Russian billionaire tycoon put under house arrest on money-laundering charges

FILE - In this Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005 file photo Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, chairs a meeting in the Kremlin with Vladimir Yevtushenko, second left, in Moscow, Russia. Russia’s top investigative agency says it has filed money-laundering charges against a billionaire tycoon. The Investigative Committee said Tuesday Sept. 16, 2014, that Vladimir Yevtushenkov, the head of Sistema holding company, has been placed under house arrest. The committee said the 66-year old Yevtushenkov is suspected of involvement in a money-laundering scheme involving oil assets in the Russian province of Bashkiria. (AP Photo/ITAR-TASS, Alexei Panov, Presidential Press Service, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this Tuesday, May 5, 2009 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, left, and Russian tycoon Vladimir Yevtushenkov, owner of Sistema Holding, during their meeting in Moscow. A billionaire Russian tycoon was placed under house arrest Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014, in a money-laundering case that has drawn comparisons with a government crackdown on Russia’s Yukos oil company more than a decade ago. The Investigative Committee, Russia’s top investigative agency, said that Vladimir Yevtushenkov, the head of Sistema holding company, was suspected of involvement in a money-laundering scheme involving oil assets in the province of Bashkiria. Sistema owns the Bashneft oil company, which is based in Bashkiria. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Pool, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this file photo taken on Tuesday, July 2, 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and CEO of state-controlled Russian oil company Rosneft Igor Sechin speak during a signing ceremony of cooperation agreements with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. Russian media reports said in June that Russia's largest oil company, state-controlled Rosneft, considered buying Bashneft. In July, a Moscow court arrested Bashneft's stock under a money-laundering probe. Rosneft is run by Igor Sechin, a powerful longtime assistant of President Vladimir Putin. Sechin, who has been placed on the U.S. and the EU sanctions lists over the Ukrainian crisis, was seen as the mastermind behind the 2003 arrest of Russia's then-richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. (AP Photo/Maxim Shemetov, Pool, File) (The Associated Press)