The Norwegian prosecutor's office has charged Andrey Yakunin, the son of the former head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, a member of the Ozero cooperative, for violating the law on sanctions, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reports .
Yakunin Jr. is accused of repeatedly flying a drone between August 3 and September 6 in Svalbard.
At the same time, the defense claims that he has British citizenship, therefore, the law on sanctions should not apply to him. The law states that Russians cannot fly aircraft in Norway. However, Yakunin's lawyers point out that drones that are not used for military purposes are not subject to the law.
The media wrote about the arrest of Yakunin on October 19. Then it was reported that a Russian, the son of a person “close to Putin”, was arrested in Norway for launching a drone. The "Agency" drew attention to the fact that Yakunin's son fits the description. On October 27, a court in Norway released him from custody, according to the NRK television company, the decision on the release was made by the court of appeal.
Andrey Yakunin is one of the founders of the British investment company Venture Investments & Yield Management. His company has been investing in hotels in Europe and Russia. Andrey Yakunin estimates his investments in Italy, where he is currently located, at €150 million, but he says that he is far from the oligarchs from the Forbes list.
In July, The Insider published an investigation into how Vladimir Yakunin withdrew tens of billions of dollars from the budget and laundered them in Europe. Having headed Russian Railways, he became the holder of the "common fund" of the state-owned company, which was collected through kickbacks for state contracts and taken offshore through the "Moldovan laundry". The total damage to the Russian budget from this cut amounted to more than $20 billion.