Russia Jails Exiled Philanthropist Boris Zimin 9 Years in Absentia

A Moscow court has sentenced exiled philanthropist Boris Zimin to nine years in prison in absentia on fraud charges linked to the sale of shares in the Russian car-sharing company BelkaCar, the court’s press service said Tuesday.

Zimin, 56, was accused of working with accomplices to sell a majority stake in BelkaCar without the approval of a key shareholder. Last year, two alleged accomplices — investors Ralph Novak and Ilmar Azmukhanov — were sentenced to five and four years in prison, respectively.

Law enforcement authorities first pressed charges against Zimin in 2021 and issued an international arrest warrant for him in 2023. The philanthropist has lived abroad since 2004.

Moscow’s Preobrazhensky District Court on Tuesday found Zimin guilty of defrauding a foreign investor of 367 million rubles ($4.5 million) through a series of business deals between 2017 and 2019. He was sentenced to serve his term in a medium-security prison if extradited or upon return to Russia.

The case centers on a complaint by Swiss-based German investor Benedikt Sobotka, who alleged that Novak and another German businessman sold a 52% stake in BelkaCar at a steep discount without his consent.

Zimin is the son of the late businessman Dmitry Zimin, a telecoms pioneer who founded Russia’s first mobile phone service and later dedicated most of his wealth to philanthropy.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Boris Zimin has been a major backer of independent media, science, education and opposition causes in Russia. Russian authorities labeled his foundation a “foreign agent” roughly a decade ago, later applying the designation to Zimin himself.

He has since expanded the family’s philanthropic work internationally.

In 2020, Zimin helped fund the emergency evacuation of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to a hospital in Germany after he was poisoned during a trip to Siberia.

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