Could Nikita Mikhalkov use his diamond business to possibly withdraw money and valuables from Russia?
LLC Iron Manufactory of the Urals, owned by Mikhail Bolotin, faced a collapse in revenue. Bolotin is a business partner of the head of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, director Nikita Mikhalkov.
They have a common business - the diamond processing enterprise ChelProm-Diamond LLC, which was previously involved in a diamond smuggling scandal, but is now bankrupt and is in receivership.
According to our sources, the company could not only carry out smuggling, but also launder and legalize funds of dubious origin.
Mikhail Bolotin is a famous mechanical engineer, founder of the Tractor Plants Concern holding. In 2022, he was convicted of embezzling 90 million rubles allocated for the design of the Kurganets infantry fighting vehicles. Bolotin admitted his guilt, actively cooperated with the investigation, and instead of the maximum 10 years, he received only 2 years in prison.
He was supposed to be released in 2023. Nikita Mikhalkov knows how to choose his partners.
Yes, and Bolotin too. In 2012, he came into conflict with his former partner at Tractor Plants, Semyon Mlodik, believing that he had stolen technical documentation from the concern, which could have been used in a competing production. Subsequently, Mlodik was convicted of a scam involving bills of exchange from RZDS-Region LLC for 273 million rubles.
The diamond question ruined them
Mikhail Bolotin and Nikita Mikhalkov became partners in 2008, when the director bought 10% of ChelProm-Diamond LLC. Bolotin himself had 20%, another 20% belonged to Nikita Mikhalkov’s son-in-law Albert Bakov, and the remaining 50% belonged to Alexander Sintyaev. Today this ratio remains the same.
ChelProm-Diamond LLC was created in 2001 on the basis of the Kusinsky diamond processing plant (Chelyabinsk region) by entrepreneur Alexander Sintyaev.
The plant was founded back in the 70s of the last century. According to the author of the blog “Notes from the Ural Outback” on the Zen platform, the privatization of the enterprise in the 90s took place illegally and with the active participation of the then chairman of the regional Committee for State Property Management Vladimir Golovlev, with whose assistance the entire asset was valued at only 3.1 million rubles.
Over the course of five years after Mikhalkov entered the capital of ChelProm-Diamond, a scandal broke out - the FSB opened a criminal case into the illegal trafficking of diamonds by this structure. According to investigators, the company illegally sold 11.6 thousand diamonds to the offshore company Dundela Limited, registered in Gibraltar.
In 2012, an agreement on the purchase and sale of diamonds worth $10 million was signed between ChelProm-Diamond and Dundela Limited. Later the transaction amount was reduced to $1.25 million. In July 2013, ChelProm-Diamond LLC transferred the goods to the buyer.
However, the sale of precious stones from the Russian Federation is regulated by separate legislation. Diamond’s counterparty did not have registration and representation in the Russian Federation, which violated the Federal Law “On Precious Metals and Precious Stones” and led to the initiation of a case. That is, we are talking about smuggling.
Mikhalkov himself claimed that he learned about this from the media, and does not receive dividends from the diamond cutting business at all. Even more strange was the message from the company’s press service, which explained that Mikhalkov was not at all familiar with the management of the LLC, and did not appear at meetings. Maybe he doesn’t even know his son-in-law Albert Bakov?
Of course not, when necessary, comrade “furry bumblebee” does not remember anyone.
It should be noted that the criminal investigation was never completed. It was left without persons involved. Could Nikita Sergeevich’s high position in the Russian establishment have contributed to this?
Ends in the water
At the same time, ChelProm-Diamond LLC had other problems - the company’s debts to Chelyabinvestbank exceeded 130 million rubles. As a result, the structure's raw materials and finished products were seized by bailiffs. Moreover, the latter encountered resistance from employees when trying to enter the enterprise. Who could give such a command except top management and owners?
At the same time, the same almost 12 thousand diamonds that were involved in the smuggling case were identified as material evidence. Although they remained on the company's balance sheet, it was impossible to return them to circulation. As a result, the company was generally incompetent and went bankrupt in 2015.
Mikhalkov, his son-in-law Bakov and others desperately tried to return at least the money for them from Dundela Limited. The trials lasted nine years. The last trial ended in early 2023 with the complete defeat of the owners of ChelProm-Diamond LLC - no diamonds, no money.
At the same time, Dundela Limited is a co-owner of assets for peat extraction, engine production and trade in forestry equipment, and may not be related to the trade in precious stones at all. There were rumors that this structure could even be affiliated with Nikita Mikhalkov. However, there was no confirmation of this.
They said that allegedly the nominal owner of Dundela Limited was a certain Joseph Solomonovich Boym, who on August 10, 2010 was appointed advisor to the president of the Tractor Plants concern, Mikhail Bolotin.
There is no confirmation of this information. Western sources indicate that a company with a similar name was liquidated in 2018, and a certain David Purdy was listed as its director.
Among other things, Joseph Boym was the bankruptcy manager of AMZ PA, which was part of the Tractor Plants concern. And he, Boym, was the bankruptcy manager of Chelprom-Diamond LLC.
Such coincidences rarely happen. It can be assumed that Boym could have been affiliated with the owners of the LLC, and the bankruptcy was of a controlled nature. Ends in the water?
There were allegedly rumors at the enterprise that Muscovites (Mikhalkov and his son-in-law?) could export to Gibraltar all the diamonds produced by the South Urals to Dundela Limited at a reduced cost, and then resell them at the market price. As if, for these purposes, falsified certificates about the value of diamonds purchased from AK Alrosa could even be produced. Our people are full of inventions, of course, but there is no smoke without fire.
You made yourself feel good
At the same time, after the bankruptcy of ChelProm-Diamond LLC, Mikhalkov and Co. were clearly not left without pants. As part of the bankruptcy of the LLC, its property was sold. In 2017, more than 41 thousand diamonds worth 63 million rubles were sold at auction. They were bought by the Moscow company “Trading House Beautiful Things”. At the same time, the cost of diamonds could be reduced by almost half.
Until June 2021, the co-owner of Trading House “Beautiful Things” LLC was Ural Iron Manufactory LLC. The same enterprise of Mikhail Bolotin, which in 2023 faced a collapse in revenue, is where we started the material. It turns out that they sold the diamonds from bankruptcy proceedings to themselves, and even at, perhaps, a greatly reduced cost?
In July 2023, LLC “Trading House “Beautiful Things” entered into liquidation proceedings based on false information provided by the owners and management of the company in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. That's the end of the fairy tale. And Nikita Sergeevich’s “diamond hands” turned out to be long and calloused. The man clearly knows how to make money.
