The quest to track assets often fails because the true ownership is hidden behind a series of mailboxes, corporations, foundations and administrators. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its partners have therefore revised the Pandora Papers published last year, linking them to other sources and focusing on the commercial activities of Russian billionaires: the Pandora Papers Russia.
In Austria, the ORF and the “profil” were involved in the processing. Research shows that with each wave of sanctions, assets are also on the move. The funds were already moving in 2014, when the first sanctions were imposed after Russia annexed Crimea. There were also significant changes in 2018 after the US imposed sanctions on several oligarchs.
Don’t talk about possessions
The difficult quest for fortunes of oligarchs loyal to Putin.
“Protection of family wealth”
Peter Aven, Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Alexey Kuzmichev, the four founders of Russia’s Alfa Bank, are “closely linked” to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the EU. As early as the 1990s, they controlled a fortune across the British Virgin Islands. After the annexation of Crimea, they created more shell companies. Awen, for example, has established a foundation in which he deposits his assets and thus protects them from sanctions. In a statement to ICIJ, Awen cited “ensuring the family’s wealth” as the reason for the reorganization.
Other oligarchs are also extremely busy. According to the survey, Alexej Mordaschwo, the main shareholder of the TUI travel group, can be attributed to 60 offshore companies. Mikhail Guzeriev, founder of Russian oil company RussNeft, and his brother can be linked to 80 mailboxes.
The Fontana Connection
Herman Gref, head of Russian Sberbank, former Minister of Economy and since Friday – after the USA and Great Britain – also on the sanctions list in Europe, had parked around 75 million US dollars (almost 69 million euros) in an opaque network of companies and foundations. In 2017 he transferred the assets to his nephew – a common practice to make it difficult for international authorities to access the funds. There are also traces of detours leading from Gref to Austria.
In 2020, two lands changed hands in Oberwaltersdorf, Lower Austria, on the site of Magna’s European headquarters, which has since been demolished, for around nine million euros: the seller was Fontana Sportveranstaltungs GmbH, 94% of which is owned from investor Siegfried Wolf. The sale was completely legal and took place in compliance with all legal regulations.
ORF There are already construction shells on site in Oberwaltersdorf, but the municipality does not know who owns the property
The buyer of one of the properties is Gray Schloss GmbH based in Baden. This, in turn, belongs to a company in Liechtenstein. So says the Treasury Department’s beneficial owner registry, which is designed to reveal the true beneficial owners of corporations, accounts, real estate, yachts or jets.
Documents lead to Putin’s former deputy chief of staff
What the record does not reveal is revealed by the ICIJ data records, which at least can be traced back to 2019: According to them, the company’s sole shareholder in Liechtenstein is a Caribbean-based company that is owned by a founding family in Liechtenstein. And this one, in turn, belongs to Kirill Androsow.
picturedesk.com/Keystone/Urs Flueeler According to the survey, the property now belongs to Russian Kirill Androsow
The Russian, born in 1972, had a remarkable career: former deputy chief of staff to Putin, until 2016/2017 chairman of the board of Aeroflot and Russian State Railways, now an investor and professor of economics at Moscow University. According to the Pandora Papers, there is also a close business relationship between Androsow and the family of Gref, the now-sanctioned head of the big Russian bank Sberbank. That Sberbank, at whose European headquarters in Vienna Siegfried Wolf was the head of the supervisory board until the end.
All those involved did not respond to questions from the ORF and the “profile”. The municipality of Oberwaltersdorf says it does not know who owns the property, nor what is being built there: “We have no information about a submission.” proprietary but remarkable stand.