MOSCOW, September 6 (RAPSI, Nikita Shiryayev) – Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for the owner of major car dealer Rolf Sergey Petrov in absentia, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

Petrov is charged with siphoning 4 billion rubles ($63 million) abroad. Earlier, he was put on the international wanted list. Allegedly, he is hiding in Austria.

According to investigators, Petrov, who was deemed to be the owner of Rolf and Rolf Estate, as well as Cyprus-registered Panabel Ltd., conspired with the top managers of these companies to siphon the money received from the business activities of the car dealer. In order to conceal the scheme, the defendants allegedly arranged a false agreement aimed at selling a stock of shares of Rolf Estate by Panabel Ltd. at inflated price of 4 billion rubles.

The money was transferred to the Panabel Ltd. bank account in Austria and later through vehicles controlled by Petrov dissipated, according to the investigation.

Petrov said earlier that the raid on his car sales offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg was aimed at seizing control of the business.

Two other defendants, a representative of Panabel Ltd. Georgia Kafkalia and ex-CEO of Rolf Tatiana Lukovetskaya were put on the international wanted list and arrested in absentia.One more defendant, the development department director of Rolf Anatoly Kairo, in summer was put under house arrest.

According to the civil ombudsman for protection of detained businesspersons’ rights Alexander Khurudzhi, the Rolf case looks like an attempt to criminalize standard corporate procedures and creates criminal risks for any type of international economic activity.