Russian financier and cryptocurrency entrepreneur Vyacheslav Taran has been killed in a helicopter crash on French territory. The accident marks the latest in a series of deaths of crypto executives and adds another name to a list of Russian billionaires who died this year under mysterious circumstances.

Libertex President Perishes as His Helicopter Crashes on Route to Monaco

Russian businessman Vyacheslav Taran, founder of Forex Club and head of Libertex Group, has died in a helicopter crash in Southeast France. The 53-year-old billionaire was the only passenger in the aircraft piloted by a 35-year-old French national who was also killed.

Taran was traveling from the Swiss city of Lucerne to Monaco when the accident took place on Friday, Nov. 25, near the Italian border. The news of his death was confirmed by Libertex, a trading platform for various assets including cryptocurrencies, and by the Russian embassy in Paris.

On Monday, the diplomatic mission told the Tass news agency that the helicopter owned by Monacair crashed in the area of Villefranche-sur-Mer. French authorities have launched an investigation into the case but the exact cause of the accident is yet to be determined.

Vyacheslav Taran’s death is the latest of series of such events in the crypto space. On Nov. 23, the co-founder of the Hong Kong-based company Amber Group, Tiantian Kullander, died in his sleep at the age of just 30. On Oct. 28, crypto developer and Makerdao co-founder, 29-year-old Nikolai Mushegian, drowned in Puerto Rico.

Taran is also one of several Russian businessmen who have died recently under mysterious circumstances. The group includes the 39-year-old Managing Director of Russia’s Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, Ivan Pechorin, who drowned after falling off a boat near Vladivostok on Sept. 10.

At least 10 top executives have reportedly died this year either by suicide or in strange accidents, with half of them associated with two of Russia’s energy giants, the state-run Gazprom and the privately owned Lukoil. As another example, the oil company’s Chairman Ravil Maganov, 67, died after reportedly falling out of a window of a Moscow hospital, also in September.

Taran’s Forex Club, a group of companies specializing in contract for difference and foreign exchange trading in the retail market, lost its Russian license in 2018 and was forced to close down by the Central Bank of Russia. Founded in 1997, it was one of the largest such platforms in the country.

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