A former “GSP” instructor allegedly hid $ 850,000

A former Georges St-Pierre kickboxing trainer arrested for money laundering in October in Argentina is now in the sights of Revenue Canada, which suspects him of concealing nearly $ 1 million.

Victor Vargotskii was the kickboxing instructor of the former world champion of mixed martial arts “GSP” in the mid-2000s.

He was arrested last fall in South America, after facing several counts of money laundering in Canada in 2019.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had been on his heels since he fled the country two months after a March 2018 search of his home in Montreal.

Federal police then found eight cell phones, $ 531,425 in cash and 16.24 kilograms of hashish in his home.

Vargotskii was allegedly involved in a vast money laundering scheme that would have allowed millions of dollars to be taken out of Quebec from, among other things, the sale of drugs, according to the RCMP’s Collector Project investigation.

Revenue Canada estimates that exceptional remedies are necessary to recover the approximately $ 250,000 it owes in taxes that would not have been paid between 2013 and 2019. Vargotskii allegedly failed to declare $ 845,993, or 1,124% of his known income , in six years.

Missing assets

The former trainer of St-Pierre “has the ability to eliminate his assets quickly, having done this since the start of the RCMP investigation,” notes the taxman.

For example, in November 2017, he transferred his property in Montreal for no consideration to the Victor Vargotskii Trust, which had been created the day before.

The following year, the same notary who had created this trust, Me Nicholas Polyzos, would then have been granted a second mortgage on the property, thereby rendering the trust insolvent and reducing “the capital available to His Majesty. [la reine du Canada] Explains the procedure.

The tax authorities have indicated that they intend to go to court to challenge this maneuver.

On December 10, Judge Yvan Roy of the Federal Court granted exceptional means to deal with Vargotskii’s case, including the possibility of communicating with his spouse in Montreal, rather than with him.

No comment

Contacted by our Investigation Office last week, Georges St-Pierre confined himself to a terse “no comment” by text and did not want to tell us if he was still in contact with his ex-trainer.

According to the daily Globe and Mail, “GSP” reportedly stopped training with him after his 2007 loss to Matt Serra.

According to what St-Pierre himself tells in a 2007 program UFC All Access, Vargotskii, a native of Ukraine, is said to be a former sniper Soviet special forces.

“After my first fight against Matt Hughes [en 2006], I started to train with him. He changed my whole style of play. He went through a lot of difficult things in his life, ”says St-Pierre on the show.

“When I go back to my corner, I’m more afraid of my corner man than of my opponent. It is not normal ! He said.

–