Convicted Russian cryptocurrency The con artist and his wife watched each other being tortured to death in the desert in United Arab Emirates After thieves reportedly failed to recover £380 million from their accounts.
Roman Novak and his wife Annalast seen on October 2 after being lured to the resort of Hatta, 80 miles from Dubaicriminals posing as potential investors.
Police dug into a 500-by-500-metre patch of desert in the Hajar Mountains, near the border with Oman, where their mobile phones were last found, to recover their remains more than a month later.
Russian media have since reported further details about the couple's fate.
Before the murder, Roman and Anna were tortured to force them to give out access codes to their cryptocurrency wallets, but they were empty.
Metro decided not to share details of torture methods because they are horrific.
Their bodies were then wrapped in thick plastic bags and doused with chemicals—strong solvents that speed up the decomposition process and destroy DNA evidence.
The investigation was launched after the couple's family alerted Dubai Police that they were missing and suspected of being kidnapped.
Roman was sentenced to six years in prison Russia for fraud on an especially large scale in 2020.
After receiving parole, he went to the UAE where he launched a crypto app called Fintopio, for which he reportedly raised £380 million worth of investment before allegedly defrauding investors.
Svetlana Petrenko of Russia's Investigative Committee said: “The investigation established that the killers had accomplices who helped organize the kidnapping.
“They rented cars and premises where they forcibly held the two victims.
“After the murder, the criminals disposed of the victims’ knives and personal belongings, leaving them in different emirates.”
Three men were arrested in St. Petersburg and charged after returning from the UAE.
They were identified as Russian citizens Konstantin Shakht, a former police officer, as well as Yuri Sharypov and Vladimir Dalekin.
Sharypov and Dalekin pleaded guilty, but Shakht denies the charges.
All accused were remanded in custody until December 28.
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