Roman Novak and his wife Anna were last seen on 2 Oct after being lured to the resort of Hatta, 80 miles outside of Dubai, by criminals posing as potential investors. Police dug up a stretch of desert in the Hajar mountains, near the border with Oman, where their mobile phones were last detected, to recover their remains. Before their murders, Roman and Anna were tortured to force them to give up the access codes to their cryptocurrency wallets, but they were empty. Three men have since been arrested in St Petersburg and charged after they made the journey back from the UAE: Konstantin Shakht, a former police officer, Yury Sharypov, and Vladimir Dalekin. Sharypov and Dalekin have both pleaded guilty, while Shakht denies the charges. All defendants have been remanded in custody until 28 Dec.