Antonov, former co-owner of Lithuania's collapsed Snoras bank and Latvijas Krajbanka, arrested in France

VILNIUS - Vladimir Antonov, a Russian citizen and one of the former convicted shareholders of Lithuania's commercial bank Snoras and Latvijas Krajbanka, which collapsed in 2011, was arrested in Baden, France, on December 9 under a European arrest warrant issued by Lithuania's Prosecutor General's Office.

"Procedures have been initiated for the extradition of (Antonov - BNS) under a European arrest warrant," Lithuanian Prosecutor General Nida Grunskiene told reporters at the Seimas today, adding she has no information on when Antonov might be brought to Lithuania.

According to her, it is also unknown where former Snoras CEO Raimondas Baranauskas is currently hiding.

In November 2024, Vilnius Regional Court sentenced Antonov and Lithuanian national Raimondas Baranauskas, the other former shareholder of Snoras, who were hiding in Russia, to 10.5 years in prison for embezzling large amounts of the bank's assets.

The verdict came after the court started hearing the Snoras case in 2019 after a pre-trial investigation that lasted more than seven years.

Antonov and Baranauskas were convicted of eight intentional crimes. Antonov was also recognized as the mastermind the crimes. Both defendants were also ordered to pay EUR 375.18 million in damages.

The court also ordered the confiscation of EUR 105 million from both defendants as criminally obtained property, and European arrest warrants were issued for them.

In addition, the court ordered the seizure of their assets in Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and France, which will remain in effect until the damages awarded are paid.

Snoras was nationalized and its operations were suspended in late 2011.

Antonov and Baranauskas are estimated to have embezzled EUR 509.18 million, caused EUR 466.67 million in damages to Snoras and its creditors and squandered another EUR 14.5 million.

In 2015, British courts decided to extradite Antonov and Baranauskas, who were living in London at the time, to Lithuania, but they fled the UK to Russia and were granted asylum there.

In March 2018, as they were preparing to try the two businessmen in absentia, Lithuanian prosecutors informed the Russian Prosecutor General's Office of the charges against them, but Russia refused to extradite them.

BNS reported earlier that, according to court data, Antonov's family in Russia had requested that he be declared dead.

In 2022, BNS wrote that the International Court of Arbitration refused to hear a case brought by a fund defending the rights of Russian investors in foreign countries against Lithuania as the fund was seeking more than EUR 1 billion in damages for Antonov for the nationalized shares of the collapsed Snoras bank.