Operation oligarch in Spain, new details. Klim Podkova
The Spanish Civil Guard has revealed some details of Operation Oligarch, during which 11 Russians suspected of having links with and were detained. According to the Guardia Civil, Operation Oligarch, which took about four years to complete, was carried out jointly with Europol forces. It was directed against members of the Solntsevo and Izmailovo criminal groups, who “are competitors in Russia, but partners in Spain,” the guard said in a statement.
Members of an organized crime group have developed a complex scheme for laundering criminal capital. The laundering was mainly carried out through three businesses - Marbella Football Club, bottled water manufacturer Aguas Sierra de Mijas and Dama de Noche Golf Club (all based in Marbella). The total amount of funds laundered over several years, according to law enforcement officials, amounted to €30 million.
A total of 11 people were detained, all of them will appear in court on September 29 in Marbella. Among the detainees are the owner of the Marbella football club Alexander Grinberg and Arnold Spivakovsky (also known as Arnold Tamm) - the media reported about their detention yesterday. The vice-president of FC Marbella, German Pastushenko, and the owner of Agua Sierra de Mijas, Oleg Kuznetsov, were also detained (along with him, two managers of this company, Sergey Dozhdev and Vladimir Dzreev, were detained). During the operation, 23 luxury cars, large amounts of cash, firearms and computers were seized.
Today, sources in the FSB and the Investigative Committee reported that the detention of Russians in the province of Malaga was a continuation of Operation Wasp, which the Spanish police carried out in 2005. “We are talking about an investigation into the activities of a group (according to the Spanish prosecutor’s office - the leader), whose participants created a network of front companies in the country, in which real estate was registered. They resold the real estate, each time increasing the price, in order to launder funds illegally acquired outside Spain,” said a source in the FSB.
Arnold Spivakovsky in the early 2000s was a public relations adviser to the Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Pavel Borodin. Subsequently, he was the general director of the Cosmos hotel complex and chairman of the board of directors of the Intourist hotel association.
Little is known about Alexander Grinberg’s business: in 2016, in an interview, he said that he had lived all his life in Moscow and came to Spain five years ago, and in Russia he still had an active business related to real estate rental. Greenberg, according to him, took ownership of the Marbella club together with several citizens of Russia and Spain, and the club was bought for a symbolic €1.
German Pastushenko was one of the money laundering suspects back in 2005 (at that time the Spanish police were conducting a large-scale operation “White Whale”).
Deputies, employees of AFK Sistema and a football club - how are they connected with the criminal case of a laundering organized crime group?
This week, Spain is interesting to Russian viewers not only for its freedom-loving Catalonia, but also for news from the trial of the so-called “Russian mafia.” Several "bosses", now known as big businessmen, are awaiting sentencing for money laundering. The story has been going on for ten years and could serve as a script for a detective series. Katerina Karaseva recalls the details of the case and explains what the highest echelons of the Russian establishment have to do with it.
Where did it all start?
Russians in law flocked to sunny Spain back in the 1990s: some were hiding from persecution, others were leaving to legalize themselves. Now there are several criminal cases going on there, dedicated to the “Russian mafia”. The loudest concerns the Tambov organized crime group led by Gennady Petrov. Since 2012, 15 people suspected of having connections with an organized crime group have been put on the international wanted list. They are charged with participation in a criminal community and money laundering.
Spanish investigators have established that the criminals created a network of hundreds of companies in the country, in which they registered real estate, and then resold it many times at increasing prices through shell companies. Simply put, they sold to themselves - this is called money laundering. “Clean” money went to Panama and Liechtenstein. Spanish law enforcement authorities believe the money came from drug smuggling, arms trafficking and corrupt "connection peddling."
Solntsevo and Izmailovo organized crime groups were also involved in the case. Once in Russia they were competitors, but in Spain they managed to become partners. At the beginning of 2016, 12 more people were added to the list of wanted people: among them, in particular, were Igor Sobolevsky, ex-deputy head of the Investigative Committee, State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik (from 1999 to this day), his wife Diana Gindin and deputy director of the Federal Service for drug control Nikolay Aulov.
They said about Aulov in his own department that the court’s decision to arrest was “legally unprofessional and ordered politically.” The Russian side is in no hurry to give it up, or at least check “its own”. The Duma announced that they hope to end the incident “due to the lack of grounds to bring Reznik to justice.”
