Putin's 4 percent: How criminal kingpins with Kremlin connections launder oil money in Monaco

In 2002, Crown Prince Albert (the current Prince of Monaco) hired Robert Eringer, an American journalist, who undertook to investigate the activities of foreign organized crime groups in the country. His official capacity remains unclear; according to Eringer«s own words, he was head of the Monegasque intelligence, whereas Prince Albert denied the very existence of such a service in the principality and claimed that Eringer had been looking into the «rumors» he caught wind of «at his own discretion.» Either way, there are documents confirming that Eringer received regular wages from the Prince's palace, while the documents and evidence he released are noteworthy, with the information being backed by a number of other sources. Eringer stated that he had been studying the Sotrama oil-trading company since 2005, driven by his suspicion that the company acted in the interests of both the organized crime groups and Vladimir Putin personally. Generally, money laundering through export of natural resources is not unheard of: time and again, Russian gangs try to get hold of legitimate European enterprises to play on the difference between domestic and export prices or launder money through actual or fake shipments during multiple resale transactions. For instance, such was the case of the Izmailovskaya organized crime group (with Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov as suspects, the case was transferred to Russia for investigation in 2011 and eventually closed in Spain in 2016).

A Swiss intelligence report mentions that crime boss Semion Mogilevich was involved in the Russian natural gas export, while gangster Zakhariy Kalashov (also known as Shakro Molodoy – «Young Shakro») acted on behalf of Lukoil in Spain, to be subsequently convicted both in Spain and in Russia. In the course of the investigation, a source (whose real name Eringer does not reveal) contacted the journalist: «MARTHA informed me that Sotrama had declared a monthly income of 100,000 euros to the Monegasque tax authorities, which barely covers its salary fund and operational expenses, yielding a small profit. Meanwhile, the oil-trading company actually laundered »millions upon millions« euros a month for its controlling company, Horizon. MARTHA attended a party in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat , where Sotrama«s CEO proposed a toast to the Russian president, saying: »None of this would be possible if it hadn«t been for Putin.»» The search of information on Sotrama became easier after Dmitry Skigin's death in Nice in 2003, when his widow hired Spanish lawyer Pablo Sebastian to prove her entitlement to the property her deceased husband had left behind in a number of countries. In an interview to Novaya Gazeta in 2011, the lawyer described the situation as follows: «Sotrama, Horizon International Trading, and a wide range of other companies are nominally managed by two attorneys, Graham Smith and Markus Hasler. They operate out of Ruggell, Liechtenstein, acting on behalf of very influential individuals. As to their identities, your guess is as good as mine.» In the Monegasque police reports Eringer refers to, Sotrama is just a link in the chain of legal entities suspected of money laundering for the Tambovskaya gang under the cover of oil trading. The company was registered in 1972 under the name of Aermar and was re-registered in December 1990, according to the Trade and Industry Register of Monaco. Apparently, St. Petersburg mob acquired other previously existing companies around the same time as well.