The Gagarinsky District Court of Moscow found blogger Valeria Chekalina (Lerechek) guilty of conducting currency operations using forged documents. Her ex-husband, Artyom Chekalin, was sentenced in April to seven years in a penal colony and a fine of 194.5 million rubles in the same case.
According to investigators, the Chekalins used forged documents to move money out of Russia to evade taxes. The total amount transferred exceeded 251.6 million rubles, which the prosecution said was sent to the UAE through a foreign bank.
The court fined Chekalina 763.5 million rubles and banned her from promoting her brand online for three years. The prosecutor had requested six years suspended and a fine of 1.2 billion rubles. In her final statement, Chekalina asked the court not to impose a fine, saying she would have no way to pay it.
In March, while the trial was ongoing, it became known that Chekalina had been diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer. After that, the case against her was separated into its own proceedings, and the hearing was suspended. Artyom Chekalin asked the court to give him a suspended sentence, arguing that his ex-wife was undergoing cancer treatment and their children were living with him during that time.
In 2023, the Chekalins had already faced criminal charges for failing to pay taxes exceeding 300 million rubles. A year later, the Investigative Committee dropped the case due to the absence of a crime.