FIDE President Timur Turlov. Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin / Kommersant
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has demanded that funds, other assets, and movable and immovable property belonging to Timur Turlov, the newly elected president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), and entities associated with him be transferred to the state. The assets are reportedly worth “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Interfax reported this on October 2, citing a law-enforcement source.
The defendants in the administrative lawsuit, filed by a deputy prosecutor general with Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court, include Turlov, Freedom Holding Corp., Freedom Finance Europe Ltd., W-Empirical Holding Corp., and businessman Arkady Shchukin. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for October 15.
As Kommersant suggested, the lawsuit may be linked to an attempt by prosecutors to have Turlov, Shchukin, and the named companies designated as extremists. Such a ruling could allow a Russian court to confiscate their property in favor of the state. Neither the Prosecutor General’s Office nor the court has publicly disclosed the grounds for the claim. The case is classified as a dispute arising from administrative and other public-law relations.
According to Kommersant’s sources, Russian authorities focused on the financing of humanitarian projects in Ukraine. The newspaper reported that Turlov transferred 1 billion tenge to the Ukrainian Embassy in Kazakhstan to purchase humanitarian aid and donated another 371.566 million tenge to Kazakh charitable foundations that supported Ukraine during the humanitarian crisis. Freedom Holding’s European unit reportedly transferred €2 million through the UNITED24 platform to buy ambulances and provide other assistance.
Freedom Holding said it was reviewing the case materials and did not understand either the substance or the validity of the lawsuit. The company stressed that it does not operate in Russia and holds no assets there. Turlov renounced his Russian citizenship and became a Kazakh citizen in 2022. In 2023, he completed the sale of Freedom’s Russian business to its management. The Russian operations were subsequently renamed Tsifra Bank and Tsifra Broker, according to RBC.
Turlov was born in Moscow but is now a citizen of Kazakhstan, where he is building the Freedom Holding financial group. On September 26, he was elected FIDE president, succeeding former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. As of March 31, 2026, Freedom Holding reported assets of $13.16 billion and net profit of $153.3 million for the financial year.
