RUSSIAN billionaire Vyacheslav Taran, the founder of the Libertex Group, died on November 25, 2022.
But what was the story behind the cryptocurrency entrepreneur and what was his net worth?
Who was Vyacheslav Taran?
Vyacheslav Taran founded the foreign exchange trading platform Forex Club in Russia back in 1997.
The Forex Club soon became one of the three leading exchanges in Russia before the Central Bank forced it to close in December 2018, along with a number of other exchanges for irregularities in their registrations.
But Forex Club Group continued to operate in more than 100 other countries.
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The Forex Club then became the Libertex trading platform in 2012 and was registered in Cyprus.
Libertex offers a number of financial products, including cryptocurrency trading, in-app crypto mining software, stocks, currencies, indices, commodities, gold, oil and gas.
The brokerage group has more than 700 employees and over 2 million clients.
The company is also a sponsor of German football club Bayern Munich.
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What happened to Vyacheslav Taran?
Taran was flying from Lausanne, Switzerland, to Monaco via France in a helicopter when it crashed in Villefranche-sur-Mer.
Libertex said: “It is with great sadness that Libertex Group confirms the death of its co-founder and Chairman of Board of Directors, Vyacheslav Taran, after a helicopter crash that took place en route to Monaco on Friday, 25 November 2022.”
Taran was married to Olga Taran, the publisher of Hello Monaco, and the pair had three children.
What was Vyacheslav Taran’s net worth?
Vyacheslav Taran was believed to have a net worth of around $20 billion.