MOSCOW, November 11 (RAPSI) - Fugitive real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky, according to preliminary data, has been arrested in Cambodia, lawyer Alexander Karabanov told RAPSI on Monday.

The operation to arrest began tonight. According to Karabanov, it happened because Polonsky has posted the video on Facebook where a Cambodian police official tried to extort $1 million from him.

Polonsky was charged in absentia last July as part of a criminal case involving the embezzlement of over 5.7 billion rubles (over $176 million) from the participants in an up-market cooperative residential construction project in central Moscow.

A photo and other data on Polonsky has shown up on the Interpol database, after the businessman was put on an international wanted list in October.

Russia isn't the only place where Polonsky has recently found himself in a bit of hot water. Polonsky was arrested with two Russian friends in Cambodia in December 2012 for allegedly attacking the six-person crew of a boat. The businessman was released in April, but ordered not to leave the country. In June a British tabloid newspaper reported that he was at a luxury apartment in Israel.

In summer, Polonsky tried to apply for Israeli citizenship during his brief stay there after being released from Cambodian prison. In August he left Israel "out of fears for his safety" and returned to his private island in Cambodia.