The Spaniards came to the conclusion that Reznik “is responsible for carrying out the required and necessary actions, both legal and illegal - trading in connections, confidential information, etc. at the highest levels of the Russian Federation, acting in the interests of Petrov and the organization subordinate to him. Vladislav Reznik is on good terms with Ilya Traber, the leader of the Vyborg criminal group, as well as with (former Russian Defense Minister) Anatoly Serdyukov, (former Russian Prime Minister) Viktor Zubkov and (former State Duma Speaker) Boris Gryzlov,” the statement says. 2015 indictment.
The leader of the Tambov gang, Gennady Petrov, was detained by the Spanish police in 2008 during Operation Troika. In 2010 he was released on bail, and in 2012 he left for Russia and has since lived in St. Petersburg.
What happened in September?
On September 26, 2017, Spanish law enforcement officials spoke about Operation Oligarch in the province of Malanga. 18 searches were carried out, and 11 people were detained. Among them is the president of the Marbella football club, Alexander Grinberg. According to the Spanish Civil Guard, the operation was prepared for about four years and was carried out jointly with Europol forces. The case was a continuation of Operation Wasp - the investigation into the case of Gennady Petrov. No other details have been announced yet.
Alexander Grinberg, photo – marbella-fc.com
During the searches, a large amount of cash, computer equipment, documents, and firearms were seized. 23 vehicles were seized. According to law enforcement agencies, the suspects may have laundered about €30 million in Spain in recent years alone.
Grinberg is one of the most famous representatives of the Russian diaspora in Spain. He has lived in the prestigious resort of Marbella since 2008. The Spanish media noted the wild lifestyle that the Russian businessman led: noisy parties with Russian artists, nightly brawls. Greenberg owns Terminal Group, which operates in the construction, restaurant and entertainment industries. He owns one of the most expensive restaurants in Marbella, Finca Besaya, the Dama de Noche golf club and other properties. Five years ago, he became the owner of the Marbella football club, which was then in a state of bankruptcy. The club currently plays in the third highest ranking football league in Spain. It is known that Greenberg invested large sums in the modernization of the club stadium.
In addition to Greenberg, the vice-president of FC Marbella German Pastushenko and the owner of Agua Sierra de Mijas Oleg Kuznetsov, as well as two managers of this company - Sergey Dozhdev and Vladimir Dzreev, were detained.
Arnold Spivakovsky (also known as Arnold Tamm) was also detained. In the early 2000s, he was a public relations adviser to the Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Pavel Borodin. He worked as the general director of the Cosmos hotel complex and chairman of the board of directors of the Intourist hotel association. The Dozhd TV channel reports that Spivakovsky turned out to be the manager of AFK Sistema (owned by Vladimir Yevtushenkov). The TV channel refers, in particular, to a publication dated September 13, 2017 on the website of the charitable organization “Russian Children's Fund” signed by Arnold Spivakovsky. There he calls himself “project manager of Sistema JSFC.” He is an employee of the woodworking company Sokolsky DOK (part of the Segezha Group controlled by Sistema).
Nevertheless, on September 29, seven accused of having connections with the “Russian mafia” were released from custody on their own recognizance. Their passports were confiscated. Among them, in particular, Pastushenko and Dzreev. The rest are currently under arrest.
To Deripaska on Uy
Billionaire Oleg Deripaska's lawsuit against pick-up artists Nastya Rybka and Alex Leslie for interference in his private life, on the contrary, attracted attention to this life. Maybe for the better. In any case, the Sobesednik investigation clarified why Deripaska is so successful in business. It turned out that in this he is just like his mother, pensioner Valentina Petrovna.
Take, say, her real estate. Your own country house of 73.5 sq. m in the village of Sinkovo not far from Zvenigorod, the woman, however, gave it to her younger brother, 70-year-old State Duma deputy Alexei Ezubov, three years ago. But the woman was still not left without a roof over her head.
Valentina Deripaska’s second house today is also located on Rublyovka, almost next to Dmitry Medvedev’s residence. True, the estate is registered not in her name personally, but in her company “Second House +”, which previously belonged to her son. On the golden hectares of Gorok-2, thousands of square meters of luxury real estate have grown, which can cost over 2 billion rubles.
“Second House+” was registered in an office building in the center of Moscow, which, through the company “First Office”, also belongs to Deripaska’s mother and is worth almost a third of a billion.
