The CEO and founder of the travel agency Eviterra Travel, Nikolai Zayarny, has been put on the international wanted list by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), according to a message published on Monday, September 28, on the Interpol website.

The businessman was given a “red card”, which Interpol uses to mark especially dangerous criminals. The entrepreneur's profile states that he is wanted for large-scale theft by fraud. The search warrant is related to the claim of the Aviacenter company, previously filed against Eviterra Travel.

Zayarny was put on the wanted list in 2014, when Aviacenter won a claim against Eviterra to collect a debt of 71.6 million rubles for services provided, which Zayarny had not yet paid for. In addition, the startup Eviterra Travel owes this organization almost 287 million rubles for selling more than 6,000 invalid air tickets through an online service.

According to investigators, in 2013, Zayarny, together with a number of unidentified persons, developed a criminal plan to steal funds from travel agency clients. During 2013, they sold air tickets for flights of various airlines on behalf of Aviacenter, but did not transfer the funds received from citizens in the amount of 1 million rubles in fulfillment of existing obligations under a subagency agreement with Aviacenter LLC. And they used these funds at their own discretion. As a result, at least 8,000 tourists already abroad were affected.

At the end of December of the same year, the website eviterra.com suspended the sale of air tickets until January 9, 2014, explaining this by the New Year holidays. In early January 2014, reports emerged that tickets purchased through this site were being canceled and buyers were not receiving refunds. Mainly affected were passengers who bought tickets from Russian airlines: Aeroflot, Transaero, Rossiya and S7.

The head of the travel agency Eviterra is wanted by Interpol