A Highland castle which was owned by former Rangers owner Craig Whyte and a Russian tycoon jailed for fraud has been sold for £1million.
Castle Grant near Grantown-on-Spey in Moray has changed hands after businessman Sergey Fedotov was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzlement.
Fedotov bought the property, a 16-century A-listed pile, in 2014 for £1million after it was repossessed from Whyte when he failed to keep up with mortgage payments.
The Moscow-based businessman spent thousands of pounds refurbishing the property after it fell into disrepair during Whyte's ownership.
He installed modern en-suite bathrooms and a fitted kitchen and one of the rooms featured a tartan carpet. The grand property, which is set in 35 acres of grounds, also boasts a ballroom, drawing room and billiard room.
Fedotov put it up for sale for offers over £850,000 in 2018 but it was later taken off the market. Property records have now revealed it was sold earlier this year to a couple from Glasgow for £1million.
Fedotov was jailed for five years at Moscow's Presnensky District Court in 2020 for carrying out a fraud while he was head of the Russian Authors' Society, which collects royalty payments on behalf of writers.
He formed a scheme to transfer authors' payments totalling £8.4million into accounts controlled by him and then withdrew the money.
Fedotov, 45, had already served a prison sentence for a £3.6million property fraud which he committed while running the organisation.
Russian police started investigating Fedotov in 2015 after concerns were raised about where he got the funds to buy the castle and other properties in the south of England.
Fedotov insisted that Castle Grant was bought lawfully and said the purchase was modest as the castle was only worth the price of a small apartment in Moscow.
He said: "That castle in Scotland I have, I acknowledge. But this property is irrelevant. The cost corresponds to the cost of a two bedroom apartment in the centre of Moscow."
Whyte bought Castle Grant for £720,000 in 2006 but fell into arrears with the £7,000-a-month mortgage. The Bank of Scotland took legal action to recover it after his Ibrox reign ended.
In 2018 he was cleared of charges related to his takeover of the club.
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