Russian tycoon and former Portsmouth owner Vladimir Antonov was extradited to Lithuania. After fifteen years on the run, he faces trial in the case of the failure of the Snoras bank.
French authorities have extradited Vladimir Antonov, a Russian tycoon and former shareholder of the Lithuanian bank Snoras, to Lithuania. This was reported by the AFP agency on Monday with reference to the Prosecutor’s Office in Vilnius, writes TASR. Antonov will stand trial in the case of the collapse of the Snoras bank, which Bloomberg called the biggest fraud case in the history of the Baltics.
Antonov, who is also the former owner of the English football club Portsmouth, was detained on the basis of a European arrest warrant in December last year in the west of France.
Judgment of the French court
A French court ruled in early April that he can be extradited to Lithuania, where he was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison in 2024 for embezzlement, waste of funds, fraudulent declaration of bankruptcy, management of illegally acquired property and other crimes.
This case, in which another member of the management of the Snoras bank was found guilty, covers the years 2008 to 2011. At that time, Snoras was under Russian control and was among the four largest banks in Lithuania. The amount of damage caused by the commission of crimes is estimated at at least 478 million euros.
Proceedings against the bank
In November 2011, the Lithuanian government nationalized the bank and later put it into liquidation, which is still ongoing. In the same year, they detained Antonov in the United Kingdom based on the original arrest warrant. However, he was later released. Now, according to Bloomberg, he will stand trial after 15 years of avoiding justice.
As a 23-year-old, Antonov bought a small bank with his father in 1998, when Russia was hit by one of its worst financial crises. At the beginning of this millennium, he took control of several banking institutions in Russia and abroad, including the Snoras bank and the Latvian Latvijas Krajbanka. In 2011, his assets were estimated at approximately 270 million euros.
