Alleged Magnitsky Case Fraud Mastermind Tried in Absentia in France

Today, on March 30, the Tribunal de Paris is holding the first hearing of Dmitry Klyuev's case. Klyuev is the alleged mastermind behind the 2007 tax fraud scheme that had been uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky. According to the French National Financial Prosecutor Office indictment, Klyuev is accused of laundering the money stolen from the Russian budget on French soil.

Sergei Magnitsky was an auditor at Hermitage Capital, who uncovered a 2007 scheme of a 5.4 billion rubles’ ($230 million approx. according to the exchange rates of 2007) embezzlement from the Russian federal budget. The funds obtained through illegal income tax refunds would be transferred to accounts at Universal Savings Bank owned by Klyuev. The money was then transferred abroad through a complex network of shell companies, with some of it ending up in Klyuev’s offshore accounts. After giving his testimony, Magnitsky himself was arrested and sent to a pretrial detention center. There, he died after being beaten and denied medical care. 

After reviewing the evidence gathered in the Magnitsky case, French prosecutors concluded that Klyuev was the mastermind behind the tax fraud scheme.

The money laundering charges are based on Klyuev’s bank accounts spendings. As French investigators discovered, between April 2008 and October 2012 Klyuev used his Cyprus bank accounts to spend over €2 million in France on luxury brand clothing, jewelry, art, and traveling. More than 127,000 euros were spent on paying for a vacation for Dmitry Savelyev, a then-Senator of the Russian State Duma, and his guests at the Courchevel ski resort in France, according to the transactions and invoices available to IStories.

In March 2025, Klyuev was placed on the international wanted list, according to the documents from the French prosecutor’s office (at the disposal of IStories). As the prosecutor’s office notes, Klyuev is likely to be residing in Russia, where he “is clearly enjoying the support of the authorities and is likely to be affiliated with organized crime.” However, Russia has been excluded from the list of countries notified of Klyuev’s arrest warrant being issued, as French law enforcement officials see no prospect of Russia extraditing him.

In Russia, Klyuev owns the Quorum Debt Management Group law firm—a partner of the Russian Deposit Insurance Agency in recovering assets from troubled banks. The Quorum group was founded by Andrei Pavlov, a person featured on the Magnitsky List (originally list of people sanctioned for their connection to Magnitsky's detention, abuse and death in detention in 2009, which has been updated with the names of those responsible for other human rights violations and corruption — Ed.). Klyuev also owns a hunting estate in Kaluga Oblast, which, according to an IStories source, is visited by high-ranking officials at his invitation.

The complaint against Klyuev was initially filed by the Hermitage Capital Foundation. Its CEO, Bill Browder, had launched a global campaign to investigate the Magnitsky case following Magnitsky’s death. As a result, in 2014 the United States imposed sanctions against Klyuev and other individuals involved in the fraudulent scheme.

According to the indictment, the maximum penalty facing Klyuev is 10 years in prison. The prosecution considers Klyuev's regular engagement in money laundering activity to be an aggravating factor. The documents note that he was also involved in laundering the Russian budget stolen funds in Cyprus and Switzerland.

Previously, IStories reported on Klyuev having invested in a luxury resort in Cyprus in 2009 — shortly after Magnitsky had accused him of the financial fraud. In 2012 and 2013, nearly $8 million (247 million rubles approx.) were transferred from an account allegedly linked to Klyuev’s offshore entity (into which money stolen from the Russian budget had previously been funneled) to the Swiss bank account of an offshore company owned by the aforementioned Dmitry Savelyev.

“It’s very encouraging to see that after years of going after those who profited from the $230 million fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, the key perpetrator himself is now facing trial in Paris,” Bill Browder commented to IStories. “We hope that one day he will also be held accountable in Russia for what he has done to the Russian people.”