Two Russian businessmen have been fined after the publication of a video on social media showing a masked man throwing wads of cash onto the central street of St. Petersburg from a Bentley.
In the Instagram video that gathered more than 1 million views, a man wearing a diamond encrusted balaclava tells viewers that “money is meaningless” from the back seat of the luxury car.
“I have 50,000 rubles ($761) in my hands. That’s the average salary in St. Petersburg, no less. Is that what you’re slaving away for? I feel sorry for you,” the man says in the video published by the “Rich Russian Kids” Instagram account, before proceeding to “make it rain” out of the window of the car.
Street musicians performing outside the city’s Gostiny Dvor shopping complex are heard yelling: “Look, they’re throwing money!”
It was not immediately clear if the money pictured in the Oct. 12 video was real.
According to an unnamed law enforcement source quoted by the Fontanka.ru news website, local traffic police were incensed by the publication of the video and told to check if any violations had occurred.
“Since there’s no law banning the throwing of money, you can always look into traffic violations,” the source was cited as saying.
An investigation traced the license plates of the Bentley Mulsanne and a Range Rover vehicles in the video to two local businessmen, who were issued fines of 3,000 rubles ($46) each for failing to give priority to public transportation vehicles, Fontanka said.
One of those fined, businessman Alexander Aristarkhov, said he had rented out the vehicles to an unnamed individual for the filming of a video.
The authorities warned that Aristarkhov could face tax evasion charges for renting out luxury vehicles in cash if similar acts continued to appear online.
