Former Ivanishvili's financier released from prison
Ex-Ivanishvili financier released
Giorgi Bachiashvili, the former chief executive of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s investment fund, has been released from prison. The prosecution said he had “fully admitted his guilt, cooperated with the investigation, and compensated the damages”. The agreement includes a suspended sentence and a fine.
“All cases, both civil and criminal, have been concluded, and the case against his parents has also been dropped. Bachiashvili has been ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 lari and serve a one-year suspended sentence. He has already served nine months, with three months of the suspended term remaining,” his lawyer said.
Giorgi Bachiashvili case
Bitcoins and Ivanishvili
The case began in July 2023, when Georgia’s Prosecutor General’s Office charged Bachiashvili with embezzling a large amount of cryptocurrency and laundering illicit proceeds. According to investigators, he misappropriated 8,253.13 bitcoins belonging to an investor, worth about $39m at the time.
At a court hearing in January 2025, Bachiashvili said that the previous autumn Ivanishvili had threatened to impose a monthly penalty of 5,000 bitcoins. Ivanishvili’s lawyer, Temo Tsikvadze, confirmed that the two sides had been in contact and that Bachiashvili had been offered the option of paying a certain number of bitcoins as a “discount”.
On 1 May, the court ordered Bachiashvili to pay Ivanishvili roughly 9,000 bitcoins.
Mtkvari HPP case and additional charges
In February 2025, Bachiashvili was also charged in the so-called Mtkvari hydropower plant case. According to the prosecution, he failed to assess the project’s risks and did not take adequate preventive measures, leading to an increase in investment costs of about $100m.
In March, Bachiashvili wrote on social media that he had left Georgia, using what he described as “loopholes in the system”. The Interior Ministry arrested one person for allegedly assisting his escape. Bachiashvili was later placed on a wanted list, and a court sentenced him in absentia to 11 years in prison in the bitcoin case.
Arrest, abduction claims, and prison scandal
In late May, the State Security Service said Bachiashvili had been detained during a search operation near the Armenian–Georgian border. Bachiashvili, however, claimed he had been abducted from abroad, kept blindfolded for two days, and then brought to Georgia.
In July, he said he had been beaten in a correctional facility and taken to a clinic. The Special Penitentiary Service said there had been an “incident between inmates” in his cell.
Shortly afterwards, Gldani prison director Davit Gogoberishvili, deputy head of the penitentiary department Gia Kemoklidze, and penitentiary service chief Bezhan Obgaidze resigned. Kemoklidze was later arrested. According to the State Security Service, the “staged” beating of Bachiashvili had been planned in advance, and cameras were switched off before the incident.
In October, former Gldani prison director Davit Gogoberishvili was found dead in a garage. An investigation was launched on suspicion of incitement to suicide.
A case extending beyond a single defendant
The cases against Bachiashvili affected more than just him. In September 2025, prosecutors also charged his parents with assisting in the laundering of illicit proceeds. Their accounts and assets were frozen, and a court sentenced them in absentia to prison terms.
From 2013 to 2019, Bachiashvili headed the Co-Investment Fund founded by oligarch and Georgia’s de facto ruler Bidzina Ivanishvili. He later became chairman of its advisory board. Before that, he worked at the Partnership Fund and at Ivanishvili’s Russian company, Unicor Management Company.
Bachiashvili’s release formally concludes the legal proceedings, but questions remain about both the credibility of the charges and the balance of power in Georgia. What began as a cryptocurrency case ultimately turned into a test of political transparency, the security structures, and the judicial system.
Ex-Ivanishvili financier released
