The first billionaire, who was included in the lists of Forbes magazine and went bankrupt, sank deep into the depths of Montenegro, Russian media say. Telman Ismailov is wanted for debts of nearly 50 billion rubles (about $ 800 million) from several major creditors, including VTB Bank.
Russia recently submitted documents requesting his extradition from Montenegro. Ismailov’s lawyer, Milos Vuksanovic, immediately announced that his client had been granted political asylum and had been released from the place where he had been arrested. This happened on October 22.
Thus, the Montenegrin government gave Ismailov the right to live freely and offered him protection from Russian security forces. Montenegrins have so-called “Golden Passports”. They are given to all sorts of swindlers who want to pay and become citizens of the country.
To do this, they have to contribute 100,000 euros to the government fund, acquire some real estate and invest 250,000 euros in tourism in the north and 450,000 in the south.
The first bankrupt dollar billionaire in history was a close friend of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
Luzhkov called him “his brother” and it was he who helped him lease the huge market for Chinese consumer goods, Cherkizon. In the early 1990s, the daily market turnover, which was completely unaccounted for, was tens of millions of dollars.
Telman Ismailov is one of the mountain Jews in Azerbaijan. His father was a “workshop worker” – a private individual who was engaged in production during the socialist era. His son is graduating in economics.
Telman Ismailov accumulated his innumerable wealth from the Cherkizon mega-market. There, he gave 90 centimeters of trade space to unemployed Russians in the early 1990s. Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants live in huge containers. According to some estimates – 100 thousand people.
At the beginning of the new millennium, Forbes ranked Ismailov among the richest people on the planet. Alla Pugacheva sings on his anniversary. Especially for him, Filip Kirkorov studied a song in Azerbaijani. To complete the kitsch, a rain of $ 100 bills is sprinkled from the ceiling in the midst of the celebration.
In 2008, Ismailov built a 7-star hotel in Antalya for $ 1.4 billion. It is considered the most expensive from the British Isles to the eastern Turkish border. Sharon Stone and Monica Bellucci are invited to the opening.
At the time, Vladimir Putin said there was nothing wrong with having such hotels abroad, but it would be good to invest similar funds in hotels for the Sochi Olympics.
Ismailov took note and immediately announced a project for a hotel for 800 million, which was never started.
In 2010, the Russian president also spoke negatively about the existing still dirty and full of bandits market “Cherkizon”.
Putin directly stated that no customs duties are paid on the goods at this site and that sales are not reported to the state. And the ugliness was closed. “Every stall here kills an honest Russian producer,” the president said.
With the closure of “Cherkizon” cuts the huge gray income of Telman Ismailov. Various banks have announced that it is not servicing its dozens of loans worth hundreds of millions.
In 2017, prosecutors accused him of being behind the murder of two major Russian businessmen. One was his brother’s partner, who owed him 5.5 million.
In order not to be paid, Ismailov sent assassins. And they removed another big businessman standing next to him in the car.
The prosecutor’s office then announced that the murders behind which Ismailov was allegedly behind were eight! And then he fled to Turkey at his $ 1 billion hotel.
Ismailov’s calm is short. He was summoned by local prosecutors, who questioned him about one of his alleged victims, a Turkish citizen.
Telman hastily sold the debt-ridden hotel for $ 1.4 billion to $ 124 million. His native Azerbaijan refused to grant him asylum. And Telman Ismailov lived in a rented luxury villa in Montenegro.
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