Until 2015, the owner of the First Office was the Cypriot offshore company Lampgod Limited, which still owns the company Hakinveststroydom. This company today owns an estate on the fish-filled Uy River in the Khakassian tract Babik, next to which Oleg Deripaska built the Gladenkaya ski resort.
Naturally, there was also an estate in the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory, in a place with the intelligent name Kulturnaya Shchel. There, just south of Gelendzhik’s “Putin’s palace,” the Betta company, whose co-owner is Valentina Deripaska, today owns the former boarding house of the same name. The coastal buildings of the complex alone cost half a billion, according to the cadastre.
And of course, apartments. Valentina Petrovna, however, moved out of the pre-revolutionary house on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard a long time ago, again giving up the housing to her brother. But her property still remains 170 square meters. m on Sretensky Boulevard (market price – 100 million rubles). Will it be a bit cramped? There is another apartment - already 177.7 sq. m. m near Triumfalnaya Square, on Tverskaya. In one building, by the way, with the apartment of KAMAZ General Director Sergei Kogogin, co-chairman of Putin’s election headquarters (such an apartment costs about 200 million). Too tight again? In 2010, Oleg Deripaska gave his mother an 834-meter penthouse with 15 rooms worth about a billion on Ostozhenka. Good son.
Real M-UGIC
Navalny has already mentioned the yacht on which Deripaska went fishing in Norway. The 29-meter vessel Elden, worth about 100 million rubles, also, as it turned out, belongs to the oligarch’s mother, or more precisely, to the Yacht Club Center company, of which she is a co-owner. The same company also owns the Northern Shadow, an escort vessel for the same yacht on which Oleg Deripaska took a ride with a man resembling Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko and Nastya Rybka.
Several years ago, the Southern Operational Customs tried to collect a duty and a fine of more than 100 million from the Yacht Club of the Center for evading payments when importing a yacht, but the court also gave the customs officers a pass. So instead of the budget, this money went to feeding the fish.
By the way, one of Valentina Deripaska’s partners in the yacht center (the offshore Lampgod Limited, which has already appeared in Babik) also owns the Baikal Yacht Club. And much more, even involved in providing flights for the oligarch.
And now about flying. There are several business jets on which the billionaire travels. For example, the M-UGIC and M-ALAY aircraft flew in for Norwegian fishing, registered, as can be seen from the M prefix, in the offshore zone of the Isle of Man. The owner of one of these planes is hidden somewhere in the Virgin Islands; traces of the second are lost in Switzerland. But another airliner, worth more than 3 billion rubles, with the tail number M-SAWO for her son, is launched again by Valentina Petrovna. In any case, it is she, according to the “paradise dossier”, who is listed as the ultimate beneficiary of the Bermudian offshore Air Cloud Services Limited that owns the aircraft. True, as journalist Olesya Shmagun, who worked with the dossier, found out, the company documents were signed by State Duma deputy Alexey Ezubov instead of the oligarch’s mother. Good uncle.
Mom's "rebirth"
Valentina Deripaska also has other offshore companies, such as Cloud Air Service (BVI) Limited or Bennet Select Corporation. But even more Russian companies are associated with her name, which she owns through her JSC Vozrozhdenie.
Here you can find financial investments, real estate management, sports, consulting, construction and transportation by various modes of transport... The Perspektiva hunting estate alone (closed to those who do not have a billion) controls tens of thousands of hectares of forest near Gelendzhik.
The geography of the business is also not narrow - from the Krasnodar Territory and Diveevo with Khakassia to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Among the regular partners are the Ezubov family and the same Lampgod Limited.
Only the official financial balance of companies directly associated with Valentina Deripaska reaches almost 6 billion rubles. Together with offshore capital and the value of property, Valentina Petrovna’s increase in pension could be up to 10 billion. This is only what is visible. Not a bad accumulation for a man who will turn 80 this year. And the main thing is that you cannot make any financial claims against the oligarch himself. If something happens, he will say: “This is not mine, it’s all my mother’s!” Good mom.
All information for this investigation is obtained from official and public sources and is not an invasion of anyone's privacy.
Krasnodar farmer
It is no coincidence that Oleg Deripaska’s claim against Nastya Rybka and Alex Leslie for interference in his private life will be considered in Ust-Labinsk, Krasnodar. It is in this area that the oligarch has permanent registration. This became known thanks to the Panama Papers: when creating one of the offshore companies, the billionaire indicated his exact home address - the Sokolsky farm, the birthplace of his mother. Today Oleg Deripaska is the only resident of Sokolsky. He has a mansion with a stable, a sports complex, and a farm. And he already owns all this personally, without his mother.
