$4.5 billion
Putin’s secret treasure of billions: Villas, yachts and companies discovered in leaked data
According to the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to earn around 114,000 euros a year, own three cars, a trailer and a small apartment.
© Evgeny Biyatov/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/DPA
Officially, Russian President Vladimir Putin is a humble man. Journalists now want to have discovered a hub where assets running into billions converge – and suggest that Putin is the beneficiary. The Kremlin denies.
The true fortune of the Russian president has been a mystery for years. While his closest confidants, such as Alexei Mordashov and Alisher Usmanov, are relatively open about their accumulated luxuries, Vladimir Putin keeps a low profile. At the slightest suspicion that something might belong to him, friends, relatives and acquaintances often come forward and publicly claim assets for themselves. So it turns out to be almost impossible to unequivocally link possessions such as the mega-yacht “Scheherazade” or the gigantic palace on the Black Sea with him, despite all the clues.
A rare success
It is therefore a rare achievement that journalists from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (“OCCRP”) research network have managed to uncover a commonality between many different luxury goods that at least suggests that there is a common thread between the yachts, mansions, accounts and vehicles – the Internet domain “LLCInvest.ru” and its server data.
Numerous objects are to be controlled via this (not publicly accessible) Internet address and its mailboxes. For example, the billion-dollar palace mentioned at the beginning, for which Arkady Rotenberg identified himself as the owner after rumors arose that it was the palace of Putin himself. In total, according to the “OCCRP”, 86 different companies and organizations were found managing assets with a total value of at least 4.5 billion US dollars.Foundation Banner Appeal UKRAINE Special
A comprehensive analysis of leaked data leaked to journalists last year revealed an administrative-like structure behind the company, which, however, is not officially registered as such in Russia. Nevertheless, managing directors, beneficiaries and oligarchs use e-mail inboxes of this domain to exchange information about various projects and to actually make operational decisions.
Central point for individual possession
The discovery of this common infrastructure is so curious because the objects managed there officially have numerous different owners, so they actually have nothing to do with each other. These include, for example, accounts from non-profit organizations with hundreds of millions of dollars, a villa near Saint Petersburg, a winter sports resort, the Airline Russair and a holiday home near the border with Finland. A kind of joint fund only makes sense if there is a common owner.
Some names of the official beneficiaries, founders or users also suggest that a common denominator is likely. Those named include Gennady Timchenko, Sergei Rudnov, Sergei Roldugin, Yuri Kovalchuk, as well as a former alleged lover of Putin and one of his daughters – all people who have been close to the Kremlin boss for decades and who have been shown to be in contact with him. The same applies to the managed property of “LLCInvest”: the houses or ships mentioned are repeatedly attributed to Putin, but clear evidence has always fallen by the wayside.
A bench is the focus
LLCInvest, on the other hand, is not a new name, but so far you have not been able to do much with it. The company has already appeared in the documents for the villa on the Black Sea and it is said to have been mentioned in connection with a luxury yacht called “Schellest 46Steel”.
The journalists also identified Bank Rossiya as another hub, whose employees often act as managing directors of companies in the LLCInvest network. The money house, often referred to as “Putin Bank”, is owned by Yuri Kovalchuk, a long-time confidant of Putin, and is also the owner of the company that provides the “LLCInvest.ru” domain.
A former Treasury official who worked at the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control told OCCRP, “It’s hard to find an innocent explanation for the things you’ve described. Given that Bank Rossiya is publicly cited as the place where Putin and his cronies hold their wealth, this raises a lot of legal questions.”
It goes on to say: “I would not speculate on who the final beneficiary is, but there are clear signs of a sanctions evasion system.”
source: OCCRP