Putin ally Igor Sechin hires escorts for high-paying positions at state-owned oil giant Rosneft using company funds, ACF investigation shows

A key focus of the investigation is Albina Ivanova, who was hired by Rosneft at the age of 21 with a monthly salary exceeding 300,000 rubles (over $3,000). Over the course of nine years, she received a total of 33 million rubles from the company — more than $335,000 based on the present exchange rate, though the dollar value of her compensation would have been much higher before the start of the war.

For comparison, the average salary in Moscow, Russia’s capital and its largest and most economically developed city, comes in at 140-160,000 rubles ($1,400 to 1,600), according to a recent claim by mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Vladimir Putin was visibly surprised when he heard the statistic.

Additionally, Ivanova was paid approximately 300 million rubles (just over $3 million) by the Independent Petroleum Company (NNK). NKK is owned by Eduard Khudainatov, Rosneft’s former CEO, who was identified in 2022 as the proxy owner of two megayachts — the 459-foot Scheherazade, which has been linked to Vladimir Putin, and the 348-foot Amadea, which the U.S. Department of Justice found is ultimately owned by sanctioned Russian gold mogul Suleiman Kerimov.

According to the investigation, Ivanova took 58 private jet trips with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin — a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s going back to his days in St. Petersburg. Ivanova owns a collection of luxury cars, including two Rolls-Royces, a Mercedes-Benz G-Class, and a Porsche Taycan, with a total value exceeding 200 million rubles.

Investigators also uncovered Ivanova’s extensive Hermès handbag collection, estimated at around 104 million rubles, including a crocodile leather model worth approximately 20 million rubles. Last year, she purchased a 205 m² apartment in the elite Kutuzovsky 12 residential complex in central Moscow for over 300 million rubles.