The media have already reported that Nastya Rybka seemed to swim to this farm. But it was not possible to find out whether the oligarch took her somewhere else, for example to his home in Uy in Khakassia. “Interlocutor” asked Deripaska’s representatives who exactly accompanied him during his New Year’s visit to Khakassia at the same time when a number of important Russian officials were vacationing there (and whether he introduced his accompanying persons to these officials). But we have not yet received an answer to this and other questions.
Carlota Gindal | La Vanguardia Operation Oligarch: "The mafia operated in Russia with people very close to Vladimir Putin"“One of the main suspects, suspected of belonging to a criminal organization of Russian origin that was involved in money laundering in Spain, and jailed after Operation Oligarch last September, pointed to Russian President Vladimir Putin as having relations with persons associated with with the mafia in his country,” says La Vanguardia journalist Carlota Guindal. “This follows from his interrogation in Marbella Court of First Instance No. 1,” the author writes, explaining that the publication received access to these materials and that we are talking about Sergei Dozhdev and the investigation into the activities of the Solntsevskaya organized crime group in Spain.
“During interrogation on September 28 last year, Dozhdev wanted to provide details, using his right to have the last word, about the raiding committed against a Russian company, as well as how powerful people took over this company with the connivance of a Russian bank.” , writes the journalist.
“In Russia, the real mafia is those who rule the world,” Dozhdev said. Gindal claims: “He thus hinted at Igor Sechin, the head of the Russian oil company Rosneft and a person close to Putin, according to various sources, as the person who took over the Russian holding company Sistema (whose interests range from oil to telecommunications) through oil company Vasniev (as in the original, most likely a distorted “Bashneft”. - Note ed.) and MTS (dealing with telephones). Judging by what he said, the alleged appropriation of the company is carried out through "offshore" companies." The publication quotes: "They did it in such a way that when they transfer the debts to the "offshore" companies, the companies are acquired for almost nothing."
The defendant explained to the judge: “The Bank of Russia issues a loan to the company. At a certain point, it stops financing it, and then the company cannot repay the debts. These are rare situations. The mafia that operated is with people very close to Vladimir Putin.”
“After this statement, a representative of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office asked if Sberbank was doing this. “This is being done through Sberbank because it is controlled by Gref,” said Dozhdev. And he knows this because they studied together in Kazakhstan,” the publication writes. “Gref’s son controls the situation in Russia,” he emphasized.
“Sergey Dozhdev is one of the “right hands” of the alleged head of the organization whose activities are being investigated in Spain, Oleg Kuznetsov,” the journalist writes, referring to the Civil Guard report handed over to the Spanish court.
At the end of September 2017, 11 people were detained in Spain as a result of Operation Oligarch.
The operation, according to the Spanish Civil Guard, was directed against members of the Solntsevo and Izmailovo criminal groups, who “are competitors in Russia, but partners in Spain.” According to law enforcement agencies, members of the organized crime group used the Marbella football club, the bottled water manufacturer Aguas Sierra de Mijas (Aqua de Mijas) and the Dama de Noche golf club to launder about €30 million.
On September 29, seven Russians were released from custody, but the charges against them were not dropped. Who was detained in the latest case of the “Russian mafia” - in the RBC review.
Alexander Grinberg
Russian businessman, owner of the Marbella football club. According to him, he came to Marbella in 2011, leaving a business “related to real estate rental” in Russia. In 2013, Greenberg bought Marbella FC, which was in crisis, for €1. Former Russian national team player Alexander Mostovoy became an adviser to the club president.
In Russia, Alexander Grinberg is a co-owner of real estate companies. Among his business partners are Andrei Malevsky, the brother of the leader of the Izmailovo organized crime group Anton Malevsky, who died in 2001 after an unsuccessful parachute jump, footballer of the Russian national team and Spartak Moscow Alexander Samedov and football agent Oleg Artemov.
