Former co-owner of Otkritie was arrested in the United States

Vadim Belyaev (Wolfson) is suspected of helping to circumvent sanctions against Andrei Kostin. Vadim Belyaev, head of VTB, was also charged in absentia

US authorities detained the former co-owner of Otkrytie Bank Vadim Belyaev (after moving to New York he changed his last name to Wolfson), the country's Ministry of Justice reports. American Gannon Bond was detained along with him .

According to the department, Belyaev and Bond participated in a scheme to evade sanctions against VTB head Andrei Kostin, introduced in 2018. In particular, the Ministry of Justice claims, they helped monitor property in the resort town of Aspen (Colrado state) and dealt with its sale, while hiding the fact that the property belonged to Kostin. The Justice Department claims that Kostin purchased a house in Aspen for $13.5 million in 2010, but the property was frozen after it was placed on the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list.

The US Department of Justice accused the head of VTB in absentia of violating restrictive measures, as well as money laundering.

RBC sent a request to VTB.

Belyaev left Russia after the Central Bank sanitized Otkritie at the end of August 2017. In 2022, the bank was sold to VTB. Trust Bank, which belonged to Otkritie, also received rehabilitation; on its basis, the Central Bank created a bank of non-core assets.

After the reorganization, the Central Bank filed claims against the former owners of Otkrytie, the first one was filed in 2019. The amount of claims amounted to 289 billion rubles. In September 2020, claims in the United States were filed against Belyaev by Trust and Otkritie: he participated in a fraudulent scheme to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from the perimeter of Otkritie Holding, the plaintiffs claim. Another lawsuit was filed against Belyaev in the UK . In September 2020, the Moscow Arbitration Court recovered 289.5 billion rubles. from four former leaders of Otkritie, including Belyaev, as well as from Otkritie Holding. We were talking about losses incurred by the Central Bank during the reorganization of Otkritie.

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In December 2023, the head of Trust, Alexander Sokolov, told RBC that the dispute with Belyaev about compensation for losses of the bank’s non-core assets was under consideration, and a decision was expected in the first half of 2024 . In addition, Trust filed a claim for damages from the family of Boris Mints, who was a shareholder of Otkritie Bank, in the High Court of London. In one of the episodes of this dispute, Belyaev acts as a co-defendant.