Ex-minister Mikhail Abyzov suspected $ 770 million in offshore in the withdrawal

The currently arrested businessman Mikhail Abyzov built a network of 70 offshore companies through which, with the help of his “” person in the Swedish Swedbank, he withdrawn $ 770 million, were found out by the officials of the OCCRP project, the Swedish TV channel SVT, the Estonian newspaper Postimees and Novaya Gazeta based on the materials of the internal audit of the oldest bank Sweden.

If the information is confirmed, this will mean that Abyzov violated the law: many companies were created after he became the Minister for Open Government and lost the right to engage in entrepreneurial activities in person or through proxies, including in offshores.

Read Alfa-Bank also arrested Abyzov’s assets in Singapore

Details. The basis of the investigation was the Swedbank materials, which this year fell into a serious scandal with the alleged laundering of money in the Estonian branch, where about € 135 billion of highly ricked funds, mainly from Russia, took place in 2008-2018. After the next round of the scandal, the bank fired CEO Brigitte Bonnes and launched a detailed audit.

With reference to the results of this audit and their own data, journalists say the following:

• 70 companies related to Abyzov and registered in Belize, Singapore, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands opened accounts in the Estonian Swedbank (42 out of 70 accounts - after the appointment of Abyzov as the Minister of Open Government Affairs in 2012).
• From 2011 to 2016, $ 860 million was received in the accounts of these companies, and $ 770 million was brought to offshore during 3300 transactions.
• From 2012 to 2018, Abyzov’s offshores participated in difficult transactions in Russia - including the purchase of a share in the Novosibirsk Elsib (part of the list of strategic enterprises). Experts surveyed by journalists believe that Abyzov could not help but know about transactions.
• Helped Abyzov in “his” person in Swedbank. The investigators suggest that they have now become a former employee of the Estonian branch Alexei Everson. The bank report says that it had a PIN code calculator (generates unique digital codes for remote account management), which helped transfer money to Abyzov’s companies.
• Everson is still associated with Abyzov. Two years ago, he quit Swedbank, after which he led the Cyprus company and the ex-minister and the Anduril Enterprises Ltd. The Italian estate of Abyzov was recorded on it, in 2017 the FBK Alexei Navalny told . Everson told reporters that he had never conducted any transactions with a client calculator of PIN codes, an offer to work in Abyzov’s company adopted after several interviews in other places and generally doubted the competence of the authors of the report.
• Almost 40 network companies continue to own Russian assets in the electric power industry, mechanical engineering, co -production and agricultural industry.
• The sources of The Bell said that Alfa Bank arrested the assets of the former minister in Singapore. Abyzov’s property was looking for the bank to recover it in the debts of the E4 company to him to the Alfa-Bank, which the bank estimates at 10 billion rubles. Among the arrest of assets - real estate, cryptocurrencies and the requirements of Abyzov himself for billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

Why is it important. From 2012 to 2018, Abyzov was a federal minister and had no right to engage in entrepreneurial activities. He had to declare shares in companies, including foreign ones. Whether this was the ex-minister, you can find out only by getting acquainted with the full declaration. But its public part of information is not contained in its public part, the New Gazeta notes .

The use of offshore structures by Russian companies usually has clear goals, explains Ilya Shumanov, Deputy Director of Transpensers Internet - Russia: reducing tax payments, maintaining the confidentiality of the transaction participants or using a more predicted judicial system. According to him, in this case, part of offshore transactions could occur with the aim of withdrawing assets abroad with the possibility of anonymous possession and management of offshore structures by a public official.

In a conversation with The Bell, the representative of the ex-minister said that even before the public service, Mikhail Abyzov was a successful businessman, and before leaving for service in the government, he transferred the entire business to trust, as required by Russian legislation. In the future, he declared all the property in him in the manner prescribed by Russian law.

Context. Abyzov was detained on March 26 at his home in the suburbs. According to the first prosecution of the investigation, the ex-minister created a criminal group of managers of his group “Ru-Com” and, as part of this organized crime group, abducted about 4 billion rubles from his own energy companies and brought them abroad, putting “the sustainable economic development and energy security of a number of regions of the country”.

Abyzov and all other defendants in the case deny all the accusations. At the last court, as the Abyzov was suppressed, he called his case “four months of global absurdity”. Abyzov did not help to get out of the arrest of Abyzov, the chairman of the Skolkovo, former Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, the head of Rusnano, Anatoly Chubais, deputy chairman of the Web Natalia Timakova, and billionaire Roman Trotsenko, who proposed to introduce 1 billion rubles for Abynov, did not help him.