The owner who cannot be called: who is behind the bookmaker "Fonbet"

The inclusion of the largest network of the Fonbet bookmakers in the list of system -forming companies that will be the first to receive state support in a crisis, outraged everyone - even officials of the Ministry of Finance , according to the quota of which Fonbet was on the list, and today the investigation of this story threatened the Prosecutor General’s Office. From the new edition of the "Fonbet" list, the abyss must, but how he got there at all, remains a mystery. In search of an answer, The Bell studied the composition of the Fonbeta shareholders - and found a family of businessman Sergei Lalakin, who was called the head of the Podolsk organized crime group there.

Photo: TASS

What's happened

In anticipation of the inevitable crisis due to the coronavirus epidemic, the Russian government is more than three times-from 200 to 646 positions- expanded the list of system-forming companies. Inclusion in the list does not mean automatically receiving the state support company - but it opens up priority access to it. Gosbanks will conduct stress tests of companies, give them different risk categories, and the Ministry of Economy will then ask the government to help them in case of problems.

The list found many new participants from the consumer sector - for example, McDonald's, IKEA, Sportmaster and, of course, one of the catering companies associated with Putin's cook Evgeny Prigozhin. But the inclusion of Fonbet bookmakers in the list of the network of bookmakers. “I don’t know at all what it is and how it got. He asked to be excluded, ”the source in the Ministry of Finance, according to the quota of which Fonbet, fell into the list, commented then the news to the Russian service. “Most likely, the compilers, by misunderstanding, took into account the indicators of revenue and tax payments, without going in particular the type of company's activities. If the initiator was the Fonbet himself, it would be an ill -conceived step that really harmed their reputation, ”said Nikolai Oganuzov, chairman of the CCI of the Russian Federation, the chairman of the CCI of the Russian Federation for bookmakers and totalizers.

After the scandal erupted around the news, a source in the Ministry of Finance told Interfax that the ministry asked to exclude the company from the list. Today, the Ministry of Economy promised to change the criteria for getting on the list and publish a new version of April 17.

According to one of the participants in the bookmaker market, its participants took the inclusion of Fonbet in the list in hostility. It is difficult to imagine what resources the bookmaker should have in order to get there, he says. “The opinion is at least half of the market-we are against the inclusion of any gambling companies in the list of state support,” Oleg Davydov, the executive director of the first SRO, uniting part of bookmakers of the first time. The deputy leader of the marketing of the Liga Betting Bookmaker, Igor Stolyarov called the inclusion of Fonbet in the list “gesture, discrediting industry”.

On April 10, I also had to make excuses for inclusion in the list itself. The Izvestia newspaper published a complimentary interview with the general director of the network Alexander Paramonov, who stated that he himself was against the recognition of the system -forming company. “Our position is firm: the company should not be on the list of enterprises that may apply for state support,” Paramonov told Izvestia. The news of inclusion in the list became unexpected for him, the company did not apply to the state for help, he said.

Who owns "Fonbet"

Fonbet is one of the oldest Russian bookmakers. It was founded in 1994, chess player Anatoly Machulsky (died in 2017), a native of the gambling industry Vadim Sidorov and banker Andrei Rozov. In 2004, Fonbet was the first among Russian bookmakers to accept bets directly during the match - this was his main advantage over competitors, Forbes wrote. By 2013, Fonbet was the leader of the Russian bookmaker market with a revenue of more than 1 billion rubles.

In the same year, a criminal case was opened on the unidentified employees of Fonbet on the adoption of the then prohibited Internet starts. The company took searches with the defeat of the office. “They cut the office door with a grinder, smoke bombs even flew through the windows,” a former employee of the company recalled in a conversation with Vedomosti. The general director of Fonbet Igor Khokhlov was sentenced to two years conditionally, they closed the case - but the founders of Fonbet lost their shares in the company. In 2014, Maxim Kiryukhin, who had previously been the largest franchise of Fonbet, was the only founder of the company.

In December 2017, Fonbet shareholders were replaced again. Maxim Kiryukhin remained the chairman of the board of directors and the company's public person, but his share, according to SPARK, decreased to 8.67%. The rest of the shares were distributed between four new co-owners-65.5% went to the mysterious Cyprus offshore, 10%-businessman Sergei Tetruashvili, and another 8% with a small State Duma from the State Duma from the LDPR Stanislav Magomedov and the President of the Gring Academy (Boonsheuri's Sewe Care) Irina Borodina.

After the change of shareholders, the company increased several times over the year - according to the results of 2018, its revenue reached 24 billion rubles against 9.6 billion rubles a year earlier, and net profit - 9.2 billion rubles against 1.6 billion rubles. Data for 2019 has not yet been published.

Partners from Podolsk

The beneficiary of the 65% of Fonbet is hiding behind Cyprus companies, their main final owner is the nominal director-kiprot. The name of the real owner of this package is unknown to the overwhelming majority of the Bell top managers of bookmakers and people familiar with this business. The only one who stated that he knows the beneficiary of Fonbet, refused to call this name. Another interlocutor of The Bell in response to the question of who owns “Fonbet”, said “Podolsk”, but did not explain more in more detail.

