Oleg Tinkov

Tinkov started with household appliance shops called Technoshock, then frozen food factories under the brand Daria, then brewing companies and a restaurant chain. He launched a record label that put out early albums by bands like Leningrad and Kirpichi. In 2007 he founded Tinkoff Credit Systems, later renamed Tinkoff Bank, which grew into Russia's 45th largest bank by assets. In 2019 he was diagnosed with leukemia and indicted by a US grand jury for evading over $240 million in taxes while renouncing his citizenship - he was arrested in London in 2020, eventually pleaded guilty, and paid $508 million in fines and back taxes. After surgery complications in 2021 left him with a 40% chance of survival, his cancer went into remission by 2022. When he publicly criticized the invasion of Ukraine in April 2022, Putin officials threatened to nationalize his bank, forcing him to sell his 35% stake under duress. He renounced his Russian citizenship that October, citing "Putin fascism."