Court Orders Ivanishvili’s Ex-Aide to Pay Nearly One Billion Dollars in Bitcoins
The Tbilisi City Court today, May 1, ordered Giorgi Bachiashvili, a former aide to billionaire and Georgian Dream party founder and honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili, to pay him 9,000 bitcoins, worth about USD 867 million at the current rate.
Bachiashvili, who left Georgia on March 9 in violation of bail conditions that barred him from leaving and is now in exile, has seven days to pay before authorities begin seizing property belonging to him and his family members, according to his lawyer, Sopho Kurtauli.
The court had previously sentenced Bachiashvili in absentia to eleven years in prison for embezzling a large sum of cryptocurrencies and money from Ivanishvili and laundering it. In 2023, he was ordered to post a bail of GEL 2.5 million (USD 900,000) and banned from leaving the country.
In January 2025, Bachiashvili claimed that Ivanishvili had sent an intermediary offering regular payments in cryptocurrency in exchange for dropping the prosecution, calling this a “blackmail.” Bachiashvili, who denies the charges, says the case against him is politically motivated. He fell out with Ivanishvili in 2022.
In February 2025, prosecutors brought new charges of negligence against him, and the court imposed an additional GEL 50,000 (USD 18,000) bail, upholding the travel ban. After he fled Georgia, authorities opened another case against him for illegally crossing the border.
His international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said on April 23 that he had received credible information from two foreign intelligence agencies warning of threats to Bachiashvili’s life.
Also Read:
- 26/10/2024 – Interview with Giorgi Bachiashvili, Former Head of Ivanishvili’s Co-Investment Fund
- 13/03/2025 – Arrested Businessman Accuses Ivanishvili and GD of Connection with Russian Special Services
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