The defendant expressed his plea during a hearing at the Moscow City Court on February 8, asking for a reduction in the sentence and the lifting of the property seizure. However, the court decided to adjourn the hearing until February 29.
The initial verdict was delivered by the Meshchansky District Court on September 20, charging Ivanov with the theft of client assets amounting to 3.17 billion rubles. The prosecutor had initially requested a sentence of 4.5 years in a general regime colony and a fine of 1 million rubles. However, the court opted for a more lenient punishment.
Ivanov appealed the verdict on October 4, and the appeal was received by the Moscow City Court on November 17. Since then, the first hearing has been postponed three times.
Given that Ivanov has been in pre-trial detention since March 2022, he could potentially be released from the general regime colony earlier, as one year in detention is typically considered equivalent to one and a half years in a general regime colony.
Interestingly, it was revealed during the autumn hearing that Ivanov had sought leniency from President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, requesting to be sent to a zone where a special military operation was taking place in order to combat neo-fascism.
The only party affected by the case is World Exchange Services, a Singapore-registered company. Its current owner, Igor Pravdin, claims that the damage caused by Ivanov-Bilyuchenko is not limited to 3.17 billion rubles, but amounts to 16 billion rubles. Pravdin’s interests are being represented in court by the same lawyer who previously represented Dmitry Khavchenko, the former owner of Wex.
Both Pravdin and Khavchenko have ties with businessman Konstantin Malofeev, who has shown interest in the assets of Wex and its predecessor, BTC-e, the largest Russian-language crypto platform that collapsed following intervention by American law enforcement in 2017.