Russian court unfreezes crab company assets Ksenia Sobchak hoped to buy, following lobbying by her senator mother
A regional court in Sakhalin has overturned a lower court’s decision to freeze the assets of the crab companies “Kurilskiy Universal Komplex” (KUK) and “Moneron,” reports the newspaper Vedomosti. Both businesses have been linked to Oleg Kan, who’s wanted by the police.
Journalists previously reported that television personality and former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak planned to buy 40-percent stakes in these companies, but a court ruling in late March freezing the businesses’ assets halted the deal.
The companies KUK and Moneron are subsidiaries of the Moneron Group, founded by “crab king” Oleg Kan. Russian officials suspect Kan’s companies of understating the value of their exports in 2014 and 2015 and say Kan himself was involved in smuggling as well as the murder of fishery manager Valery Pkhidenko in 2010. Kan has fled Russia and been arrested in absentia.
In early April, Ksenia Sobchak’s mother, Senator Lyudmila Narusova, complained to Supreme Court Chief Justice Vyacheslav Lebedev about the ruling freezing the assets her daughter wished to buy. Challenging the lower court’s decision, Narusova argued that there is no evidence Kan owns the two businesses in question.