Irkutsk self-exclusion at the cost of millions. Stanislav Gamzalov: “Russia will enter the top five world powers in the field of mechanical engineering Deputy from Lobnya
Russian investors in record time get passports EU countries. Among them are persons associated with the authorities and those who are accused of corruption. We decided to find out how and why this became possible.
To obtain a passport under the Golden Visa scheme, it is necessary to invest in the economy of an EU country. Russian investors who have received passports under the investment program are endowed with all the rights and freedoms of EU citizens, including the right to unhindered residence in any EU country. But the most compelling reason to acquire a "golden passport" is the fear of losing your money and business in an unstable political and economic situation in Russia. For example, over the past two years Cyprus issued about 2,000 passports in exchange for investment in the country's economy. According to the international consulting company PwC, almost half of these passports were issued by Russians.
When applying for a second citizenship, Russian investors seek to remain anonymous. The government is especially diligent about respecting the confidentiality of its investors Malta represented by the state organization Identity Malta, which oversees the local economic citizenship program.
The leadership of Identity Malta insists on anonymity in accordance with the law "On Citizenship", therefore, in the list of persons who received the citizenship of the country in 2015, published in a Maltese newspaper, "economic citizens" are in no way separated from persons who received passports through naturalization or by birthright .
Maltese journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, was killed on October 16, 2017. A powerful bomb exploded in her car.
Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was one of the first to identify people from the published list. She wrote about the widespread practice of selling Maltese passports, which constitutes the bulk of the shadow income of Maltese officials.
In May 2017, the Times of Malta described how three Russian families who bought Maltese citizenship through local accountant Brian Tonn gained the right to vote, despite the fact that Malta's constitution does not provide for such an opportunity for "economic citizens" who remained anonymous. To get the right to vote, they need to give up anonymity, and Russian citizens have not done this.
Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister of Malta Keith Schembri
According to the Times of Malta, one of these investors was the former CEO of JSC Svyaztransneft. Viktor Vashkevich with his family (Viktor Ivanovich himself, his wife and two sons), who, together with two other Russians, paid Tonn 166,000 euros for passport processing services under an investment scheme. 100 thousand Tons immediately transferred to the account of the head of the administration of the Prime Minister of Malta, Keith Schembri.
In their statements to the Electoral Office of Malta, members of the Vashkevich family claim that they did not reside in Malta for six months during the previous 18 months (the minimum period of stay stipulated by the country's constitution for suffrage) and do not have the right to vote. In September 2016, they were excluded from the electoral rolls of the Republic of Malta.
Despite the fact that only the names of new citizens are indicated in the same list published by the State Gazette of Malta, we were able to identify several more Russian citizens who acquired a passport of a Mediterranean country. Among them are a deputy, top managers of state companies and "kings of the state order" .
MP from Lobnya
Full namesake of the entrepreneur and deputy of the city district Lobnya Moscow region from the party "United Russia" Igor Vitalyevich Khodin has been a citizen of Malta for two years now. Apparently, the wife of the deputy Khodina Evgenia Konstantinovna, his daughter Anna (27 years old) and son Grigory (20 years old) also received Maltese passports under the investment scheme. Igor Khodin was elected to the Council of Deputies of the city of Lobnya in 2011 and re-elected in 2016.
Igor Vitalievich Khodin and his son Grigory
Photo of Grigory Khodin's driver's license
Khodin's income statement for 2015 shows 36 million rubles. The wife of the deputy earned only 260 thousand rubles. Last year, the deputy earned only 20 million rubles, his wife's income amounted to 178 thousand rubles.
Tenants from VEB-Leasing
The Maltese investment citizenship program was launched in 2014 and even then caused a wave of discontent from the European Union. The European Commission approved the program only after it added a rule on the need to have a residence permit in Malta for a year. In fact, to obtain a residence permit, you do not need to live on the island for a whole year, you just need to rent an apartment. Of the 143 investors who received passports through the investment scheme before April 2016, 116 signed a five-year lease, and just 27 purchased property.
