A 2024 plan to kidnap Australian-born IT billionaire in Tallinn's Old Town was hatched in Moscow, Eesti Ekspress reported.
In july 2024 men were sent to Estonia to abduct Yolo Group founder Tim Heath as he entered his home on Rataskaevu, posing as painters to attack him in the stairwell.
The gang intended to force him into a van and drive him to a rented sauna house near Kakerdaja bog, around 60 kilometers from Tallinn, where they would have demanded the keys to his cryptocurrency wallet.
Heath resisted forcefully, something which caught the assailants by surprise, and they fled without him; first to Riga and then further afield.
On Thursday, Harju County Court convicted Oleg Marco, one of the attackers, after he agreed to a seven-year prison sentence under a plea bargain.
Marco, from Moldova, was brought from prison to the hearing wearing a T-shirt reading the slogan "Never give up."
His accomplices had already been convicted: Azerbaijani Allahverdi Allahverdiyev received seven and a half years, and Georgian citizen Ilgar Mamedov eight years and nine months.
The fourth member of the gang, Azerbaijani Najaf Najafli, led the kidnapping attempt but will not stand trial in Estonia as Azerbaijan does not extradite its citizens.
Questioned by Azerbaijani authorities, Najafli said he became involved because of debts, was deployed to Tallinn by a Chechen figure in Moscow's criminal underworld, and while he realized something was not right, he was in too deep to refuse.
The gang had reportedly used well-known platforms to rent accommodation and transport, making tracking them down easier.
Heath, 48, arrived in Estonia in the early 2000s, built the IT company Yolo Group from scratch, and has been estimated by Australian business media to be worth €1.4 billion
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
Source: Eesti Ekspress