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Russian authorities have detained billionaire Vadim Moshkovich, the first time that such a high-profile Russian businessman has been held by authorities since the 2022 Ukraine invasion.
Moshkovich, the founder of one of the country’s largest agricultural holdings Rusagro, was detained as part of an investigation into fraud and abuse of power, according to the state newswire Tass.
Rusagro confirmed authorities were conducting searches of its offices in Moscow and three other Russian cities on Wednesday, but said the searches did not relate to any of the company’s current business activities.
“We understand that this situation may raise questions among our clients, partners and employees, so hasten to assure you that the company is fully compliant with the law and is ready to provide all the necessary assistance to the authorised agencies,” the company said in a statement that did not mention its founder.
Rusagro did not immediately respond to questions regarding the detention of its founder.
Moshkovich, a billionaire from the top-100 of Russia’s Forbes list, is one of the most prominent Russian business figures to be detained since Russia’s fulls-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago. Several high-profile Russian defence officials were also arrested last year following a shake up of the Russian defence ministry.
Rusagro is classified by the Russian government as one of its economically significant enterprises. The Kremlin has moved to take stronger control of its farm industry since the start of the war, with local traders taking a bigger share of the market after large Western agricultural traders exited.
The incident is also reminiscent of high-profile cases in the two decades leading up to the war, which saw the arrests of numerous influential businessmen ranging from Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to the billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov who had close ties to Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev.
Moshkovich’s fortune is estimated at $2.9bn, according to Forbes. He emerged as a businessman in the 1990s selling sugar and vodka before eventually forming Rusagro as a larger holding company for several businesses in 2004.
In addition to the agriculture business, he is also one of Moscow’s biggest property developers and spent eight years as a senator in Russia’s federation council, from 2006 to 2014 representing Belgorod, which is located on Russia’s front lines and has been one of the hardest hit by the war.
He stepped down as chair of Rusagro in 2022 after falling under western sanctions and reduced his stake to under 50 per cent.
Rusagro is the country’s largest producer of sugar, pork and sunflower oil and at one point had a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange.
Moshkovich’s detention comes almost one year after authorities initiated several criminal fraud cases against several former deputy defence ministers who had left the government following a shake-up of the country’s military leadership.