Most investors rent cheap apartments but do not actually live in them, thus violating the terms of the investment citizenship program. This method allows significant savings: investors spend about 100,000 euros renting apartments for a five-year period, instead of buying property for 350,000 euros. That is exactly what Vyacheslav Sergeevich Solovyov did. The full namesake of the disappeared ex-general director of the state leasing company VEB Leasing We also found Vyacheslav Solovyov in Malta.
[JSC VEB-Leasing was established in 2003 with the participation of Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosoboronexport. Vnesheconombank controls 100% of JSC shares.
"Kings of the state order"
Founder and owner of OOO UK Transyuzhstroy Anatoly Dmitrievich Antipov and five members of his family hold EU passports. According to the rules of the Malta Investment Program, the main applicant invests 650,000 euros in the form of a gratuitous grant to the state fund of the country. Spouses and children of the applicant must contribute EUR 25,000 per person, or an additional EUR 50,000 for each child aged 17 to 26.
Fortunately, Anatoly Dmitrievich is not constrained by means. In 2015, Forbes included the UK "Transyuzhstroy" in the rating of "Kings of the state order". As the newspaper writes, Antipov owes his success in business to a business partner, now vice president of Russian Railways for the construction complex Oleg Tony. Antipov and Tony together owned Transstroybank, controlled by the Baltic Construction Company and personally by Oleg Tony. When Tony moved to Russian Railways as vice president of construction, Transyuzhstroy received one of the highest-budget Olympic construction contracts (preparatory work for the construction of a combined railway and highway from Sochi to Krasnaya Polyana for 29 billion rubles) and won a tender for 13 billion rubles for the construction of part of this road. Now Transyuzhstroy is executing a contract for 53 billion rubles to equip the Eastern training ground of Russian Railways. Since 2010, Transyuzhstroy's total government purchases have been 90.2 billion rubles.
In 2014, the nephew of the President of Russia, entrepreneur Roman Putin (on the picture) accused Transyuzhstroy of using a corruption scheme in which a company that won a tender from a state monopoly entrusts work to subcontractors, sometimes leaving itself for "intermediary services" up to a quarter of the total amount of orders, the Republic reports. According to Roman Putin, Transyuzhstroy Management Company especially abuses such schemes, which “bites off” at least 35% from each contract. The president's nephew was especially outraged that the owner of Transyuzhstroy was (was at that time until 2015) the Cypriot company Apelsino Holdings Limited, and its real owners were hidden behind a chain of offshore companies.
Previously, Konstantin Khromushkin served as CEO of the Bombardier Transportation and Russian Railways joint venture in the field of railway automation systems, Bombardier Transportation (Signal) LLC.
The Maltese League of General Contractors and Partners of Russian Railways is also represented by Konstantin Khromushkin, head of the Russia, CIS and Baltic countries region of Bombardier Transportation.
According to The Malta Government Gazette, along with the head of the family, wife Elena Valerievna Khromushkina, son Nikolai and daughter Irina received EU passports.
Interestingly, the Maltese authorities rejected the application of Khromushkin's deputy, Yuri Sergeevich Danilov. Refused, Danilov decided to sue the local government in an attempt to reverse the decision. During a public hearing, he informed the court that he had submitted all the necessary documentation, along with an application for citizenship for himself, his wife and daughter. In addition, he signed a rental agreement in the Maltese village of Mellieha and moved there with his wife and daughter, writes Times of Malta. The submitted documents indicated that Danilov had a fortune of almost 2.7 million euros, worked for Bombardier Transportation (Signal) Limited and served as deputy regional director for Russia, the CIS and the Baltic countries. However, the court refused Danilov, motivating its decision by the inconsistency of the submitted documentation with the requirements of the law.
Bombardier Transportation delegation meeting with partners in Azerbaijan, 2015. Konstantin Khromushkin (second from left). Evgeny Pavlov (second from right) Thomas Biner (third from right, interrogated in the case of a bribe).
