Russian oligarchs Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, childhood friends of President Vladimir Putin and under international economic sanctions since 2014, managed to protect their wealth with the help of a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, it was revealed Tuesday.
The information is contained in the so-called “Rotenberg Documents”, an investigation by the OCCRTP consortium of journalists, based on a leak of more than 50,000 documents and emails between 2013 and 2020, obtained by the independent Russian media IStories and shared by 15 other newspapers. , televisions, radios and independent news agencies.
The two brothers, who grew up in Leningrad, met Putin when they attended martial arts classes together and the relationship between the three endured as the former KGB agent (former name of the Russian secret services) grew in power and took over. The charge. of head of state.
According to the consortium, the fortunes of the two brothers also grew with lucrative contracts that, although sanctioned by the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by Russia in 2014, brought them a joint wealth of around 4.9 billion dollars (4.45 billion euros). ), according to Forbes magazine.
The wealth of Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, according to the investigation, was protected by a businessman and former Russian diplomat linked to Prince Michael of Kent, cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, the British sovereign who died on September 22, 2022, at the age of 96. years.
That wealth had to be protected, and amid sanctions and large foreign assets at risk, the brothers sought to fend off their fortunes from Western regulators. The released documents reveal that a figure was instrumental in helping the Rotenberg brothers protect their fortune.
This is Moscow businessman Maxim Viktorov, 50, whose Russian company and law firm played a key role in the plan to save the two brothers’ investments, such as shares in Helsinki’s Halli stadium.
The Rotenberg family used various techniques to move their wealth “like chess pieces” around the world, opening bank accounts as others closed and transforming ownership structures in response to new sanctions or challenges raised by regulators, the investigation says.
Viktorov used trusted business service providers to transfer Rotenberg’s companies to “less demanding jurisdictions”, from the Virgin Islands to Cyprus.
In Russia, their company Evocorp Management managed some of the brothers’ assets after they were placed under the control of top-secret investment funds that Viktorov claimed as his own, according to the investigation.
Abroad, it is reported that the company ILS Legal Services, registered in Panama, worked with Viktorov.
The leak also reveals how a set of third parties, including a man said to be Boris Rotenberg’s former bodyguard and a 36-year-old beautician, “who appears to be Arkady Rotenberg’s secret romantic partner, took over ownership of some of the valuable belongings of the brothers”.
Viktorov said neither he nor any of his companies broke any laws and described the investigation as flawed.
Viktorov worked for the KGB in the 1990s. He later began providing legal services to businessmen and public officials. In 2012, he became an adviser to the Minister of Defense. By then he already knew Putin’s circle. In his work for the Rotenbergs, Viktorov often drew on his contacts abroad.
In 2018, the Viktorov Investment Programs Fund became a shareholder in the British technology company RemitRadar, where businessman Sergey Markov, a former Soviet diplomat, and Prince Michael of Kent, a great-nephew of Russian Emperor Nicholas II, who acted as “ambassador” of the company, also had shares, according to the investigation.
According to the consortium, the British prince “distanced himself from his ties to the Putin regime after the invasion of Ukraine” but remains linked to RemitRadar.
Source: TSF
