A Moscow court sentenced popular Instagram blog writer Yelena Blinovskaya to 5 years in prison for money laundering and payment scams, court authorities said Monday.Blinovskaya and her other half, Alexei, were among several Russian influencers apprehended on tax fraud charges in 2023.
At the time, Russias leading detective, Alexander Bastrykin, said tax evasion was inappropriate while the country was at war in Ukraine.Experts say the crackdown has pressed other influencers to abide by Russias tax laws.The Investigative Committee stated Blinovskayas tax evasion charges were dropped due to the statute of limitations, but the money laundering and payment fraud charges remained.
She pleaded guilty to all 3 charges and repaid 320 million rubles ($3.5 million) of her debt.Moscows Savyolovsky District Court sentenced her to five years in a medium-security penal colony, bought her to pay a fine of 1 million rubles ($11,100) and prohibited her from running a company for 4 years.Prosecutors had looked for a six-year jail sentence.A civil suit brought by Moscow district attorneys purchased Blinovskaya to pay 587.6 million rubles ($6.5 million) in damages to the Russian budget.Blinovskaya, who had 5.3 million Instagram followers at the time of her arrest, marketed herself as a life coach offering self-help courses and individual growth events that got popularity throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Critics have actually implicated her of defrauding her followers.She was jailed at the Russian-Belarusian border in April 2023 on suspicion of underreporting nearly 1 billion rubles ($11.1 million) in revenues from online services in between 2019 and 2021 and after that laundering and misusing part of the funds.Her hubby, Alexei, offered to combat in Ukraine in April 2024 to avoid prosecution.