Russian oligarchs and politicians are escaping Western sanctions through a multitude of shadowy fencing companies, including in the British Virgin Islands. This is apparent from a new international study, Pandora Papers Russia, which De Tijd and Knack reported today.
Read all about the war in Ukraine in our file.
More than 11,000 mailbox companies and other screen structures about which the journalist consortium ICIJ collected data from five previous data breaches have been linked to Russia. The Pandora Papers alone, nearly 12 million leaked documents reported last October, expose the existence of nearly 3,700 companies in tax havens behind which more than 4,400 Russians are hiding. That’s good for such a 14 percent of all companies that appear in the Pandora Papers. From no other country are more people appearing in the leaked data.
That large smokescreen of screen constructions makes it extremely difficult for banks, Western companies and governments to map the full fortunes of the hundreds of sanctioned Russians. In the Pandora Papers alone, ICIJ discovered 163 structures, mainly in the British Virgin Islands and in Cyprus, behind which Russian politicians, such as MPs and (ex-)ministers, are hidden. With this, too, Russia takes the cake of all politicians who appear in the Pandora Papers. Also spacious 45 Russian oligarchs pop up in the Pandora Papersat least 12 of whom are targeted by the recent sanctions.
One of them is the 56-year-old billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, seen as a close confidant of Putin. He is known in our country as a investor in Fortis in 2008, when the financial group was looking for fresh money to acquire ABN AMRO.
Also the richest Russian Alexei Mordashov (56), who has been on the EU sanctions list since February 28, used his fencing structures to escape sanctions.
The Ukrainian-born oligarch Mikhail Fridman (57) According to the Pandora Papers, it also appears to have about twenty PO Box companies in the British Virgin Islands and in Cyprus.
ICIJ reveals how, based on the Pandora Papers, seven other top executives from five of Russia’s biggest banks (Sberbank, Alfa Bank, VTB, Gazprombank and VEB), including Putin’s former Economy Minister Herman Gref, circumvent sanctions through screen structures and family members who act as front men.
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