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A Moscow tribunal sentenced fashionable Instagram blogger Yelena Blinovskaya to 5 years successful situation for wealth laundering and outgo fraud, tribunal authorities said Monday.
Blinovskaya and her husband, Alexei, were among respective Russian influencers arrested connected taxation fraud charges successful 2023. At the time, Russia’s apical investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, said taxation evasion was “unacceptable” portion the state was astatine warfare successful Ukraine.
Experts say the crackdown has pushed different influencers to comply with Russia’s taxation laws.
The Investigative Committee said Blinovskaya’s taxation evasion charges were dropped owed to the statute of limitations, but the wealth laundering and outgo fraud charges remained. She pleaded blameworthy to each 3 charges and repaid 320 cardinal rubles ($3.5 million) of her debt.
Moscow’s Savyolovsky District Court sentenced her to 5 years successful a medium-security penal colony, ordered her to wage a good of 1 cardinal rubles ($11,100) and banned her from operating a concern for 4 years.
Prosecutors had sought a six-year situation sentence.
A civilian suit brought by Moscow prosecutors ordered Blinovskaya to wage 587.6 cardinal rubles ($6.5 million) successful damages to the Russian budget.
Blinovskaya, who had 5.3 cardinal Instagram followers astatine the clip of her arrest, marketed herself arsenic a beingness manager offering self-help courses and idiosyncratic maturation events that gained popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Critics person accused her of defrauding her followers.
She was arrested astatine the Russian-Belarusian borderline successful April 2023 connected suspicion of underreporting astir 1 cardinal rubles ($11.1 million) successful net from online services betwixt 2019 and 2021 and past laundering and misusing portion of the funds.
Her husband, Alexei, volunteered to combat successful Ukraine successful April 2024 to debar transgression prosecution.
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