exclusive
The Russian oligarch Abramovich has invested millions in well-known German start-ups. This emerges from a data leak with more than 400,000 documents SWR present. The oligarch is on the EU sanctions list.
Confidential documents from the Cypriot asset management company MeritServus show that money from Roman Abramovich, a man close to Putin, has flowed into at least five German companies. According to the available documents, the oligarch was a client of MeritServus until at least the end of March 2022.
Abramovich has been subject to EU sanctions since mid-March 2022. According to sanctions, his money invested in Europe should be frozen. The wealth company MeritServus has been on the British sanctions list since April this year for working for Abramovich.
The documents are part of a hundreds of gigabyte data leak that the SWR via the US transparency organization DDOS Secrets and has been evaluating for months. The material includes a list of over 2500 customers, emails, notarial deeds, copies of passports and bank documents.
In addition, excerpts from the German commercial register suggest that Abramovich could still hold shares in at least three German software companies despite sanctions.
Experts: Data leaks provide important clues
Since Russia launched its attack on Kiev 16 months ago, investigators around the world have been trying to track down the assets of the Russian oligarchs, as they are considered part of the Russian power apparatus and are to be sanctioned in a targeted manner. These investigations often fail.
Experts complain that it is often only possible to track down concealed assets through leaked documents, because basic information such as the true identity of the company owner is not accessible: “The financial market is still a black box,” says money laundering expert Christoph Trautvetter from the Tax Justice Network. According to Trautvetter, many sanctions therefore came to nothing.
Billion company got money from Abramovich
So far it is unknown to the public that money flowed from Abramovich to Berlin-Kreuzberg. Auto1 is based there. The billionaire start-up claims to be Europe’s largest online platform for car dealers. Abramovich’s sole offshore company, Ervington, owned shares in Auto1 in 2020. This can be found in a list of shareholders of the start-up.
The leaked MeritServus documents show that Abramowitsch invested in other Berlin start-ups. The globally operating media company Showheroes, which also supplies the “Spiegel” and the “Funke Mediengruppe” with videos, received money in the same way as Auto1 by buying an offshore company there. In this case it was a company called Innes Worldwide Holdings Limited.
After a dem SWR In this 2019 letter, a MeritServus CEO informed the Showheroes founder that “Mr. Roman Abramovich is the final beneficiary of the company Innes Worldwide Holdings Limited”. Abramovich’s company also bought shares in three smaller start-ups specializing in apps. At the request of SWRwhether they were aware that Abramovich had invested with them, received the SWR no response from either these companies or showheroes.
Well-known investor with ties to Abramovich
One company that keeps appearing in connection with Abramowitsch investments is the venture capitalist Target Global, which was founded in Moscow around ten years ago and, according to its website, now has its headquarters in a representative property opposite the Berlin City Palace. Target Global advertises with investments in over 100 start-ups in Germany, including the online insurance broker WeFox, which is also the main sponsor of the Bundesliga soccer club Union Berlin. The former DAX company Delivery Hero is also mentioned as a reference, as is Auto1.
A spokeswoman denies SWR-Request that Abramovich invested in Target Global Holding Limited. However, documents from the data leak show: In 2020, Abramovich gave a 100 percent subsidiary of Target Global a loan of around 15 million dollars.
In addition, the oligarch increased a loan to around 15 million euros for an investment in 2021 through a company called Target Global Advisors (TGA). According to the documents, she officially works as a financial advisor for Target Global Holding. The cash flow is detailed in a written agreement between TGA and another of Abramovich’s offshore companies.
A spokeswoman for Auto1 confirms that “Target companies” have bought into Auto1. “That was many years before the first sanctions.” In the meantime, however, there is only “limited knowledge” about the shareholders, since the company has been listed on the stock exchange since February 2021. The spokeswoman also points out that there is a reporting obligation for voting rights from shares only from three percent of company shares.
In an Auto1 shareholder list for 2021, seven of the 35 shareholders can be found with “Target” in their name. Also in that SWR In this document, Abramovich’s Ervington company is named as a “party” along with the Target companies. What is striking is that each individual participation remains below the three percent threshold.
“Millionaire Minority Interests partially non-reportable”
Experts like Christian Trautvetter see this as a problem for the enforcement of sanctions: “Minority shares worth millions are sometimes not even required to be reported. It is therefore very likely that Russian oligarchs are still holding shares in German companies without being recognized. And that wouldn’t even be illegal.” , says Trautvetter.
Abramovich’s Auto1 investment also sheds new light on a much-publicized deal in England. According to media reports, Auto1 founder Hakan Koç and a partner took over the British mobile phone company Truphone in January 2023 for a symbolic dollar.
In the run-up to the takeover negotiations and a few weeks after the escalation of war in Ukraine, Truphone himself pointed out Abramovich’s problematic role against the background of “global events” and the sanctions in a statement.
Koç looks up in his answer SWR-Asks no problems in his Truphone deal, the transaction was “checked over half a year from AZ by a number of regulatory and sanctioning authorities”. At that time, however, Abramovich’s participation in Auto1 was still unknown. Truphone is now managed by an insolvency administrator.
penalties required
Sebastian Fiedler, SPD Bundestag expert on money laundering and sanctions, is not surprised by the results of the research: “The data leak shows how important shadow financial centers are for oligarchs to invest their money in German companies.” The use of relevant company forms from the British Virgin Islands or the Cayman Islands should not only be prohibited. Ex-detective officer Fiedler is demanding penalties “as long as it is not clear at the push of a button who owns what economically”. But that’s exactly what investigators fail on a regular basis. “These tax havens cause more suffering than single guns. Yet we allow them.”
Last week, the EU justice ministers agreed to punish violations of sanctions. This should also apply to people who maintain business relationships with the relevant companies: “Many EU states were in a miserable position when it came to enforcing sanctions,” says Fiedler, and therefore welcomes the initiative of these states. He therefore calls for the responsibilities of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to be expanded.
Roman Abramovich did not respond to multiple inquiries from the SWR.