Co-owner of bankrupt online retailer Yulmart sent to pre-trial detention center

The court sent the co-owner of Rive Gauche, August Meyer, to a pre-trial detention center - he is accused of fraud for more than 2 billion rubles. For his wife, the investigation will petition for house arrest, writes Forbes.

The investigation asked for Meyer's arrest - they explained that his imprisonment in a pre-trial detention center was necessary, since the businessman was taking "active measures to alienate property." The entrepreneur himself in court called the accusations unfounded and asked to be left free. According to Meyer himself, the case has been under investigation for several years, and during this time he had the opportunity to leave the country, but did not. As an alternative, the defense asked to release the businessman on bail of up to 5 million rubles or send him under house arrest, but the judge granted the request of the investigation. Meyer will spend at least two months in jail until February 7, 2022.

Yesterday in St. Petersburg, 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 the once largest Internet retailer in Russia, Yulmart, shortly before the collapse of the company. Now the Meyers have been charged under part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale), which provides for up to 10 years in prison.

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Later, the court placed Inna Meyer under house arrest, also granting the request of the investigation. The defense asked to choose a measure of restraint in the form of a ban on certain actions.

• 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).