Russian tycoon in custody after deportation from Cambodia

A Russian tycoon accused of embezzling tens of millions of dollars in a real estate scam was taken into custody in Moscow Sunday after being deported from Cambodia, officials said.

Sergei Polonsky, who is in his 40s, was detained on an island off the southwestern town of Sihanoukville in Cambodia on Friday for overstaying his visa.

Upon his arrival at Domodedovo airport in Moscow, Polonsky was immediately taken into custody.

“Mr. Polonski was extradited to Russia where he will be prosecuted according to the law,” Elena Alexeyeva of the Russian Interior Ministry said in a press release.

“He is a naughty man,” Uk Heisela, chief of the investigations unit at the Cambodian interior ministry’s immigration department, told AFP.

Polonsky had lived illegally in Cambodia by over-staying his visa for more than two years and his activities “affect Cambodian national security,” Heisela said.

Eight other Russians have been arrested and also face deportation, he added.

Polonsky’s wife, Olga Deripaska, denied that he was living illegaly in Cambodia for the past two years.

“We received a new visa for a year in November,” she said.

In August 2013 a Russian court ordered Polonsky’s detention after he was charged in absentia for his alleged role in a 5.7 billion ruble ($174 million) swindle which defrauded more than 80 investors.

Investigators have accused the businessman of orchestrating the scam linked to the construction of a housing complex in 2007-2008.

Polonsky was detained in Cambodia in November 2013 after a request by Russia, but freed by an appeals court in January 2014.

Cambodia’s Supreme Court in April 2014 rejected the request by Russia to extradite Polonsky, ruling that the tycoon could not be sent back home because the two countries do not have an extradition treaty.

Polonsky, who denies the accusations, said at a news conference in Phnom Penh in 2014 that it was a “big case” involving “a lot of bad men”.

Polonsky still faces a separate trial in Cambodia over allegations that he and two other Russians threatened a boat crew in the kingdom at knifepoint.

He was granted provisional release in April 2013 in that case after spending three months in prison in Cambodia, where he has business interests.

The outspoken tycoon’s business was hit hard by the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, forcing him to abandon work on Moscow’s Federation Tower, which he had hoped would become Europe’s tallest building.