Russian court confiscates more than 22 mln rubles from ChronoPay founder Pavel Vrublevsky in case involving 500,000 ruble loss

A court has ordered more than 22 mln rubles in assets belonging to Pavel Vrublevsky, founder of the payment system ChronoPay, to be confiscated to the state, according to Kommersant. The detail matters for high-risk payment operators because the case sits at the intersection of criminal exposure, asset freezes, and how quickly courts can convert interim seizure into state confiscation.

1. Vrublevsky was previously sentenced to 10 years, including for stealing funds from Sberbank clients. The new confiscation order came after that sentence, not before it.
2. According to the lawyer, in 2023 the court at the investigation stage arrested 205,000 rubles, $277,300 and 775, which at the exchange rate at the time totaled 22.476 mln rubles.
3. The defense said it only learned the full details of the ruling eight months later, after turning to Yana Lantratova, the commissioner for human rights, to obtain the complete court decision.
4. The lawyer quoted in the report said the verdict kept the arrest on the property until damages to the victims are compensated, and the remainder was turned over to the state.
5. The reported damage in the case involving Sberbank clients was only 500,000 rubles, which is the number that makes the confiscation figure stand out. On paper, this is restitution-first logic; in practice, the state also gets to keep the upside from the seized assets.