Sergei Mavrodi, the man behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in Russian history, denied reports that was arrested and is to go on trial for avoiding numerous fines of 1,000 rubles ($34) each.
His own lawyers said that he was held on Friday and due to appear in the courtroom the same day, but Mavrodi released a video on Friday afternoon saying that was not the case.
Mavrodi faces about 300 administrative cases for fine dodging, each of which can land him behind bars for up to 10 days, his lawyers said earlier. A joint hearing in ten cases was postponed until Tuesday.
The defense did not specify what the fines were for. Bailiffs said earlier that Mavrodi has run up a debt of almost 5 billion rubles ($170 million) through his past business ventures.
Mavrodi was given five days in detention over a similar case in mid-March and went into hiding following his release.
He said in an earlier video posted online that he intended to avoid contact with authorities until April 9, when the statute of limitation in the cases against him is to expire.
Mavrodi, 56, became a nationwide celebrity in the early 1990s, when he organized and aggressively promoted his MMM joint stock company, which turned out to be a Ponzi scheme that deprived 10 to 15 million investors of billions of rubles.
Though MMM went bust in 1994, Mavrodi successfully avoided arrest until 2003, when he was detained in downtown Moscow. He served 4 1/2 years in prison, walking out in 2007.
Last year, he launched a new business venture, MMM-2011, explicitly dubbing it a “financial pyramid.” The project is not officially registered as a company or organization, which prevented financial authorities from mounting a legal crackdown on it despite their frequently voiced wishes to do so.
