MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti) – Fugitive Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky has been put on an international wanted list, Russia’s Interior Ministry said Monday.
Polonsky, who headed the Mirax Group developers, was charged in absentia in August with involvement in embezzling over 5.7 billion rubles ($175 million) from an upscale residential project in Moscow. An arrest warrant was also issued for him in absentia.
On October 4 Polonsky told RIA Novosti that he had instructed his lawyers to draft compensation deals amounting to $12 million for those individuals who purportedly lost money in the project. “All the interest holders will get their apartments. In the meantime, I will compensate them for their losses,” Polonsky said.
Russia’s Interior Ministry has said that more than 80 participants in the project lost money directly because of Polonsky’s actions.
Polonsky said on October 4 that he was considering returning to Moscow to clear his name. He was granted citizenship in Cambodia last month after judges there cleared him of liability in an alleged attack on locals last year. He also sought Israeli citizenship earlier this year.
The tycoon was also at the center of a scandal involving ex-KGB officer and businessman Alexander Lebedev, who faced charges in Moscow after he punched Polonsky during a TV talk show in 2011. Lebedev denied his guilt, and said he would appeal the sentence of 150 hours of community service, the Russian legal news agency RAPSI reported in July.
