Vyacheslav Taran

Taran was born in Russia. In 1997 he co-founded the retail forex broker Forex Club, a brand that later developed into the Libertex platform offering contracts-for-difference trading in stocks, currencies, indices, and commodities; he was the co-founder and controlling shareholder of Libertex and Forex Club.⁠[1][2][2][3][4]

He also founded the International Academy of Investment and Trading and served as its rector until 2003.⁠[5]

His family said that Taran had lived and worked outside Russia since 2008 and later settled in Monaco with his family, where he had lived for more than a decade by the time of his death.⁠[1][6]

In 2014, Taran and others co-founded the charitable foundation Change One Life, which helps children in orphanages and child-care institutions find families; Libertex Group said the foundation had helped more than 30,000 orphans.⁠[2][6]

In 2018, the Central Bank of Russia revoked Forex Club’s license for repeated violations of Russian securities laws within one year; Forex Club continued to operate in many countries and regions in Asia, the European Union, and Latin America.⁠[5][5]

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Taran and friends set up Pristaniste.me, a charity for Ukrainian refugees in Montenegro, which took in its first refugees on March 5, 2022.⁠[2][1]

On November 23, 2022, the Monaco helicopter operator Monacair received a request for a Monaco–Lausanne round-trip charter; the next day, the pilot flew an Airbus EC130 T2 helicopter (registration 3A-MVT) with two passengers to Lausanne and stayed overnight. Taran was in Lausanne on business for the crypto-asset platform YouHodler, on whose board he sat.⁠[7][7][3]

On November 25, the pilot, carrying Taran as the only passenger, took off from Lausanne airport at 11:02 UTC (12:02 local time) under visual flight rules to return to Monaco. Rescuers initially also searched for a third person who had officially boarded, but it was later confirmed that this passenger had cancelled at the last minute.⁠[7][7][8][8]

As the helicopter approached the coast between Nice and Monaco, it entered a cloud layer at 12:30 UTC and about a minute later crashed into a hillside at an altitude of about 464 meters in Villefranche-sur-Mer; Taran and the pilot were killed instantly and the helicopter was destroyed. Taran was 53.⁠[7][7][7][7][6]

After the crash, Libertex Group issued a statement confirming the death of its co-founder and chairman of the board; the Government of Monaco expressed its sympathy to the victims’ families and to Monacair’s staff. Monacair said at the time that the pilot was experienced and knew the area well, that the weather was good, and that the helicopter was a brand-new model. The accident was then investigated by France’s air transport gendarmerie, and a deputy public prosecutor from Nice who visited the scene said foul play had not been ruled out.⁠[6][8][8][8][9][3]

After the crash, some international media claimed that Taran was a Russian spy, that he laundered money for Russian elites, or listed him among the “crypto billionaires” who had recently died in unexplained circumstances. On December 1, 2022, Taran’s family issued a statement categorically denying any connection between him and the Russian intelligence services or government and denying that he had been involved in money laundering or any other illegal activity, adding that he was not a “crypto billionaire”; the family also said the accident was still under investigation, that there was “nothing mysterious” about it, and that they supported the authorities’ investigation.⁠[9][1][1][1][1][1]

His widow, Olga Taran, also published an open letter on Hello Monaco, the website she founded, denying the claims and saying her husband had no connections to the Russian government or any political affiliations and had consistently supported charity since 2014.⁠[9][9][1][1]

In November 2023, France’s civil aviation accident investigation bureau (BEA) published safety investigation report BEA2022-0580, summarizing the accident as “flight under the influence of drugs, entry into a cloud layer, loss of visual references and loss of control, collision with terrain.” The report states that its conclusions are not intended to determine fault or liability.⁠[7][7][7][7]

The report found that the pilot took off while under the influence of cocaine and showed traces of recent use of CBD, THC, and alcohol; hair analysis indicated regular cocaine use. The pilot held a valid EC130 type rating and had 2,360 total flight hours, but was not instrument-rated and had little training in flight without visual references. The weather information available before the flight did not allow fog to be foreseen at the destination; approaching the coast, the helicopter encountered a local sea fog centered on the Col d’Èze, and the pilot slowed down, continued on his heading into the clouds, and lost all external visual references.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][7][7]

The BEA noted that the pilot could have avoided the clouds by going around via Nice to the west or turning east, and that his reasoning may have been impaired by drugs; the unusual attitudes the helicopter then adopted all resulted from the pilot’s control inputs, and it finally struck the slope in a nose-up attitude. The report found that the operator had implemented a drug-screening policy compliant with European regulations and that the pilot had tested negative when hired; it listed insufficient training for flight without visual references, drug-related impairment, and wearing sunglasses that hindered reading the instruments among the contributing factors.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][7][7]

After the report’s findings became public, Monacair chief executive Rémi Bouysset said the company was shocked and angry and announced that pilots, mechanics, and everyone with access to the aircraft would undergo hair testing every six months.⁠[10][10][10]

Libertex is headquartered in Cyprus and holds a Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) license to serve residents of the European Economic Area and Switzerland; it celebrated its 25th anniversary in Limassol on November 5, 2022. As of November 2022, the group said it had more than 700 employees serving more than 2 million clients in the Americas, Asia, and Europe.⁠[2][2][2]

In his later years Taran became increasingly involved in digital assets, as a shareholder and board member of the Lausanne-based crypto lending platform YouHodler and the London-based crypto wallet and trading app Wirex. He also wrote two books and worked as a coach and public speaker.⁠[2][3][2]