Who is the Ukrainian tycoon at the center of mysterious Monaco bombing?
By Ivana Kottasová, CNN
(CNN) — The motive behind Monday’s bombing attack against a Ukrainian-born millionaire in Monaco remains shrouded in mystery as residents of the super wealthy city-state grapple with their suddenly shattered sense of security.
The victims too were not immediately identified by authorities, but CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV reported that Vadym Yermolaiev was the target of the bombing on Monday evening and was injured by the blast.
Yermolaiev made his fortune in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro during the wild post-soviet years. He was mostly focused on real estate and was, at one point, ranked among the richest Ukrainians.
Before the war, Dnipro had the reputation of a flashy capital of wealth and luxury, where the difference between local authorities and criminal elements wasn’t always clear. The city is also known for its thriving Jewish community, of which Yermolaiev was a prominent and active member.
Yermolaiev left his home country and renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2019. According to publicly available documents, the 58-year old is now a citizen of Cyprus, although he was a resident of Monaco.
Local authorities refused to name the victims publicly, saying only that the adult male victim was a resident of Monaco since at least 2021. However, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “according to local emergency services” the three people who were injured in the blast were members of “a family of Ukrainian origin.”
Yermolaiev and two others – a woman and a child – were critically injured by a bomb that was left at Yemolaiev’s residence by an unknown suspect just moments before exploding.
Suspect still at large
A cross-border manhunt continues “very actively” across Monaco and with the support of the French authorities, Monaco’s Prosecutor General Stéphane Thibault said Wednesday.
A foreign national was detained in Monaco on Wednesday morning and placed in police custody, but “this measure was lifted” in the afternoon, according to Thibault.
Thibault implied that the identity of the suspect is still not known, saying that “examination of all the evidence is ongoing, particularly regarding the explosive device and the identification of the person who placed it at the scene.”
He added that one victim with less severe injuries has been interviewed in France, but the other two victims “are not in a condition to be questioned.”
Monday’s attack was so unusual and outrageous that it left the exclusive seaside city-state in shock. Monaco’s Minister of State Christophe Mirmand said in a statement that an attack of this kind has never happened there before.
The identity of the woman and the child remains unknown. Yermolaiev’s wife spoke to Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne on Tuesday, saying she was not in the home at the time of the attack and was not hurt.
The city is home to many millionaires and celebrities. In Monaco, crime is virtually non-existent, the right to privacy is revered and the tax regime extremely generous.
The Ukrainian version of the Forbes magazine quoted Yermolaiev as saying he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship because he wanted “international protection.”
“The Ukrainian judicial system, to put it mildly, is not perfect, and the tax system is not objective,” he was quoted by Forbes as saying.
His son is a convicted fraudster
The motive of the attempted assassination remains unclear. Yermolaiev does not have any obvious links to the war in Ukraine. He was sanctioned by Kyiv in December 2023 for doing business in the Russian-occupied Crimea, an allegation he denied in an interview with Ukrainian media.
However, Yermolaiev’s son Artur Yermolayev is a known figure in the Ukrainian criminal scene.
He was arrested in Cyprus over an allegation that he was the ring leader of a sprawling fraud scheme. He was later extradited to Estonia, where he was convicted of fraud in April.
According to court documents, Artur Yermolayev pled guilty to creating and running a phone scam scheme which, under the guise of fake investment opportunities, stole some 100 million euros ($114 million) from victims from multiple European countries between 2019 and 2022. In Estonia alone, Yermolayev and his associates stole 5.4 million euros ($6.16 million)
He was sentenced to five years in prison, but reached a deal under which he was deported from Estonia after serving just four months of the sentence. He paid a fine of 8.5 million euros and costs associated with his extradition to Estonia. According to Estonian media, he was deported to Israel.
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CNN’s Lex Harvey, Stephanie Halasz, Victoria Butenko, Elina Baudier Kim, Kosta Gak and Billy Stockwell contributed to this report.
