubovsky’s former partner, ex-co-owner of the Asian-Pacific Bank (ATB) Andrei Vdovin, deciding that his criminal case concerned civil relations. In Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) he was arrested in absentia.