8.33% of the head company "Fonbet", LLC "F.O.N." (it was she who entered the list of system-forming companies) belongs to the ex-deputy of the State Duma of the second convocation (1995-1999) from the LDPR, the former vice-president of the Moscow freestyle wrestling Federation Stanislav Magomedov.

In the 1990s, in addition to the deputy, Stanislav Magomedov lived in Dolgoprudny near Moscow and, according to the source of The Bell with access to personal data of Russians, worked in the Baltavtraid-M company registered there. But now Magomedov’s business is connected with the much richer Odintsovo district of the Moscow Region. He owns 40% of the company "Manor 150", which runs the real estate of the Bannaya Manor Banner in the village of Borki in Rublevka. By the phone indicated when registering the company in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, it was reported that this number belongs to a private person. By phone of the bath complex, they replied that until May 1 there was no opportunity to transfer questions to the founders.

In the bath complex, Stanislav Magomedov has an influential partner. Another 40% of the “Manor 150” belong to Maxim Lalakin-the son of one of the most famous authoritative entrepreneurs of the Moscow Region, in the 90s- the head of the Podolsk organized crime group and the honored participant in the criminal wars of the 90s, Sergei Lalakin, also known as “Luchok”. At Rublevka, in Gorki, Lalakina Jr. has a country house next to the family of the former leader of the Izmailovsky organized crime group Anton Malevsky, wrote Project.

Now Sergey Lalakin is a co -founder of the Union of Paratroopers of Podolsk (Odintsovo district), president of the Supervisory Board of the Podolsk football club "Vityaz" and the club of the same name of the sports martial arts, as well as the Podolsk Charitable Foundation "Heritage" (supports veterans, families of dead, boarding schools, orphanages, medical institutions). In 2007, Vladimir Putin awarded Lalakin to the medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” of the II degree. Lalakin-Sr. owns 11.23% in the IEK group, one of the largest manufacturers of electrical engineering in Russia, also registered in Podolsk. The annual turnover of the group is more than 10 billion rubles.

In connection with the Podolsky “Vityazh”, whose council was headed by Lalakin, Stanislav Magomedov was also mentioned : in 2018, he paid for training on the “Vityaz” football club “Anji” from his native Dagestan Magomedov, “New Gazeta” noted .

Fontanka wrote that in the 90s, Sergey Lalakin participated in the work of the Marathon bookmaker, created by Anatoly Machulsky, the founder of Fonbet, created by a “colleague in the chess shop” (his name).

Five shopping centers belong to the son of Lalakin, four of them in Podolsk, one in Zhukovsky. All of its assets are combined in the Styness investment-a-opera company (they did not respond to the Bell request).

Academy of Grumining and the gambling king

Another minority of Fonbeta (8% of LLC “F.O.N.”) is Irina Borodina, a co -owner of the Academy of Grung (carcass for hair and dog skin). The New Gazeta drew attention to the fact that Boncheri Borodina’s partner, general director of the Academy Liana Kobzeva, belongs to the share in the partnership of the owners of land plots Poles-2, registered in the village of Borki in Rublevka-where the bath complex of Stanislav Magomedov and Maxim Lalakin is located.

Borodina herself had ties with the gambling business. Borodina belongs to the share in the company "Nikolino", which is managing real estate in Dolgoprudny. Its second co-owner until 2015 was the company of businessman Igor Khodorkovsky-ex-owner of KSI, one of the largest manufacturers of gambling machine guns and software for them.

After the introduction of the ban on gambling in Russia in 2009, KSI continued to work abroad for some time, in particular, supplied machine guns to Colombia, wrote New Gazeta with reference to the transportation customs document. Khodorkovsky himself moved to Switzerland, where he developed new projects - for example, he invested 24 million Swiss francs in the construction of the Les Bains de la Gruyere entertaining center in the city of Sharmya, Kommersant wrote .

In Russia, Igor Khodorkovsky and his KSI partner Boris Koltsov, according to Kommersant , belonged to the Mikhalkovo estate, converted under the VIP-living room, and the Victoria children's gymnasium, located in the elite village of Gorki-2 on Rublevka.

At the Bonscheri Academy, a share of which Irina Borodina owned, they promised to give her questions from The Bell, but there were no answers.

The brother of the perfumer

The largest minority "Fonbeta" is Sergey Tetruashvili (owns 10% LLC "F.O.N."). There is almost nothing in Russian open sources about him - only a record that in 2017, shortly before becoming a shareholder of Fonbet, he registered in a Begovo region in the north of Moscow as a IP with a specialty management specialization, as well as records of trial with the developer of the Vnukovo residential complex, from which Tetruashvili demands 5 million rubles. The founder or manager of any other companies except "F.O.N." He was not in Russia.

