They all use mail on the LLCIinvest corporate domain.
Organizations belonging to Putin's friends , use mail on the domain LLCIinvest.ru. After studying the addresses on this domain, Medusa and OCCRP – a project to investigate corruption and organized crime – estimated that the assets of domain users are at least $ 4.5 billion. Medusa writes about this in the publication “LLC Invest: another cooperative of Putin and his friends.”
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“We have found 86 companies, but it may not be limited to them. However, from the sources of these organizations, it is clear how the bank” Russia “manages the assets of Putin's friends for billions of dollars,” – said in a statement.
The owner of the llcinvest.ru domain is Moskomvyaz, a company closely associated with Russia Bank. According to Meduza and OCCRP journalists, the leak of metadata of Moskomsvyaz customers has regularly led managers, owners and employees of unrelated companies to communicate with the mail on this domain. As it turned out, Moskomvyaz does not work with private individuals.
Mail on llcinvest.ru is used by Khvylia LLC, owned by Serhiy Rudnov, the son of Putin's friend. The leak of metadata of Moskomsvyaz's clients shows that Khvylia's internal accounting department is discussed in correspondence by a manager of a completely different company, which formally has nothing to do with Khvylia, but also by mail on llcinvest.ru.
< p>The journalists learned from another source that companies with mail on the LLCInvest domain not only consult but also cooperate with each other. Judging by the correspondence about the construction of “Putin's dacha” in Karelia (Open Media in 2019 wrote that this object is called “Fisherman's Hut”), three plots of land around the apartment complex are owned by three companies with mail on the domain LLCInvest, and the fourth is directly involved in the construction.
The total value of assets owned by Medusa and OCCRP companies from the LLCInvest cooperative is about $ 4.5 billion. This is the sum of the assets of all companies from the latest available annual reports. These are mansions, business class planes, yachts and just bank accounts with huge sums of money.
Many companies have the same directors, legal addresses and auditors. Some directly own Russia Bank. Dozens are recorded for Russia's shareholders, including Putin's friend, billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk, and Putin's “girlfriend,” according to the independent press, Svetlana Krivonogykh. Another 18 companies, at first glance, have nothing to do with the bank, but, as Medusa and OCCRP found out, are registered with its ordinary employees.
In the Leningrad region on the shores of the Gulf of Finland stands an elegant brick mansion, known as Villa Sellgrena. It was designed by Finnish architect Uno Ulberg on the eve of the 1917 revolution. In Soviet times, it was used as scenery in the TV series about Sherlock Holmes. The next time the villa became famous was in 2017, when the investigation of the TV channel “Rain” named it the resting place of the President of Russia.
The villa is owned by the company “North”. In open sources, you can see that she uses an email address on the LLCInvest domain. As Medusa and OCCRP journalists found out, the address on this domain is also registered with Serhiy Rudnov, the ultimate owner of the villa. Pavlo Zaitsev, who does not have any formal status in the North, took part in the management of this property – but he owns several other companies related to LLCInvest. He also has mail on this domain.
The same group of companies, which is part of LLCInvest, includes the Igor ski resort, where Putin's daughter Kateryna Tikhonova celebrated her wedding, and many other real estate objects that in one way or another concern the Russian president or his relatives. The same companies have several luxury yachts. Two of them were spotted on routes between Putin-linked possessions; another belongs to “Putin's girlfriend” Svetlana Krivonogykh. One of the vessels is managed by several LLCInvest companies.
In particular, the Brizo 46 – a 14-meter support vessel – was purchased in 2015 for 1.2 million euros through Unison. Volodymyr Avramenko, the sole shareholder and former director of this company, uses mail at www.llcinvest.ru.
The yacht was imported to Russia by a completely different legal entity, the leaders of which are not formally related to Unison. However, according to information from the sources, they discussed the reduction of the duty with a representative of Unison – using mailboxes on the domain (as expected) LLCInvest.
According to customs data, some yachts owned by companies associated with LLCInvest spend the winter at the Finnish port of Kotka near St. Petersburg. There, Finnish journalists found the yacht Photinia, owned by former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The boat garage itself, where they are stored, is also connected to Putin's friends. Dmitry Gorelov, one of the shareholders of Russia Bank (involved in the construction of a palace on the Black Sea), gave the company that owns the garage an interest-free loan.
Most LLCInvest cooperatives do not engage in any public activities. Rousseir is a rare exception: it even has a website that states that it is a “dynamic company in the field of air transport.” Rousseur says he can arrange a charter flight at any time of the day or night, and the flight region is the whole world.
The company's manager declined to name the services provided by the company and asked to send a request by e-mail. He was left unanswered. According to Russia's aircraft register, Russeir would not be able to take anyone anywhere, as the company has only two helicopters for commercial air travel. The company has the right to use four more helicopters and two Falcon 7X business liners only for its own needs.
This is how a corrupt state is set up. What investigators found was only a small part, a model, of a huge corruption machine. Ukraine is its own corruption machine, closely connected with Russia. And we must find the strength not only to defeat the aggressor, but also to break this machine. This is the key to Europe, to a dignified life not only for those who plunder the country and who contribute to it, but for every citizen of the country.
