MOSCOW, Russia - Even those oligarchs who have made it to the Forbes Top 500 list are not immune from criminal charges.
Yuriy Kachmazov, former owner of SOK Group, an auto industry holding which once included major AvtoVAZ suppliers and the IzhAvto manufacturing company is wanted by Russian police.
In addition to Kachmazov, Andrey Frolov, former president and Yuriy Amelin, former vice-president of IzhAvto are also sought to be arrested. According to Russian media reports, both managers have escaped to the Middle East.
Officials say, Kachmazov, Frolov, Amelin and a few other top-level managers deliberately organized the bankruptcy of IzhAvto and profited from it.
According to a report on Russia Info Center, SOK Group, owned a controlling stock of Izhevsk's factory until spring, 2009, then the assets were withdrawn — 74,76% were sold to its affiliated companies "Gross", "Noreks" and "Izh-complect". The amount of this transaction was 200 million dollars and the payment was made with factory's production.
IzhAvto went bankrupt during the Summer of 2009. Today it is owned partly by AvtoVAZ and the company recently resumed assembly of Lada cars, with Kia models to be re-joining the line-up soon.
Russian authorities are seeking to arrest Yuriy Kachmazov and other former leaders
