The former Minister of Open Government in Russia, Mikhail Avizov, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in a new criminal case.
The Tagansky District Court in Moscow found him guilty of fraud on an exceptionally large scale. He was also fined 80.1 million rubles. RBC reports this with reference to its reporter from the courtroom.
In March 2018, a criminal case was opened regarding the theft of funds from investments of the Russian Venture Company (RVC) against the director of RVC's investment department, Yan Ryazantsev, and unidentified persons. Later, the co-founder of Bright Capital, Mikhail Chuchkevich, became a defendant. In March 2024, they were found guilty of fraud on an extremely large scale and sentenced to six and five and a half years in prison respectively.
Avizov's case was split into separate proceedings. He was charged in September 2025. According to the investigators, in 2016 Abizov organized the theft of five million dollars from budget funds invested by RVC in the American company Elion Energy through a light beer fund, from which he would have benefited.
After the charges were filed, Avizov, who had already served 12 years in prison in a maximum security colony in the first case, was transferred to the Matruskia Tishina detention center.
The first case dealt with a criminal community that Abizov, according to the investigators, created and headed even before his work in the cabinet. The investigation concluded that he, together with his accomplices, "defrauding the shareholders of the Siberian Energy Company and regional power grids, stole four billion rubles during the production and transmission of electricity in the Novosibirsk region. In 2023, the court found him guilty of fraud, creating a criminal community, laundering money obtained by criminal means and commercial bribery.