The Cheryomushkinsky District Court of Moscow on [date] sentenced Sergei Petrov, founder of the car dealer Rolf and former State Duma deputy, to nine years in prison in absentia. The court also fined him 800,000 rubles.
The court found Petrov guilty of illegally transferring about 4 billion rubles abroad. According to investigators, in 2014, together with other Rolf executives, he fabricated a purchase agreement under which Rolf bought shares of Rolf Estate from Cyprus-based Panabel Limited (also owned by Petrov) at a significantly inflated price. The money was then transferred to him through foreign organizations he controlled. The defense argued that this was ordinary business optimization within one company and that Petrov's actions did not constitute a crime.
The criminal case against Petrov was opened in 2019. At the time, the businessman was abroad; he was put on the international wanted list and arrested in absentia. Earlier, in absentia sentences in this case were handed down to former Rolf CEO Tatyana Lukovetskaya and director of the Cypriot company Georgy Kafkalia. Anatoly Kairo, director of Rolf's business development department, was sentenced to eight and a half years in a general-regime colony.
Petrov is a former State Duma deputy of the 2007 and 2011 convocations from the A Just Russia party. He voted against the "Dima Yakovlev law" and the "Yarovaya package," and did not participate in the vote on the annexation of Crimea. In 2026, he was a delegate at the founding congress in Berlin of the "Peaceful Russia" party, created by Ilya Yashin and other anti-war politicians.
In December 2023, President Vladimir Putin transferred Rolf's assets to the temporary management of Rosimushchestvo (the Federal Agency for State Property Management). Later, the company's owner became businessman Umar Kremlev, head of the International Boxing Association. In a comment to RBC, Petrov called this decision "legal lawlessness" and said the state "is shooting itself in the foot." He added that he would consult lawyers about further actions.