Grigory Luchansky, Nordex founder, dies in Vienna

Grigory Luchansky, the founder of the international commodities trading group Nordex and one of the first post-Soviet multi-millionaires, has died in Vienna at the age of 81. He passed away on October 20.

Luchansky was a long-time business partner of Moscow authorities. His name appeared in various international investigations regarding organized crime and money laundering, leading to several high-profile legal battles. He previously won a defamation lawsuit against the British newspaper The Times.

Born in Tashkent in 1945, Luchansky studied at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys before working in the Latvian SSR. In 1983, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for the theft of university property, a conviction he attributed to political intrigues, and was released on parole in 1985.

His company, Nordex, was registered in Austria in 1990 and became one of the largest exporters of petroleum products from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by 1993. Investigative reports have also linked him to high-ranking officials within the Moscow city administration.