Anton Gelonkin (born 1965) and known as Anton Eduardovich Dolgov () in Russia was a Russian bank chairman who disappeared during the 1995 collapse of the Moscow City Bank and later convicted of running an international organised internet based fraud in 2006.

Moscow City Bank

Anton Eduardovich Dolgov (; born 1965) was the chairman of the 18 December 1992 registered Moskovsky Gorodskoi Bank (Mosgorbank), or Moscow City Bank (MGB) (), and in late August 1995 allegedly fled to

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

after taking an unknown amount of money. The bank later collapsed with debts of 100 million US dollars.

Identity theft racket

British police believe that from 1996 Anton then ran an organised international operation based in

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a wikt:cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan and multiculturalism, multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

that defrauded American, British and Spanish bank account holders, and "systematically defrauded clearing banks and other financial institutions in Britain and abroad" and ran undetected for ten years. The gang used compromised credit cards to first buy electrical goods, which they had delivered to a double layer of mailbox addresses - to reduce the connection between the fraudsters and the goods - and then later sold them on

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both inside and outside the UK. Other activities involved: using stolen card details to set up

online gambling Online gambling (also known as iGaming or iGambling) is any kind of gambling conducted on the internet. This includes virtual poker, casinos, and sports betting. The first online gambling venue opened to the general public was ticketing for th ...

accounts and diverting the winnings; and directing stolen money to hundreds of bank accounts. In late 2004 police had raided the gang's presence in

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, arresting Andreas Fuhrmann and issuing an

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

international arrest warrant for Anthony Peyton (alias Gelonkin). In January 2005 police were called to a burglary associated with the gang's headquarters, and noted the name Gelonkin, and later discovered the Interpol warrant. This resulted in a raid which resulted in the arrest of

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...

Aleksei Kostap, but not before Kostap was able to trigger a system that encrypted the records held on the gang's computers. Despite police IT expert efforts the data has not been decrypted. Kostav was found guilty of

conspiracy to defraud Conspiracy to defraud is an offence under the common law of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. England and Wales The standard definition of a conspiracy to defraud was provided by Lord Dilhorne in ''Scott v Metropolitan Police Commissioner' ...

and

perverting the course of justice Perverting the course of justice is an offence committed when a person prevents justice from being served on themselves or on another party. In England and Wales it is a common law offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Stat ...

. Another gang member, Lithuanian Romanos Vasilauskas, admitted possessing false passports with intent and sentenced to eighteen months. Anton Gelonkin, 'admitted conspiracies to defraud, to obtain services by deception, to acquire, use and possess criminal property, and to remove it "from the jurisdiction"' and was sentenced for six years.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gelonkin, Anton 1960s births Living people Russian fraudsters Russian white-collar criminals Internet fraud Finance fraud Russian people imprisoned abroad Prisoners and detainees of England and Wales People convicted of fraud Year of birth missing (living people)