Russian businessman Sergey Karshkov has died at the age of 42 after a medical mishap in Switzerland.
Toonbox animator and compatriot Pavel Muntyan announced the death of one of the co-founders of the online bookmaker 1xBet in his post on Facebook Wednesday (June 21), expressing his shock at his sudden demise.
"Sergey was one of the most athletic and healthy people I knew! Like a bull!" he said.
Muntyan added Karshkov died in a Swiss clinic after a medical examination using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). It was alleged the MRI caused an allergic reaction which resulted in a coma before death. "...[W]hat a nightmare!" he added.
He was the latest of a string of Russian businessmen and dissidents who have mysteriously died since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Before Karshkov's death, Russian deputy science and higher education minister Pyotr Kucherencko mysteriously died on his flight back from a diplomatic mission in Cuba last month.
From Regulator to Outlaw
Karshkov was born in Ukraine's Kyiv oblast in 1980 before moving to Bryansk in Russia, where he became involved with the region's cybercrime unit of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The Russian government placed him and 1xBet co-founder Roman Semikhoin on a wanted list in 2020 for the illegal organization and conduct of gambling, according to Latvia-based independent Russian news outlet Meduza. Russia's Investigative Committee also accused Karshkov of money laundering through 1xBet, Newsweek reported. He and Semikhoin would be arrested in absentia and placed on an international wanted list upon moving to Cyprus in 2016.
Semikhoin told Forbes Russia in 2021 that their plan to move to Cyprus began as early as 2014, two years before the Russian government hunted them down. He added it became "more comfortable" to build an international project outside of Russia. "We are number one in Africa, we are in the top three in Latin America," he said, adding that he and Karshkov did not own the 1xBet trademark, even in Russia.
As for Karshkov, his focus at that time was on marketing and promoting the bookmaker "in different territories."
The bookmaker was declared bankrupt by the Court of Curacao in 2022.
