This Wednesday, January 28, a Russian court will consider issuing an international warrant for the arrest of Yevgeny Chichvarkin, former chairman of Euroset, the largest mobile phone retailer in Russia. Officially, Chichvarkin is wanted for the alleged 2003 kidnapping and extortion of a former employee. Unofficially, Chichvarkin is being told to “get out and stay out” for getting too big for his faded, designer britches.

Chichvarkin has been contentiously AWOL since Dec. 22, 2008, when he left Moscow for London to “find a good school for his son.” That same day at Chichvarkin’s family dacha, authorities delivered a summons for the businessman, having just missed him (not a coincidence, by most accounts). Chichvarkin’s wife said, “Sorry, not here,” before quickly boarding a plane and joining her husband abroad.

What’s going on? Let’s go back to 2003, when Euroset, still under the chairmanship of Chichvarkin, discovered their employee Andrei Vlaskin had stolen $1 million worth of company phones. The police reportedly failed to take action, so Euroset security held Vlaskin in rented apartments until he paid back his debt to the company. There was an investigation in which Chichvarkin was questioned as a witness, but no serious repercussions.

The real trouble started in March 2006, when law enforcement confiscated 167,500 Motorola phones ($19 million worth) from Euroset—first claiming the company lacked paperwork for the phones (quickly refuted), then arguing the phones exceeded legal limits of electromagnetic waves. Though 117,500 phones were eventually returned to Euroset, the rest, a.k.a. $3 million, had somehow found their way to the market. Chichvarkin was apparently so enraged at this outcome that his loud complaints made headlines outside of Russia—even Dubya brought it up at the G8 Summit that year. Party foul.

This is probably why, in September 2008, authorities resurrected the Vlaskin case, arresting three Euroset officials. In November, Chichvarkin and his business partner sold Euroset to multi-millionaire Alexander Mamut for the low, low price of $1.2 million. Then Chichvarkin, apparently with some time to kill, accepted an offer to spearhead the Moscow branch of the Kremlin-supported, pro-business opposition party, Right Cause.

Some describe Chichvarkin’s political stirrings as a last-ditch effort to do good by the government by indirectly joining “team Kremlin.” Others note Chichvarkin’s political ambitions and the threat he symbolized to the establishment. Maxim Kotin, author of a 2007 book whose title pun roughly translates to “Chichvarkin, Yev…Gen[ius]” described Chichvarkin as “liberal.” In an e-mail interview with RUSSIA!, Kotin (who, incidentally, was questioned by prosecutors about his book) said Chichvarkin had a column in the magazine Секрет фирмы [The Firm’s Secret] which showed him as “fairly radical, in my opinion... He always said his motives for joining ‘Right Cause’ were to propagate the ideas of free competition. But, he always avoided talks regarding his own political career.” Kotin adds, “It just so happens that people who could have really changed the Russian landscape, leave the country—either by chance or by choice.” Asked about his book in light of the scandal, Kotin said, “I never thought my book would be about yet another exile to London. I had hoped the book would be about how Chichvarkin came to politics and turned everything right-side up again."

What can we say? Keep your dubiously sourced Motorola phones on. We’ll be following this one.

Евгения Чичваркина подводили под розыск [Kommersant]
Authorities Seeking Chichvarkin's Arrest [The Moscow Times]

Photo courtesy of Kommersant