A Russian businessman whose company sponsored Liverpool FC has lost the latest round in ongoing long legal battle with Merseyside Police over a money laundering probe.
Ildar Sharipov is a suspect in an ongoing and "complex" investigation by the force's Economic Crime Team, dubbed Operation Kobus, which commenced in August 2017.
In April 2018, officers from Merseyside Police obtained a court order freezing around £1.6m of Mr Sharipov's assets, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, although the businessman says around £1m of that amount has since been returned to him.
READ MORE: Man inspired by uncle's life of crime lands huge book deal
Operation Kobus relates to allegations of fraud and money laundering involving a subsidiary company linked to Mr Sharipov, called Grizzio Ltd.
The 33-year-old, originally from the Tatarstan region of Russia, claims he has been the victim of "anti-Russian bias" and police corruption, and has launched multiple legal challenges against the force alongside watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
Mr Sharipov has demanded that certain officers are removed from the case and even that Merseyside Police "recuses itself" from the operation by handing over the reins to another force.
However last week a High Court judge threw his latest nine claims - each an application for Judicial Review - out of court, ruling that three of them were "totally without merit".
The judge, Mr Justice Jonathan Swift, also imposed a General Civil Restraint Order, banning Mr Sharipov from launching further proceedings against Merseyside Police or the IOPC without permission of the court.
In his judgement, handed down in recent days after hearings in December, he wrote: "Overall, Mr Sharipov wages a campaign aimed at bringing Operation Kobus to a halt.
"The campaign involves complaints aimed at 'casting an ever-growing net of alleged misconduct'.
"Overlapping and repetitive claims are made.
"If a complaint is dismissed, Mr Sharipov's next port of call has come to be a complaint about the decision-maker.
"Applications for judicial review have then been deployed further to distract the attention and resources of either the IOPC or the Merseyside Police, or both."
The applications lodged by Mr Sharipov included calling for Judicial Reviews of decisions not to remove officers from Operation Kobus; decisions to suspend internal investigations into his complaints while Operation Kobus is still ongoing; and against the IOPC's decision not to investigate some of his complaints about Merseyside Police.
Mr Sharipov, who has not been arrested or charged with any offences, is the founder of Instaforex, an online currency exchange which sponsored the Reds to the tune of £2.5m between 2014 and 2018.
The firm became LFC's "Official Online Forex and Binary Options Trading Partner in Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)".
According to Mr Sharipov, the company pulled out of any further deals due to the police investigation, and instead turned its attentions to Germany where it partnered with Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund.
The ECHO understand Liverpool FC no longer has any commercial links to Mr Sharipov or his companies.
The police investigation is understood to be linked with allegedly suspicious transactions involving accounts linked to Grizzio and money being sent to Nigeria.
In April last year Mr Sharipov said: "At the time I employed 400 people in ten different countries, including the UK, and I was dealing with the Financial Conduct Authority.
"Would anyone risk all that for such a Nigerian fraud which is now the main allegation against me? I am not hiding away from this. I am spending a considerable sum of money in trying to clear my name."
In online blog posts, Mr Sharipov has railed against Merseyside Police and suggested that the furore around the Salisbury poisonings, when Russian intelligence agents used nerve agents to try and kill a former spy, had created anti-Russian prejudice.
However he said he has not spent time in Russia for around nine years, and is understood to have been living in Singapore at the time of the police probe.
Mr Sharipov is also understood to have spent time residing in Cyprus.
He claimed that he had left £1.5m in UK accounts because he was planning to resettle here with his family, but had to delay the move because an autoimmune illness left him too ill to travel.
In a press release issued in 2020, he said: "“I do believe that two points of prejudice lie at the heart of this fabricated application to the court in April 2018.
"First, the general prejudice against people having Russian names – albeit I did not spend in Russia even a day during last nine years, [Merseyside Police] did not know that.
"Secondly, they did not know about the reason of my sudden stop of traveling to the UK for two years as my autoimmune disease knocked me out from any traveling at all between 2016 and 2018, which made them thinking I am reluctant to travel to the UK for whatever ‘bad’ reasons."
Deputy Chief Constable Ian Critchley, responding to the High Court decision said: "Mr Sharipov has sought a significant number of judicial reviews against Merseyside Police, the Independent Office for Police Conduct and others.
“At a hearing in December he sought oral permission to bring nine of the judicial reviews. Permission was refused on each application.
"Merseyside Police welcomes the decision of the High Court."
DCC Critchley has previously said of the case: "Financial investigations are often complex and time-consuming, involving large numbers of inquiries and documentation.
"Merseyside Police are currently conducting a criminal and civil financial investigation in relation to the business activities of a 33-year-old man, a number of connected individuals and UK based companies.
"It would be inappropriate to comment on the details of the ongoing investigations.
“In respect of this case, I am confident the officers are acting with the utmost professionalism.
"There have been many Judicial Reviews lodged by the subject of this case which have subsequently resulted in delays to the progression of the investigation. Merseyside Police takes economic crime in all its forms seriously."
Receive newsletters with the latest news, sport and what's on updates from the Liverpool ECHO by signing up here
