Vadim Moshkovich at his custody hearing at a Moscow court on Thursday. Photo: Maxim Shemetov / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA
A court in Moscow remanded the billionaire Russian agricultural entrepreneur Vadim Moshkovich in custody for two months on fraud charges on Thursday, state-affiliated news agency Interfax reported.
Moshkovich, the founder of agricultural giant Rusagro, was detained in Moscow on Wednesday, in what appeared to be part of the Kremlin’s ongoing scheme to seize Russian businesses and transfer them to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Moshkovich, who pleaded not guilty in court, could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
The arrest follows a police raid on Rusagro’s Moscow offices on Wednesday, and while it’s so far unclear what will happen to the company, one of Russia’s biggest producers of major pork, fats and sugar, its assets may now be confiscated by the government.
Like most Russian food companies, Rusagro, which posted an annual revenue of over $3 billion for 2023, has not been sanctioned by the West over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, making it a desirable asset for Kremlin expropriation.
Moshkovich, who was a dual Russian-Cypriot citizen until he had his Cypriot passport revoked in November along with 76 other Russian recipients of “golden passports”, began moving Rusagro’s parent company from Cyprus to Russia last year.
The move was prompted by the Russian government designating Rusagro “an economically significant” company, putting him at risk of losing control of the company, as a Russian court could bar foreigners from holding shares in the company.
Anti-corruption expert Ilya Shumanov confirmed to Novaya Gazeta Europe that Moshkovich’s arrest was further proof that the Kremlin planned to transfer his agricultural assets to the government.
The state-controlled Russian Agricultural Bank has been identified as a potential new owner of Rusagro, should its assets be seized, according to Shumanov. The bank already controls a number of previously nationalised companies including pasta maker Makfa and wine producer Kuban-Vino.
The same bank, which has links to Dmitry Patrushev, a former agriculture minister and the son of one close Putin ally Nikolay Patrushev, also featured in Moscow’s talks with Washington earlier this week, with the Kremlin insisting that it would only agree to a Black Sea ceasefire deal with Ukraine if the West lifted restrictions on SWIFT transactions with the bank.
“Moshkovich was first forced to move his business to Russia and now they are simply taking it away from him,” a source in the agricultural sector told Novaya Gazeta Europe. “It seems he didn’t want to do it the easy way, so they’re going to do it the hard way.”
