“Durov’s friend” and a serial fraudster: how Roman Novak stole millions, fled Russia, and disappeared in the UAE

14 грудня 2025 р., 23:34

Ілона Аданчук   586   0  

“Durov’s friend” and a serial fraudster: how Roman Novak stole millions, fled Russia, and disappeared in the UAE

In 2016–2017, Roman Novak stole more than 7.3 million rubles from two St. Petersburg businessmen.

He promised one of the co-owners of the Sport u narod project to invest over 6.3 million rubles, but pocketed at least 3.3 million. Another partner — a co-owner of Transcrypt — was scammed by Novak for an additional 4 million rubles.

Novak presented himself as a “friend of Pavel Durov,” flaunted a luxurious lifestyle, gifted “Mercedes” cars for project successes, and rented an entire floor in a business center in St. Petersburg. Later, he stopped paying salaries, explaining it by the “treatment of his child and wife,” and then disappeared.

At present, Novak has an outstanding debt to Russian court bailiffs of nearly 7 million rubles. After fleeing Russia, he hid in several countries. In October, he was allegedly kidnapped in the UAE by “investors” who invited him to a meeting 130 km from Dubai. According to one version, Novak and his wife were brutally murdered. According to another, he may have staged his own kidnapping and death.