According to the charges, Artur Yermolayev (35), who was detained in Cyprus late last year, had been involved in phone scams since at least July 2017.

The group he led earned nearly €100 million from fraud schemes carried out worldwide between 2019 and 2022. Of this, €5.4 million was defrauded from hundreds of people in Estonia, with victims also in Finland, Lithuania, Germany, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere, Eesti Ekspress wrote on Tuesday.

According to the publication, Yermolayev has reached an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office to pay €8.5 million to the Estonian state.

"This amount covers the estimated damage suffered by Estonian victims and even exceeds it," State Prosecutor Jürgen Hüva explained, adding that all Estonian victims would be reimbursed, and the surplus would go to the state.

If the Harju County Court approves the agreement, Yermolayev would be convicted of leading a criminal organization and sentenced to five years in prison, but released immediately upon the announcement of the judgment.

He would then be expelled from Estonia with a 10-year entry ban.

Decision due on Thursday

Court spokesperson Viivika Siplane told ERR the court will decide on Thursday whether to accept the agreement; if not, the case will return it to the Prosecutor's Office.

Ekspress said the current agreement would be favorable for Yermolayev, as the Penal Code provides for 5 to 15 years in prison for leading a criminal organization, along with the possibility of extended confiscation of criminal assets.

However, under the agreement, Yermolayev would effectively serve only about five months in prison — time he has already served — while the remainder of the sentence would be suspended with a five-year probation period.

Hüva confirmed that the exceptional nature of the agreement is due to the sum paid by Yermolayev to the Estonian state — €8.5 million has already been transferred to the Prosecutor's Office deposit account and will move to the state budget once the decision enters into force.

An investigation by Eesti Ekspress revealed that Yermolayev was a member of the four-person management board of Versobank operating in Estonia in 2016–2017, and from 2018—after the European Central Bank revoked Versobank's license—a member of the bank's supervisory board. His father, Vadym Iermolaiev, is a multimillionaire in Ukraine and was chairman of Versobank's supervisory board.

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