France Extradited Fugitive Russian Banker Antonov To Lithuania

Not only composer Raimond Pauls lost his savings because of it.

France transferred Russian banker and former Snoras Bank owner Vladimir Antonov to Lithuania. He was convicted in Vilnius of embezzlement, fraudulent bankruptcy and a number of other crimes, the Lithuanian prosecutor's office said. He was detained in France in December 2025 on a European arrest warrant, and in April a court authorized his extradition.

In November 2024, the Vilnius District Court sentenced Antonov in absentia to 10.5 years in prison. He was found guilty of embezzlement of funds, driving the bank to bankruptcy, forging documents and fraud. The crimes were committed in 2008-2011, when Antonov controlled Snoras. The bank was the fourth largest in Lithuania and its collapse was one of the most high-profile banking scandals in the Baltic States. In 2011, Snoras was declared bankrupt and liquidated after a €1 billion shortfall was discovered. According to the case materials, the amount of damages under the European arrest warrant was at least €478 million, while the amount of claims against Antonov and his partner under the court ruling was €375 million in compensation. In November 2024, the Vilnius District Court sentenced Antonov and his partner Raimondas Baranauskas to 10.5 years in prison.

After the criminal case was initiated, Antonov left for the UK, but he fled to Russia during lengthy extradition proceedings. There he also received a 2.5-year sentence in the case of embezzling 150 million rubles from Sovetsky Bank. At first, the banker actively cooperated with the investigation in Russia, but in 2023 he suddenly disappeared from his mansion on Rublyovka. Antonov's father even appealed to the police with a statement of possible murder and asked the Lithuanian court to recognize his son as dead. Two years later, French authorities detained Antonov, where he was living on false documents and trying to obtain refugee status by posing as a Ukrainian citizen.

Besides Lithuania and Russia, Latvia also has claims against Antonov. In 2021, a Latvian court sentenced him to 6 years in prison and confiscation of property in the case of Snoras' subsidiary bank Latvijas Krājbanka. According to the prosecution's version, embezzlement there amounted to about 140 million euros. The victims included not only private depositors, but also municipalities, schools, hospitals, and the composer Raimond Pauls, who lost almost one million euros in savings.

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