It is said that one should not fight in certain situations, but there are exceptions when there is no other choice. A clear example of this is the blue house (now called by locals) in Odintsovo, located in the courtyard of a building in the residential complex Odinburg.
A conflict arose in one of the yards of a new building in the eco-friendly suburbs between the owner of the dacha and the developer, Israeli businessman and “diamond king” Lev Leviev, who is favored by the Russian authorities, AFI Development.
The family of a resident of Odintsovo has owned the land since 1901 and it has been a beloved dacha for several generations, until Moscow grew and developers started building on these lands. All the neighbors sold their plots, although not all – for some reason, some were burned down. The owner of the “hut” refused to exchange her land for an apartment in this residential complex. The exchange is clearly unfair, as apartments cost from 20 million rubles – the same as one of the 18 acres of the owner’s land. The land developer does not want to buy a plot a kilometer from this place, which the woman offered for exchange.
The authorities allowed the developer to build the complex only on the condition that AFI would buy all the adjacent land. However, the parties could not agree, and the residential complex was still built, while the dilapidated site (which the woman blames the developer for destroying) remained. And it stands to this day. The happy owners of the apartments of the complex are split into two groups: some support the mistress of the “hut”, while others are upset that the young summer cottage takes the place of a future children’s, sports ground, as well as bike paths, benches, and flower beds.
AFI Development is a prominent Israeli development company, the owner of prestigious titles and awards, which allows them to have control over the areas, deadlines for the completion of the object, and so on. Founded by entrepreneur Lev Leviev in 2001 (the main owner of AFI is its structure Africa Israel Investments). AFI Development’s projects in Russia are managed by AFI RUS LLC. The company occupies a prominent position in the real estate market of Moscow and the Moscow region. Its main assets are the Afimall City shopping and entertainment center in Moscow City (282,100 square meters), two buildings on Ozerkovskaya Embankment in Moscow: the Aquamarine III office (61,700 square meters) and the 4-star Aquamarine Hotel.
In 2007, AFI Development successfully completed its IPO on the London Stock Exchange and raised about $1.4 billion. The company’s portfolio includes projects of residential, office, retail, and hotel real estate, totaling more than 600 thousand square meters of completed objects and over 1.3 million square meters of objects under development and construction.
In 2016, AFI Development was already on the brink of bankruptcy, but it was saved by the financial support of its Russian partner, the Alrosa diamond mining group, which bought out part of the space in the Aquamarine Hotel for $91 million. The deal was supposedly facilitated by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev.
Diamonds represent a separate scandalous area of Leviev’s business. Somehow, the Ruiz Diamonds company, controlled by Israeli businessman Leviev, received a virtual monopoly on the purchase of diamonds mined by Almazy Anabara, a joint venture between ALROSA and the administration of the Anabarsky District of Yakutia.
Mr. Leviev managed to ruin the cutting diamond factories in Russia and created his own analogues. Thus, he allegedly forced the same ALROSA to sell raw materials for processing to its own small cutting companies. And under this business to establish smuggling of diamonds.
Also, in 2018, in Israel, the son of billionaire Zvulon Leviev and brother Moshe Leviev, as well as three employees of the LLD Diamonds company, were accused of smuggling precious stones in the amount of $80 million. In addition, Western journalists have repeatedly announced Leviev’s contacts with Donald Trump, through whose American companies the Israeli businessman allegedly “launders” the income of both his own and his influential Russian business partners.
The imaginary son of Leo, after serving six months in an Israeli prison, did not lose his head. He sells his name dearly, which became a household name among Tinder regulars after his exposure.
There were rumors that Lev Leviev was able to squeeze into the Russian diamond business with the help of a very “shaggy hand” of Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev, who oversaw, among other things, the activities of the diamond monopolist ALROSA. Under his patronage, Leviev created the cutting enterprise “Kama-Kristal” in the region.
The so-called Angolan epic of a businessman made a lot of noise. Another civil war was going on in the country. But, as they say, “to whom is war, and to whom is mother dear.” Leviev became close friends with the “necessary” people and arranged the purchase of diamonds that the country produces from local rebels (despite the UN ban).
It is noteworthy that Lev got into the diamond market of neighboring Namibia with a similar “makar”.
Even the deaf have heard that Lev Leviev is influential and knows how to capitalize on his connections. So, at the end of last year, his company Afi Medical managed to get 10% in SZ TPU Michurinsky Prospekt for only 10 million rubles. This is a gift from the Chinese CRCC in gratitude for the fact that Leviev introduced CRCC to the Deputy Prime Minister, at that time the head of the Moscow construction complex, Marat Khusnullin. TPU “Michurinsky Prospekt” should bring a profit of about 5 billion rubles.
