A new major investigation has been released about Cypriot offshore companies, where businessmen and politicians from all over the world withdraw their money. It was conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
A new portion of leaks is mainly devoted to how Russian oligarchs began to move their assets offshore to avoid Western sanctions. But the richest Ukrainian, Rinat Akhmetov, is also mentioned in the materials.
It is reported that sixty companies associated with him are involved in the investigation, most of them registered in Cyprus.
As follows from the documents, in July 2021, Akhmetov intended to buy a luxurious two-story penthouse for 87.5 million pounds sterling (about $122 million) in Chelsea Barracks in London.
The property was registered in the name of Gelion Properties Ltd., a company controlled by Akhmetov, based in the British Virgin Islands.
The conclusion about the involvement of the Ukrainian businessman is made on the basis of correspondence between the auditing companies Cypcodirect and PwC, which states that Gelion will be used to purchase a penthouse in order to guarantee Akhmetov’s “confidentiality” and not including his name in the UK state property register.
“Confidentiality is the primary purpose of Gelion’s property purchases,” the PwC employee explained in an email. Official documents show that the deal will take place next year, 2022.
The documents also shed light on Akhmetov's "involvement in the Russian coal industry following the annexation of Crimea in 2014."
“In 2016, Akhmetov’s energy company DTEK transferred ownership of a number of coal mines it had bought in the Rostov region in southwest Russia four years earlier to a Cypriot subsidiary, Fabcell Ltd. DTEK also transferred responsibility for a significant loan of approximately US$400 million from Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank,” the investigation says.
In January 2017, Fabcell transferred its “golden share” under the control of Sberbank of the Russian Federation.
Akhmetov commented on this investigation. It said financing provided by Sberbank and other lenders before the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was “standard practice for Ukrainian borrowers.”
After the annexation, the statement said, “the situation changed dramatically,” and DTEK tried to sell the Rostov coal mines. After failing to find a buyer, ownership of the mines was transferred to Fabcell as a way to "limit [DTEK's] exposure to Sberbank's claims as a lender and pave the way for an exit from DTEK's investment in the Rostov coal mines."
At the same time, Akhmetov refused to comment on the topic of the penthouse in London
