A trail of billions: Russian businessmen in the new “Panama dossier”

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The Panamanian Archives database contains names for 16 namesakes from 77 Russian dollar billionaires. Many of their offshore companies were closed by 2015, when the anti-offshore legislation came into force in Russia, the TV channel rbc.ru . But there are those who are still in effect.

Many owners or beneficiaries of offshore companies are not identified in the database of journalists as citizens of any state, and some find themselves assigned to unexpected jurisdictions. Thus, the namesake of the former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alfred Koch and the full namesake of the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev were among the German owners of offshore companies, and the namesake of the former owner of Northgas, Farhad Akhmedov, was among the Saudi beneficiaries of such companies. Some cards are duplicated (in the database you can find, for example, three “Sergei Roldugins”).

Namesakes of Russian billionaires

The namesakes of Russian tycoons who worked with a Panamanian law firm most often turned out to be owners of companies in the British Virgin Islands - there are 47 offshore companies in this jurisdiction. Only two have been recorded in the Bahamas and the only one in the Seychelles.

Among the namesakes of Russian business captains most often in the Mossack Fonseca database is the name of Alisher Usmanov. The namesake of the founder and main shareholder of USM Holdings in the archive instituted 11 cards, which show his relationship with 15 offshore companies.

In terms of the number of offshore companies, he is followed by the full namesake of the Russian investor Alexander Svetakov - he owned 11 companies at different times. All of them were registered in the British Virgin Islands, the main part (except for the only company) in 2005-2006. In some records Svetakov is listed as Alexander Svetakov 76%. It is known that his namesake, a Russian businessman, owns 76% of the Absolut investment group. Five of the 11 offshore companies have already been closed or are preparing for liquidation.

One offshore was open to the namesake of Rusal head Oleg Deripaska and V.V. Anisimov (the owner of Coalco International and Usmanov’s partner in Metalloinvest with the same name are Vasily Vasilyevich), as well as the shareholder of the Bank of Cyprus Dmitry Rybolovlev ( April, a representative of a businessman confirmed that Rybolovlev owned offshore company Xitrans Dinance Ltd).

The namesakes of the co-owner of Promsvyazbank Dmitry Ananyev and the chairman of the board of directors of the Pipe Metallurgical Company Dmitry Pumpyansky virgin offshore companies closed in 2011 and 2015 respectively.

The current offshore is listed for the namesake of the head of the board of directors of the Russian Copper Company, Igor Altushkin. It was opened five years ago. In addition to Altushkin, the company’s shareholder is Ruslan Baisarov (the namesake of the general director of the Tuva Energy Industrial Corporation (TEPK), which occupies the 89 place in the Forbes “Russia's richest businessmen” 2016 with a capital of $ 0,9 billion). In 2014, offshore appeared in the same jurisdiction and in the investor’s namesake, Andrei Rapoport.

Brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg also have namesakes in the papers of Mossack Fonseca; each of them had three offshore companies registered. Two Arcadia companies, Breckenridge Global (registered in the British Virgin Islands in 2009) and Causeway Consulting (operating there since 2010) continue to operate. Boris has only one left - Kenrick Overseas, which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary.

Reaction to documents

RBC journalists sent inquiries to the listed businessmen and are now waiting for answers. Representatives of Deripaska, Rapoport, SMP-Bank Rotenberg already refused to comment.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the emergence of the next portion of the “Panamanian archives,” stressed that they were “stolen” and that offshore companies “do not belong to the category of something illegitimate”.

Alexander Zakharov from Paragon Advice notes that the opening of offshores by itself is not a violation of the law, but those whose names are on this list and whose offshore companies operate after the adoption of anti-offshore laws are likely to be under the scrutiny of regulatory authorities.

See also:

Journalists have shared in the "Panamanian documents." Video instruction

Panama Dossier: US launches criminal investigation

Panamanian Dossier: “Putin’s Cellist” Involved in the Frauds Uncovered by Magnitsky

Panamanian archive: the scale of the leak and the names of the defendants

“Picked up and blind”: Putin first commented on the “Panamanian scandal”

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