The court arrested in absentia an entrepreneur who agreed to return to Russia after a meeting with business ombudsman Titov in London

The Moskovsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod arrested in absentia the wanted businessman Evgeny Ryzhov, who was on the list of people who agreed to return to Russia after a meeting with business ombudsman Boris Titov.

On February 8, the press service of the court issued a press release about the arrest in absentia of “accused R.”; court press secretary Anna Serova told RBC that it was specifically about Ryzhov. He himself, in a conversation with the publication, suggested that the arrest was necessary so that the businessman “wouldn’t even think about coming.”

On February 4 , it became known that Titov met with entrepreneurs from Russia in London, and the issue of their return to Russia was discussed at the meeting. Following the meeting, the business ombudsman handed over to Russian President Vladimir Putin a list of entrepreneurs who agreed to return to the country. After this, The Bell published this list, and Ryzhov was also mentioned in it.

In February 2018, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a new resolution charging Ryzhov as a defendant on six counts under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud on an especially large scale). In November 2017, he was put on the international wanted list.

As follows from the court's press release, from 2009 to 2015, residents of the Nizhny Novgorod region turned to Ryzhov, who had the status of a lawyer, about advertisements for loans secured by real estate. The entrepreneur, according to investigators, prepared contracts for the sale of real estate with deliberately false information and gave them to borrowers to sign, while instead of his own signature he put someone else’s.

After signing the contracts, the borrowers received “insignificant amounts” and lost their property. After this, the borrowers filed claims in court to recover 13 million rubles from the people whose signatures Ryzhov put on the property sale agreements. The court satisfied the claims, collecting a total of 32.2 million rubles from two people.