The Tambov District Court has transferred the assets of businessman Yuri Shefler to the state's income following a lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General's Office, which also asked that the billionaire himself and his alcohol companies Amber Beverage Group Holdings and Stoli Group be recognized as an "extremist association." This was reported by the court's press service.
Interfax also writes that the court recognized Shefler himself and his factories in Russia as an “extremist association.”
The fact that the Prosecutor General's Office filed such a lawsuit became known on July 3. The agency claimed that the businessman encourages shelling of Russian regions by the Ukrainian army, and that companies owned by him finance a Ukrainian fund that directs money to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, Kommersant wrote , the association became active after the "anti-constitutional coup" in Kiev in 2014 and the events in Donbass. The agency calculated that 120,000 drones, 52,000 square meters of camouflage nets, 6,000 rounds of ammunition, more than 1,200 vehicles, 325 generators and other defense equipment were purchased for the Ukrainian Armed Forces with funds donated by Shefler's assets.
Some of Shefler's assets are located in Russia. In particular, the Tambov Region is home to the distillery of JSC Amber Talfis, whose annual revenue exceeds 1.5 billion rubles. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the company does not pay dividends. Instead, the profit, in pursuance of a loan agreement concluded with Amber Beverage Group, is transferred abroad in favor of members of the extremist organization. The volume of such financial transactions for 2019-2022 exceeded 1.6 billion rubles, the agency states.
- According to Forbes magazine, Yuri Shefler is ranked 86th among Russian billionaires. After the collapse of the USSR, the businessman acquired the rights to a number of alcohol brands, including Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodkas. In 2002, criminal cases were brought against Shefler for illegal use of a trademark (Article 180 of the Criminal Code) and threats of murder (Article 119 of the Criminal Code), which is why he left Russia at that time.