YEKATERINBURG, August 6 (RIA Novosti) - An Italian court has turned down a Russian extradition request for a man accused of swindling people out of more than one billion rubles ($32 mln) in a financial pyramid, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
Russian investigators said Alexei Kalinichenko from the Urals city of Yekaterinburg through a number of companies attracted investors with promises of large payoffs for playing inter-bank currency market exchanges. Some 4,000 individuals throughout Russia invested money, which Kalinichenko then placed in his personal savings account.
When investigations began into the incident last year, Kalinichenko fled Russia for Italy, where he was put under house arrest in June by Interpol. After his arrest in Florence, Kalinichenko started a blog where he wrote about the pyramid scheme in an attempt to antagonize his victims.
The responses he received to his blog were submitted to the Italian court as evidence that he should not be extradited because of "elements of aggression in Russia."
"[Kalinichenko's] craftiness surprised even the most experienced regional police heads. Under house arrest in a foreign country and on a search warrant, he diligently continued his illegal activities," a ministry report read.
Kalinichenko has been accused of 200 cases of fraud, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of one million rubles ($31,000).