But the famous entrepreneur in the 2000s was Sergey’s brother, David Tetruashvili, the founder of Brocard perfume stores who worked in Russia and Ukraine. David Tetruashvili sold his own networks for a long time-in 2007, Russian , in 2011, Ukrainian . The buyer of both was the Alcor holding (controls the L'Etual network).

Sergei Tetruashvili was associated with the Ukrainian Brocard - it was registered in the database of Ukrainian legal entities with the address of residence in Berlin as the owner of 80% Pavlovsky TD, owning the premises of the Brocard store on Pavlovskaya Square in Kharkov.

Now in Russia, David Tetruashvili belongs to only 1.25% in LLC Brokar Partyms, which is engaged in wholesale deliveries of perfumes. The remaining share belongs to the German company Brokard PartimC GmbH (according to the SPARK) headed by him.

In the 2000s, Brocard was the supplier of the Arbat-Pestizh network. In 2008, the network co-owner Vladimir Nekrasov was detained in Moscow on suspicion of tax evasion along with businessman Semen Mogilevich, who has been looking for the FBI since the beginning of the 2000s on suspicion of fraud, who called him the organizer of the largest international criminal network working in 27 countries. The Ukrainian special services associated Mogilevich with gas supplies to Ukraine. In 2011, the case against Nekrasov and Mogilevich was closed behind the lack of corpus delicti.

Bookmaker from Stavropol

The third minority shareholder of Fonbeta Maxim Kiryukhin (8.67% of LLC F.O.N.) until 2017 was the owner of a 100% network. Kiryukhin is more than all his partners connected with the bookmaker business, he gives comments as the chairman of the board of directors of Fonbet and is responsible for the operational management of the company. Kiryukhin every day comes to the Fonbet office in Moscow City exclusively accompanied by two guards of an impressive physique, says one of his neighbors on the Eye Tower.

The Kiryukhin page in Odnoklassniki states that he is from Stavropol, and lives in Moscow. In an interview with Forbes, the businessman said that in the 90s he was engaged in the publishing business and owned a network of gambling clubs and points of sale of lottery at his homeland in Stavropol, as well as in the Rostov region and the Krasnodar Territory, in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. Since 2008, according to him, he was the largest franchise of Fonbet, with 300 points, and from 2013 to 2017 - the only owner of the head of Fonbet, but as Kiryukhin became a co -founder of the company, he never told, and the interlocutors of The Bell in the bookmaker market say that no one understands how and under what conditions the transaction took place.

Kiryukhin, Magomedov and Borodina has a 25% package in another bookmaker company-Atlantic-M. The remaining 75% belong to the Cyprus Malfinio Ltd, which is controlled by IDEAMIA LTD. It is also indicated as a “secretary” in the constituent documents of the Cyprus company Vontade Ltd, which owns a control package in “F.O.N.”.

Atlantic-M submitted an application for registration of the Bettle trademark. There is no bookmaker with this name yet, but the Atlantic-M website already has the address Bettle.ru.

In February 2016, Atlantin-M (the telephone on the company’s website does not answer; by the phone indicated when registering in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, they report that they first hear about bookmakers) and “Fonbet” at the same time entered the new self-regulatory organization (SRO) of bookmakers, leaving the first SRO. The first time president Oleg Zhuravsky (died in 2017) expressed the opinion that there were personal reasons at the exit of companies from the SRO, without specifying the details. Then the bookmakers were divided into two organizations, because they were afraid of the monopolization of this market for the first time, headed by Zhuravsky, wrote Forbes.

Mysterious Cypriot

65.5% of the share of the head company "Fonbeta", LLC "F.O.N.", are registered with a Cyprus citizen Antonis Zernis (after 61.54% of Vontade in Cyprus Birus ) and several offshores. Cyprus firms were created specifically for the registration of the shares of new shareholders "F.O.N.": they were registered in 2017, after which they immediately entered the capital of the company. Another company of Zerelis, Rojus Ltd, according to local media, belongs to the share in the Fonbet branch in Kazakhstan.

From 2014 to 2017, Cyprit Zentalis headed the British Parimatch United Investments Limited - the British legal entity of the Parimatch international network, working in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Georgia. Since May 2019, the Russian representative office of Parimatch has been headed by the ex-Rambler ex-director Dmitry Sergeyev, who was responsible for the Russian franchise of the Bwin international bookmaker, which was developed by Mamut's structures.

There is another indirect connection between Fonbet and Rambler - the company is advised by the current management director of Rambler Maxim Tadevosyan, one of his acquaintances told The Bell. But the interlocutor of The Bell emphasizes the “Fonbet” connection with Rambler “indirect”, but did not hear about any connection between “phonbee” and “Parimatch”.

Dmitry Sergeyev told The Bell that Parimatch was in no way connected with either Rambler or Fonbet.

The Bell tried to contact the Fonbet press service, but the operators of the company’s call center to the persistent calls of the two correspondents of The Bell answered at different times that they did not hear anything. It was also not possible to transfer the questions through an external agency through an external agency, a day before, offering The Bell with the management of Fonbet.

With the participation of Valeria Pozchanyuk