From off-plan fraud to embassy death: what drove Russian intelligence officer Anton Panov

14 January 2026 , 10:29

556     0

From off-plan fraud to embassy death: what drove Russian intelligence officer Anton Panov

The media have learned new details about the troubles of SVR employee Anton Panov, who took his own life at the Russian embassy in Cyprus. Anton and his wife Natalia had invested a large sum in the purchase of off-plan real estate in one of the projects of the developer KSK in Crimea.

However, by the promised deadline in 2018, nothing had been built. In 2019, Nikolai Shalimo, a co-owner of the KSK group of companies, was sent to a pretrial detention center on fraud charges. As a result, the Panovs have still not received their property and recently wrote on online forums that “we were robbed” and that they “need to go to television.”

At the same time, specialized chats indicate that Anton Panov was placing numerous bets almost daily on football matches and other sporting events. Such spending would have required significant funds, and where the cryptographer Panov obtained this money remains an open question.

It is also worth recalling that just on the eve of Panov’s suicide, former Uralkali CEO Vladislav Baumgertner disappeared in Cyprus. As our project has established, Baumgertner was friendly with the Russian ambassador to Cyprus, frequently visited the embassy, and communicated with its staff.

There is another striking detail in the suicide case. According to Cypriot media, Panov’s body was found on January 8. As we have learned, someone logged into Panov’s Telegram account on January 9.

Thomas Brown