MOSCOW, February 25 (RAPSI) – The Presnensky District Court of Moscow on Thursday issued an arrest warrant in absentia for the owner of the restaurant chain Tavern Taras Bulba Yury Beloivan charged with evading 57 million rubles in taxes ($775,000), the court’s press service told RAPSI.

The defendant is to be placed in detention for two months after his actual arrest.

A case over concealing financial assets determined to be the source of payment of tax arrears was opened against him in February 2020. Following that, the defendant repeatedly failed to respond to calls for questioning. In July 2020, Russia’s Investigative Committee put Beloivan on the federal wanted list.

Investigators believe that in 2014 through 2015 probes into Zolotoy Rassvet company managing Beloivan’s restaurants, among them Tavern Taras Bulba chain, conducted by a tax authority, revealed tax arrears amounting to 57 million rubles ($775,000); in order to avoid this payment the defendant liquidated the said managing company transferring respective operations to a new company Lider K. 

In July 2019, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court passed a 2-year prison sentence on Beloivan for tax evasion amounting to over 650 million rubles (about $9 million at the current exchange rate). Later in the year, the Moscow City Court reduced his sentence from 24 to 21 months. In early November 2019, Moscow’s Preobrazhensky District Court released him from serving sentence because of his illness.