Kommersant, a leading Russian newspaper, said Mogilevich was arrested Thursday in Moscow along with Vladimir Nekrasov, the director of Arbat Prestige, a major perfume and cosmetics retailer. Kommersant said Mogilevich was using the name Sergei Shnaider. Mogilevich, who is known to have lived in Budapest and has an Israeli passport, is known by at least seven other names.
Mogilevich is wanted most prominently by the U.S. FBI for allegedly defrauding stockholders of hundred of millions of dollars in a 1998 case involving YBM Magnex International, Inc. (YBM) based in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
"Investors lost more than 150 million dollars through the alleged scheme that included inflating stock values, preparing bogus financial books and records, lying to Securities and Exchange Commission officials, and offering bribes to accountants," the FBI website says. It further warns that Mogilevich should be considered armed and dangerous.
Mogilevich was also associated with Inkombank, one of Russia's major private banks before collapsing amid great controversy. Inkombank was implicated in a scheme to launder millions of dollars though the Bank of New York in the late 1990s.
About 50 police and special forces troops were used to detain the men in central Moscow, the paper said.
In recent years he was believed to be living in Moscow and was seldom bothered by Russian authorities.
