Russian billionaire and crypto-currency businessman dies in helicopter crash in Villefranche-sur-Mer

Russian financier and crypto-currency entrepreneur Vyacheslav Taran has been killed in a helicopter crash on French soil. The accident marks the latest in a string of crypto-currency executive deaths and adds another name to the list of Russian billionaires who have died this year under mysterious circumstances.

Libertex chairman perishes when his helicopter crashes on the road to Monaco.

Russian businessman Vyacheslav Taran, founder of Forex Club and chairman of the Libertex Group, died in a helicopter crash in southeastern France. The 53-year-old billionaire was the only passenger in the aircraft piloted by a 35-year-old French national who was also killed.

Vyacheslav Taran was traveling from the Swiss city of Lucerne to Monaco when the accident occurred on Friday, November 25, near the Italian border. The news of his death was confirmed by Libertex, a platform for trading various assets, including cryptocurrencies, and the Russian embassy in Paris.

On Monday, the diplomatic mission told the Tass news agency that the helicopter belonging to Monacair crashed in the Villefranche-sur-Mer region. French authorities have opened an investigation into the matter, but the exact cause of the accident has not yet been determined.

The death of Vyacheslav Taran is the latest in a series of such events in the cryptographic space. On November 23, the co-founder of Hong Kong-based Amber Group, Tiantian Kullander, died in his sleep at the age of 30. On October 28, crypto-currency developer and Makerdao co-founder Nikolai Mushegian, 29, drowned in Puerto Rico.

Vyacheslav Taran is also one of several Russian businessmen who have died recently under mysterious circumstances. The group includes the general director of the Russian Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, Ivan Pechorin, 39, who drowned after falling off a boat near Vladivostok on September 10.

At least 10 top executives are reported to have died this year, either by suicide or in bizarre accidents, half of them associated with two of Russia’s energy giants, the state-owned Gazprom and the privately owned Lukoil. In another example, the oil company’s president, Ravil Maganov, 67, died after falling from a Moscow hospital window, also in September.

Taran’s Forex Club, a group of companies specializing in contract for difference and retail currency trading, lost its Russian license in 2018 and was forced to close its doors by the Central Bank of Russia. Founded in 1997, it was one of the largest platforms of its kind in the country.