A Russian cryptocurrency fraudster and his wife were allegedly encased in concrete and buried in a desert in the United Arab Emirates after they were forced to watch each other being tortured to death, it has emerged.
Roman Novak, 38, and his partner Anna, 37, were kidnapped and brutally murdered following a failed extortion plot.
Investigators handling the case say the remains of the couple were discovered in November, weeks after the couple vanished, with the bodies found cast in concrete and dumped in the sand.
Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, citing a source close to the inquiry, said: ‘They were poured into concrete. The remains were found back in November.’
Authorities in the Emirates recovered the couple’s bodies during a search in a remote desert location, but had been weighing up whether to send the remains to Russia for forensic analysis and eventual burial.
Novak and his wife were reported missing in early October by relatives who raised the alarm after repeatedly failing to contact them.
According to early investigative reports, the pair had been lured to a rented villa in Hatta, 80 miles from Dubai, by men posing as potential investors before being abducted and tortured for access to cryptocurrency accounts believed to contain hundreds of millions of dollars.
With the kidnappers unable to extract the digital wallet codes, the couple were allegedly stabbed and forced to face one another as they died.
Roman Novak and his wife Anna were allegedly encased in concrete and buried in the desert in the United Arab Emirates. They were made to watch each other being tortured to death
The couple’s killers are alleged to have lured them into a rented villa by pretending to be potential investors
It has been said that the killers packed their bodies into strong polyethene bags and used industrial-strength solvents to speed up decomposition in order to get rid of DNA traces.
Officials say the couple were driven to Hatta by their personal driver but disembarked to join another vehicle for the rest of the journey.
Novak then sent desperate messages to his contacts from his phone to them them he was ‘stuck in the mountains on the Oman border’ and urgently needed £152,000. Shortly after the messages, all contact with the couple was lost.
According to investigators, the trail of the couple’s mobile phones showed activity for several days after their disappearance, with signals pinging in Hatta near the UAE-Oman border, then later mysteriously near Cape Town, South Africa, before going dark on October 4.
Detectives have suggested their phones were turned on in several locations in an attempt to confuse investigators.
Anna’s father and stepmother travelled to Dubai to retrieve the couple’s two young children after the disappearance.
Several Russian nationals have been detained on suspicion of involvement, including former police officer Constantin Shakht, Yury Sharypov and Vladimir Dalekin.
While Sharypov and Dalekin have both pleaded guilty to the crime, Shakht continues to deny playing a role.
Before their deaths, Novak’s contacts received desperate messages from his phone telling them he urgently needed £152,000
The couple are said to have lived a lavish lifestyle. In 2020, Novak was sentenced to six years in prison for large-scale fraud
All three have been kept behind bars, and officials expect the men to be extradited to St Petersburg.
The men were arrested after returning to Russia from the UAE. Dramatic police footage showed how the suspects were apprehended.
Novak had a long history of financial deceit – he was sentenced to six years in a general-regime penal colony in Russia in 2020 for large-scale fraud before leaving for the UAE following his release on parole.
In Dubai, he presented himself as a successful crypto entrepreneur and claimed to be behind a new payment platform designed for rapid cryptocurrency transfers.
Investigators say he persuaded investors from China, the Middle East and elsewhere to pour funds into his scheme, allegedly raising the equivalent of about £380 million by promising ties to major tech companies and boasting of powerful industry connections.
Russian outlets have also linked him to an earlier fraud case involving alleged deception of business partners and losses of more than 7 million roubles.
Those claims, according to Russian media, may have contributed to the network of financial disputes surrounding Novak before his death.
The couple lived a lavish lifestyle, and Novak often boasted about his connection to wealthy people, including the billionaire founder of the Telegram social network empire, Pavel Durov.
Anna’s father and her stepmother had to travel to the UAE to collect the deceased couple’s two children
Constantin Shakht, a former police officer is among those being held for the couple’s murder
Dramatic footage showed how cops stormed into a budling to arrest suspects connected to the crime
Initial rumours suggested the couple may have been dismembered and packed into bags, but investigators have only confirmed the discovery of their remains buried in the sand, along with the detail that their bodies had been encased in concrete.
Authorities in the UAE are yet to comment on the case, which has now become one of Russia’s most shocking overseas murders.
Novak founded Fintopio, a company which said it could provide quick cryptocurrency transfers and partnerships with elite technological companies.
The platform is said to have brought in investors from Russia, China, and the Middle East.
Forensic work and a wider criminal investigation remain ongoing.