A court in Azerbaijan sentenced Russian Alexander Vaissero to 4 years; this is the first decision in the case of tourists from Russia detained in the summer of 2025

In Azerbaijan, the Baku Serious Crimes Court sentenced Russian citizen Alexander Vaissero to four years in prison under the article on the legalization of property acquired by criminal means. According to the publication Minval , the state prosecution proposed to sentence the defendant to five years in prison.

According to investigators, Vaissero acted as part of a group of people in a preliminary conspiracy. We are talking about money received through illegal bookmaking, lottery and other gambling sites operating outside of Azerbaijan. The total amount of legalized funds, according to investigators, amounted to 727,024.40 manats (about 40 million rubles). In order to hide the source of income, the investigation believes that Vaisero transferred the money in parts to bank cards issued in the names of different people.

Vaissero is an entrepreneur from Yekaterinburg who came to Baku in 2025 as a tourist. He was arrested in July of the same year during a period of worsening relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. Together with him in the dock on charges of drug trafficking and cyber fraudwere the Russians Anton Drachev, Valery Dulov, Alexey Vasilchenko, Dmitry Bezugly, Ilya Bezugly, Dmitry Fedorov, Sergei Sofronov.

Detentions of Russians in Azerbaijan began after a raid by security forces in Yekaterinburg against representatives of the Azerbaijani diaspora. During it, two people were killed - brothers Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov; they were suspected of involvement in the murder committed in 2001.

In response to this, the director and chief editor of the Russian agency Sputnik were first arrested in Baku, and then a total of 11 Russians were detained and beaten - they were called “members of two organized crime groups.”

In 2026, a court in Yekaterinburg convicted the head of the national-cultural organization “Azerbaijan-Ural” Shahin Shykhlinski on charges of organizing the 2001 murder; he was sentenced to 24 years in a maximum security colony. His son Mutvala received eight years in a general regime colony.