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The Russia Man BYLINE TIMES PODCAST

Episode notes

This time we’re delving deep into a brilliant Byline Times exclusive revealing that a businessman with ties to Roman Abramovich and two other sanctioned Russian oligarchs had close contact with senior MP’s and peers in the Houses of Parliament.

Sergey Bratukhin, known in the West as Sergey Young, was one of the founding members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Longevity, chaired by Conservative MP Damian Green. 

Adrian Goldberg hears from Iain Campbell - the journalist who broke the story - and editor Sam Bright.

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A HIGH PROFILED PUTIN CRONY AND A “LAUNDROMAT” LINKED COMPANY IN THE OSLO PORT

The vessel RIX STREAM, IMO 9111125, a general cargo ship sailing under Cyprus flag, is owned by the Latvian company RIX SHIPMANAGEMENT SIA, a company owned by Andrey Naumenko. Naumenko and some of his shipping companies are profiled in Paradise Papers, and is linked to several other RIX-companies, and of those that for this case is more interesting is the UK LLP companies Naumenko is linked to; RIX SHIPPING AND CHARTERING LLP and SILVERSTAR NETWORKS LLP.

These two UK companies have a common denominator; some of the controlling companies of several “laundromat” companies are very well-known over the last 10 years:

IRELAND & OVERSEAS ACQUISITIONS LIMITED

MILLTOWN CORPORATE SERVICES LIMITED

INTRAHOLD AG

MONOHOLD AG

For Norwegians, maybe the most well-known case is the Seadrill sale of the West Juno rig, where the UK company HIGHWAY INVESTMENT PROCESSING LLP (“controlled” by IRELAND & OVERSEAS ACQUISITIONS, MILLTOWN CORPORATE SERVICES, ASTARTA INC, PILON INC, all offshore companies), which was an intermediary in a money laundering and corruption scheme involving Seadrill, West Juno and CHERNOMORNOEFTEGAZ.

Companies such as IRELAND & OVERSEAS ACQUISITIONS, MILLTOWN CORPORATE SERVICES , INTRAHOLD and MONOHOLD are also linked to several front persons, or “proxies”, some of the most well-known linked to these companies are Latvian Erik Vanagels and Stan Gorin, as well as Juri Vitman and Danny Banger. These companies and proxies “controls” hundreds of other front companies that has been involved in different money laundering, sanction evasion, corruption, illegal arms trade all over the world.

RIX has had these companies previously registered as Directors of Naumenko´s companies. In addition, they separately have other “laundromat” companies linked to them. SILVERSTAR has UNIWELL INC and TALLBERG LTD, and RIX has PRIMECROSS INC and FORMOND INC, also linked to money laundering, tax evasion, corruption, illegal arms trade and fraud schemes all over the world.

RIX STREAM route has been from Ventspils in Latvia to Oslo, what they are shipping is unclear, however, a company with this history should be subject for scrutiny both by banks and enforcements. Scrutiny of RIX STREAM from Norwegian enforcement has to wait, the company is already on its way and recently in the Danish port Frederiksværk.

Source: Marinetraffic.com

Another RIX group ship, RIX RIVER, IMO 9065948 is still in Norway at the moment, but on its way out from the port of Mo i Rana.

Source: Marinetraffic.com

Putin´s crony

The Russian vessel RUISH 2, IMO 9317016, is owned by the Russian company VOLGA SHIPPING which is part of VOLGAFLOT. VOLGA is owned by the Russian oligarch Vladimir Lisin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and one of the richest in Russia and maybe most known as the beneficial owner of NMLK.

Lisin was also named on the “Putin List” that the US Treasury published in 2018, many on this list are today sanctioned by the US. Lisin is also an associate of US sanctioned Oleg Deripaska, and other high profiled Russian individuals such as the Cherney brothers and oligarchs such as Iskander Makhmudov through TRANS WORLD GROUP “TWG”. Makhmudov recently got Norwegian headlines when the Norwegian company BERGEN ENGINES was about to be acquired by the Russian company TRANSMASHHOLDING, which is linked to Makhmudov.

Vladimir Lisin has also been Chairman and Director of the Russian UNITED SHIPBUILDING CORPORATION, which is sanctioned by the US. Member of the Board of UNITED SHIPBUILDING CORPORATION, and Deputy Minister of Defence, Alexey Krivoruchko, who is also sanctioned by the US, is a former business partner of Iskander Makhmudov as former co-owners of KALASHNIKOV CONCERN, also a US sanctioned entity.

Lisin is also reported to has/have stakes in the US sanctioned CHERNOMORNOEFTEGAZ (also CHORNOMORNAFTOGAZ). To add a final note to this, SEADRILL and the sale of the West Juno rig to HIGHWAY INVESTMENT PROCESSING LLP mentioned above in this post, is linked to CHERNOMORNONEFTEGAZ as the West Juno rig was supplied to them.

Source: Marinetraffic.com

Learning points from this?

With international shipping, Norway is not only exposed to risk outside Norway, any NORWEGIAN financial institution that have customers that are doing business with RIX and or VOLGA SHIPPING, should scrutinize these payments and request underlying documents supporting the transactions.

DISCLAIMER: Information in this post is based on open source information, available to anyone to verify or dispute. Deviating information can occur. I don’t accuse any of the companies and or individuals in this post of wrongdoing Assessment and conclusions of findings is to anyone for themselves to make. This post is merely for information sharing.