Novak Ralf

Biography

2024: Sentence - 5 years in prison in the case of alienation of BelkaCar shares

German investor Ralph Novak was sentenced to five years in a general regime colony on June 3, 2024 for stealing BelkaCar car sharing shares. The court also ordered him to pay a fine of 800 thousand rubles. The verdict of the Tushinsky court of Moscow says that Novak was found guilty of fraud committed on an especially large scale or by an organized group.

The second person involved in the case, businessman Ilnur Azmukhanov, received four years in a general regime colony and a fine of 500 thousand rubles. The court partially satisfied the claim of the injured party in the amount of 393.7 million rubles.

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BelkaCar

Novak and Azmukhanov were detained in February 2022. According to investigators, in 2017, Novak organized the theft of a 52.4% stake in BelkaCar, colluding with the leadership of the Cypriot offshore BelkaCar Ltd. The shares were illegally sold to Bryanston Resources AG, the deal was fictitious and passed without real payment. In 2019, Boris Zimin became the majority shareholder of the company, who is also involved in the case and arrested in absentia.

During the investigation, it turned out that Novak and his partner Fabian Kreuher, co-founder of the Swiss Bryanston Group, sold BelkaCar shares at a reduced price without the knowledge of their companion Benedict Sobotka. This led to a corporate conflict within the company. Kreuher was arrested in absentia in August 2022, and in January 2023 Boris Zimin, the son of VimpelCom founder Dmitry Zimin, was also arrested.

Ralph Novak's lawyer Konstantin Elfimov noted that his client did not appear at the announcement of the verdict, and at present his whereabouts are unknown. According to Elfimov, the defense plans to appeal the verdict, as it considers it unfair.

According to the investigation, the case was initiated in September 2021 at the request of Benedict Sobotka, who accused his partners of fraud. During the audit, two economic examinations were carried out, the results of which varied greatly. Initially, the shares were valued at 53 kopecks, and then at 567 million rubles, which became the basis for the prosecution.^[1]

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