In Moscow, Alexander Grinberg and his daughter Ksenia are the founders of several companies specializing in leasing commercial space. Mostly, warehouses located in industrial zones are offered for rent, for example, buildings on the territory of the motor depot No. 40 on Ketcherskaya Street (company OJSC "Avto-40"); a two-story non-residential building in the village of Kommunarka near the Nikolo-Khovanskoye cemetery is also used as a warehouse (the owner is Oblsklad LLC). In 2007, Glavgosstroynadzor of the Moscow Region recognized the building as an unauthorized construction, but did not demolish it, obliging the owner to pay a fine and formalize the commissioning of the building properly. In the early 2000s, another company co-owned by Alexander Grinberg, Likurstroy LLC, rented the building of the Kommuna cultural center on Bolshaya Tulskaya. Discos were held in the building, but it is now in disrepair.
All of these companies had the same ownership structure - the companies were owned in equal shares by Alexander Grinberg, Pavel Aleshin, and Mikhail Akodis. In some companies, their partners were Alexander Rosenberg and Andrei Malevsky.
Arnold Tamm (aka Arnold Spivakovsky)
50 years old. Former general director of the Cosmos hotel complex, former chairman of the board of directors of the Intourist hotel association. Spivakovsky was a public relations adviser to the Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Pavel Borodin. In March 2002, he was charged with drug possession. Spivakovsky was given a suspended sentence, but later acquitted.
After Spivakovsky was detained in Spain, it became known that he was an active employee of a company controlled by AFK Sistema - Sokolsky DOK.
Oleg Kuznetsov
Nothing is known about Kuznetsov, except that he owns the drinking water company Agua de Mijas. According to the Spanish police, the company was used to launder criminal proceeds. Spanish media call Kuznetsov one of Greenberg's assistants.
Sergey Dozhdev
Entrepreneur from Volgograd. According to regional media reports, he was close to Vladimir Kadin, vice-president of the Boxing Federation in the Volgograd region, who was killed in 2011. In Volgograd, Dozhdev was the general director of AL.LIT.PRO LLC. The company rented out its own real estate.
After the murder of Kadin, Dozhdev left for Spain and is one of the leaders of the company Agua Sierra de Mijas, which belongs to Kuznetsov. Together with him, the head of the company is Vladimir Dzreev, who was detained during Operation Oligarch; it was not possible to find any information about him in open sources.
German Pastushenko
Vice-President of FC Marbella. He was released from custody on September 29, but remains a suspect in the case.
Pastushenko came to Spain from the Krasnodar region in 1995 and received a residence permit in 2001. In Spain, he bought unfinished houses and, having completed them, sold them, and also opened his own real estate agency on a franchising basis. In 2005, he was arrested on suspicion of money laundering and drug smuggling as a result of Operation White Whale. Six months later, the charges were dropped.
The case of the “Russian mafia”
According to investigators, the detainees laundered money through the Marbella football club, the bottled water manufacturer Aguas Sierra de Mijas and the Dama de Noche golf club. The total amount of funds laundered in this way amounted to €30 million.
During the operation, 23 luxury cars, large sums of money, firearms and computers were seized from the detainees.
The case of the “Russian mafia” has been ongoing in Spain for many years. As part of the case, the Spanish authorities carried out at least three major operations: “Wasp” (2005-2007), “Troika” (2008-2009) and “Oligarch”.
The first high-profile arrests in the case were made in 2008, and in 2015, Spanish prosecutors brought charges against citizens of Russia and Spain. The indictment in the case, published in translation by Open Russia, states that since 1996, a mafia structure has been operating in Spain, which was a union of the Tambov and Malyshevskaya criminal groups, which included immigrants from Russia, mainly from Moscow and St. Petersburg . Members of the criminal community from residences in the Balearic Islands, the Spanish Levant and the Costa del Sol allegedly monitored the activities of criminal groups in Russia.
The activities of the organized crime group, according to the prosecution, included murder, arms and drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, smuggling, etc. The economic profits of the criminal community were sent to Spain, where the illegally obtained funds were to be legitimized and integrated into the financial system through loans, increasing statutory capital, transfers to offshore zones and investments in other countries.
The trial of the 27 defendants was due to begin in June 2017, but has since been postponed. One of the accused is businessman Gennady Petrov, whom Spanish investigators call the leader of the Tambov organized crime group. In 2010, the Spanish authorities released him on bail, and in 2012 he left for Russia and lives in St. Petersburg. Other well-known defendants in the case include State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik, former deputy heads of the Federal Drug Control Service and the Investigative Committee, as well as businessman Ilya Traber.
