Did you know that Alfa-Bank JSC uses offshore companies to avoid Russian trading laws, move money abroad, trick the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, and earn illegal money from bad loans, all with the help of corrupt judicial authorities?

Mikhail Fridman – from Amsterdam to Magadan

JSC “Alfa-Bank “ Mikhail Fridman still doesn't start deoffshorization and habitually uses a large structure of offshore companies, mainly created in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands. The skilled Cypriot fiduciary registrar company ABACUS, owned by individuals close to Alfa-Bank, is coordinating the creation of the offshore network. It also provides nominee directors and its address for registering legal entities. Russian courts pretend not to realize that the directors are nominees, and all companies are registered at the same offshore mass registration address controlled by the same ABACUS company.

During auctions to sell debtors' property, Alfa-Bank JSC mainly uses two technical companies: Sotsinvestproekt LLC and Garda Kom LLC. The latter was registered later and is used more.

The CEO of Garda Com LLC is Alexander Baktimirov, former head of Alfa-Bank’s collateral department. In 2010, he claimed that Alfa-Bank was “forced” to use this very cheap appraisal company's services. Interestingly, its “expert” opinion actually legalized the undervalued initial sale value of very attractive properties.

Externally, Garda Kom LLC doesn't represent much. The company doesn't even have its own website. However, it organizes auctions and exclusively serves Alfa-Bank JSC.

By the way, Garda Kom LLC belongs to the Cypriot company Postiaco Limited.

Following a developed and fairly predictable scheme, Alfa-Bank, bypassing the law, purchases the assets of companies in various regions of Russia. This is not accidental – as the local banking regulator in the Netherlands has long restricted the banking license of AMSTERDAM TRADEBANK owned by Fridman to almost the minimum level of banking services. The bank can only work with residents of the Netherlands and is not allowed to accept deposits from them, only issue loans. All international activities of this bank have long been banned, and the bank attempts to make at least intra-group offshore payments. In Ukraine, the cover for the local Jewish community also failed – the Ukrainian Alfa-Bank was naturally transferred under the control of denominations independent of the oligarch at the request of the local regulator, moving away from gray schemes.

A few years ago, Fridman hired top managers from the sanctioned VTB (new control over the bank under the old sign). It's becoming increasingly difficult for him to continue to represent VTB in international business (since the official takeover of Alfa-Bank by VTB forces did not happen, they agreed to play a front game in the hope that Alfa-Bank would finally be bought out, and life in London would become more expensive). This leaves Friedman and Co. with no choice but to target small and medium-sized businesses and “vacuum” their assets, as the international scale of schematosis becomes more difficult to accomplish.

These are some examples that Independent Offshore Investigations got from our sources:

Mikhail Fridman a scheme in Kuzbass

Krasnobrodsky Yuzhny LLC, a coal mining company, was declared bankrupt in December 2019 at the request of Alfa-Bank JSC (case No. A27-9400/2019).

Draizen LLC, registered at an address in Cyprus (ABACUS – Themistokli Dervi, 5, ELENION BUILDING, zip code 1066, Nicosia, Cyprus), initially bought the complex LLC Krasnobrodsky Yuzhny for 386.6 million rubles and later acquired the mine property for 70 million rubles, even though it was valued at 172 million rubles.

Alfa-Bank JSC says that the company taking part in the auction is not connected to them, as many other companies are registered at that address.

“Attack” on “E4”

Similar tactics were used in the bankruptcy of the E4 Group, which was founded by the former Minister of the Open Government, Mikhail Abyzov.

E4 Group, a Joint-Stock Company, was declared bankrupt in October 2016. Laert LLC paid off the debts of E4 Group from various creditors, including Binbank (secured by the pledge of shares of JSC NPO CKTI), and became a pledge creditor with a total debt of 251,697,766.14 rubles.

As a pledgee, Laert LLC approved the Regulations on the sale of real estate and in January 2018, Garda Kom LLC, established a year earlier, was chosen as the auction organizer. Despite objections from the creditors, the court did not change the Regulations and the auction went ahead as planned.

The same situation occured with the sale of shares of OAO NPO CKTI. During the auction in January 2018, only the “necessary” participants, A.V. Melnikov and Dryada M LLC, were allowed to take part.

Those wanting to join the auction were unable to transfer the security deposit to the organizer. Payments to the account of LLC “Garda Com” in “Alfa-Bank” were repeatedly returned with the message “The recipient’s account is blocked for crediting.” The FAS found a violation of procedures, but the arbitration court ruled that everything was in order because A.V. Melnikov and Dryada-M LLC had accepted security payments.

A.V. Melnikov is the founder and managing partner of the Law Office of St. Petersburg “Glavnaya Bukva”, which states on their website: “We are the general representative of JSC “ALFA-BANK” in the judiciary.” He is also the founder of ALFA-COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE LLC and ALFA-SECURITY LLC.

LLC “Driada-M” is also not a random company. Its sole member, Kupalinka Limited, is located at the same address as the sole founder of LLC Garda Com (Postiaco Limited) and the sole member of LLC Laert (Hipwire Limited). Dryada-M LLC is associated with Rovera Investments Limited, which, in turn, is linked to Rimatek LLC and Timiryazevskoye CJSC, known for their involvement in bankruptcy cases related to Alfa-Bank JSC. This includes the auction of the property of Arvi NPK, CJSC Maminykh Volzhsky Diesel, and LLC Stellit which was organized by Garda Kom LLC.

Mikhail Fridman and Chaos in St. Petersburg

In February 2020, the property of Avtotsentr Laura-Kupchino LLC, which was pledged to Alfa-Bank JSC, was sold at auction. The organizer of the auction is Garda Kom LLC. All the same East Finance Group LLC (a subsidiary of Apirateno Limited and a sister company to Draizen LLC), as well as Lion Trade LLC, owned by Panolia Holdings Limited from Cyprus, are admitted to trading.