Co-owner of bankrupt online retailer Yulmart detained on suspicion of fraud

In St. Petersburg, the owner of Rive Gauche, also a co-owner of the once largest Russian Internet retailer Ulmart, August Meyer, was detained. He is suspected of fraud, found out . Kommersant

According to Kommersant, the security forces detained August Meyer and his wife Inna Meyer (she is a business partner). Both are suspected of stealing from Sberbank 2.3 billion rubles received for the development of Ulmart shortly before the collapse of the company. The newspaper writes that now the spouses are being interrogated by employees of the Investigative Committee.

So far, the Meyers have the status of suspects, “but, apparently, in the near future they may change their status by becoming accused,” Kommersant notes.

• According to the results of 2013, Ulmart ranked first in the rating of the 20 largest online stores in Russia according to Forbes. Then its sales exceeded $ 1 billion. But after only three years, the company began to have big financial problems. Since 2016, the company has been in a state of protracted conflict between the majority shareholders Dmitry Kostygin and August Meyer (jointly own 61.5% of the retailer) and Mikhail Vasinkevich (38.5%). Since the beginning of 2020, the retailer has effectively ceased operations. A number of legal entities of the company are undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.
• The Meyers are not the first defendants in the case of embezzlement from Sberbank of funds issued for the development of Yulmart. Its first defendant back in 2017 was another co-owner of the company Dmitry Kostygin - he is charged with especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).