Son of former children’s ombudsman Astakhov placed under house arrest

Golovinsky Court of Moscow has placed Anton Astakhov, son of former children’s ombudsman and lawyer Pavel Astakhov, under house arrest. This is reported by the press service of the capital’s courts. A preventive measure for Astakhov Jr. will be valid until 18 February 2022. He is accused of fraud on a large scale (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code), the maximum penalty under this article – up to ten years in prison. The case against him was initiated in early December. Initially, the court refused to choose a preventive measure for him, but the investigation has successfully appealed that ruling. As “Kommersant” reported, Astakhov Jr. is suspected in the theft of more than 1.2 billion rubles. According to investigators, he illegally obtained control over one of the companies together with his business partner Dmitry Aresiev and then obtained loans worth several billion rubles on it. Then Astakhov and Aresiev allegedly concluded several sham deals, allegedly for importation of goods to Russia, and demanded from the state to return about 130 million rubles as VAT. Aresiev managed to abscond abroad.