Ukraine, Putin or call centre fraud: The theories behind assassination attempt on Ukrainian tycoon in Monaco – UK Times

Vadym Iermolaiev was returning to his apartment in Monaco on a warm summer night last Monday with a woman and child when the bomb exploded.

Within seconds, the Ukrainian oligarch and the woman and child were lying covered in blood on the floor outside the building on the Rue Révérend-Père-Louis-Frolla.

The suspect, who dropped a suspected parcel bomb in the lobby, had already fled the scene. A manhunt to locate him is ongoing, while Iermolaiev and the other two victims are being treated for serious injuries at the Pasteur Hospital in Nice.

Two days since the attack, the case remains shrouded in mystery with sources offering various theories for why Iermolaiev, one of Ukraine’s richest men, was targeted.

The attack has shocked Monaco, a coastal playground for the rich and famous where violent crime is rare. Below, The Independent looks at what we know about the case – and what might have motivated his attacker.

How the shock attack unfolded

The trio were said to be “returning home peacefully” in the early evening on Monday when the attack took place, according to the minister of state for Monaco Christophe Mirmand.

It was as they stepped towards their apartment building that they were caught in the explosion.

CCTV footage widely published in Ukrainian media shows a man in a black jacket, black bucket hat, white shoes and beige trousers running from the scene moments afterwards, headed in the direction of neighbouring French town Beausoleil.

All three were rushed to hospital in Nice. The woman, initially reported to be Iermolaiev’s wife, had her legs amputated after the blast, according to news site Ukrainska Pravda.

Monaco public prosecutor Stephane Thibault said her condition was “life threatening”.

Iermolaiev, meanwhile, suffered multiple shrapnel wounds after the backpack exploded. Local media said the bag had been full of bolts and buckshot.

An urgent search for the attacker is ongoing but police are treating it as attempted murder, not a terrorist attack.

Who is Vadym Iermolaiev?

Born and raised in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Iermolaiev renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017 and is now solely a Cypriot citizen. The real estate developer, 58, is a controversial figure in Ukraine.

He is chairman of Alef, which owns 13 companies operating in agribusiness, development, and the production of construction materials.

Iermolaiev has regularly featured in Focus magazine’s annual list of Ukraine’s Top 100 Richest People, with a net worth believed to be in the hundreds of millions of US dollars.

In 2022, he was referred to by Ukrainska Pravda as being a member of the ‘Monaco Battalion’: a group of what the outlet called “Ukrainian VIP refugees” concentrated in Monaco, Monte Carlo and Nice.

One year later, he was sanctioned by Kyiv for alleged collaboration with Russia, accusations he has fiercely denied.

Ukraine’s SBU security agency said he had been trading alcohol in Russian-occupied Crimea and had paid millions in taxes to the Russian treasury, leading his assets to be frozen.

Iermolaiev ‘linked to widespread call centre fraud’

The head of anti-corruption organisation Public Control, Denis Selin, speculated that Iermolaiev’s business in the occupied territory could be the cause of the assassination attempt.

But sources in Ukrainian police have told Ukrainska Pravda that the attack may be instead be linked to his alleged role in a complex separate case involving a fraudulent call centre network in Dnipro. Iermolaiev has denied the allegations.

Sources told the outlet that French investigators believe the attack may have been orchestrated by criminal networks linked to the case.

Last year, Iermolaiev’s son Artur was detained in Cyprus at Interpol’s request and extradited to Estonia, where he was accused of creating a criminal organisation which carried out telephone fraud, with call centres that “offered fictitious investment opportunities”.

The alleged scam is said to have gained the defendants more than €100m between 2019 and 2022. Artur was given a suspended sentence, paid the state €8.5 million, and left Estonia on a private jet, according to Estonian outlet err.ee.

The call-centre case has been closely linked to Russia, with Chechen criminals known to be behind many of the scams which have seen thousands of Russian pensioners defrauded.

In March, the son a businessmen from Dnipro, Ihor Komarov, was kidnapped by Chechen gangsters in Bali who sought millions of dollars in ransom from his family. His body was found dismembered on the beach, CBS News reported.

But so far, police have not suggested a link between the Monaco explosion and Chechen gangsters.

Russia has a long history of targeting its enemies abroad, and Western intelligence officials have recently said that a campaign of targeted killings has ramped up since President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is also believed to have carried out attacks and targeted killings of Russian figures in the course of the war, although those attacks have largely been confined to Ukrainian or Russian territory.

Who is the critically injured woman?

Initial reports claiming that Iermolaiev’s wife had been injured later turned out to be false, as it emerged she was not at the building.

“We are currently in a state of great stress and are actively cooperating with the investigation. For reasons of my own safety, I am not yet ready to comment on what is happening,” she told Suspilne.