[Earlier in the course of the Panama Papers investigation, the Organized Crime and Corruption Research Center (OCCRP) and Novaya Gazeta wrote that the Russian subsidiary of Bombardier is making dubious deals with offshore companies associated with the son of a close associate of the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin Alexey Krapivin . According to investigators, offshore companies associated with Krapivin supplied equipment to Bombardier Transportation for state projects of Russian Railways. A year after the publication, the Swedish police began their investigation around the deal to reconstruct the railway in Azerbaijan, from Baku to the Georgian border.]
In 2014, Russian Railways questioned the need to build Bombardier's "Engels Locomotive Plant", but the plant, with a design capacity of 150 locomotives per year, nevertheless opened in the summer of 2015. The total cost of the joint project of the First Locomotive Company JSC, the Canadian Bombardier and the already mentioned VEB-Leasing JSC amounted to 6.8 billion rubles. Chairman of the Board of Directors of LLC "First Locomotive Company" and JSC "Engels Locomotive Plant" Stanislav Dzhakhparovich Gamzalov, his son Ibrahim and daughter Madina became citizens of the Republic of Malta in the same 2015.
Registration address of the Gamzalovs in Malta
The address given by the Gamzalovs is in the small town of Birzebbuja in the south of Malta. According to Identity Malta, real estate prices in this city do not meet the conditions of the investment program. Moreover, the property owners claim that they have not seen the Gamzalovs and do not receive rent from them. The couple bought the property last year, and since then received several letters addressed to Stanislav Gamzalov, which they passed on to the previous owner. According to the owners of the property, the previous owner is the co-owner of the well-known construction company Elbros Group in Malta, Charles Ellul, who introduced himself as a friend of Gamzalov and gave him mail.
[The list of individuals who obtained Maltese citizenship in 2015 was published in the Gazette of the Government of Malta (Gazzetta tal-Gvern ta’ Malta) on August 2, 2016.]
conclusions
1. These cases of abuse in the purchase of Maltese passports clearly show the vulnerabilities of the Maltese "economic citizenship" program. By its very nature, the program is a highly risky tool: a lack of transparency and a lack of due diligence from the EU creates additional opportunities for corrupt officials who want to avoid justice.
2. This scheme is also attractive because it allows you to launder large amounts of money, while gaining free access to the EU countries. In addition, the passport of an EU citizen greatly facilitates the movement of money, as European banks treat the holders of "golden passports" as local residents, and not as suspicious foreigners. In fact, we are talking about laundering reputation. It is no coincidence that golden visas are most in demand among investors from countries with high levels of corruption, a strong shadow economy and an unstable political system. According to Malta Today, out of 646 people who received Maltese citizenship, more than 40% turned out to be Russian citizens. Only 19% are citizens of other EU member states.
3. Corruption risks are also embedded in large monetary transactions between the state and applicants, which are often non-transparent in their structure. As a result, people who were supposed to invest in the economy and real estate of the state turned into "ghosts" with mailboxes in cheap apartments.
The oligarch will come to the Saratov region to congratulate the labor collectives of his enterprises on the Machine Builder's Day, which is celebrated on September 28 this year.
As it was said at a recent board meeting of the Ministry of Industry and Energy, in January-July 2014, the volume of production of vehicles and equipment amounted to only 87.7% of the same period last year. Since the main customer in this direction is JSC Russian Railways, the negative result is usually associated with the problem of extending the service life of the rolling stock - specifically, freight cars.
After the abolition of the Russian Railways monopoly on freight transportation and the transition of the industry into the hands of private companies, the production of rolling stock in the country received a huge impetus to develop, but the renewal of the fleet is in conflict with the regulatory framework that allows extending the service life of cars. In addition, the economic downturn leads to underutilization of existing rolling stock.
In the Saratov region Stanislav Gamzalov quite large players in this market are fully or partially controlled - OAO ZMK, the Engels locomotive plant under construction, ZAO Vagonostroitelny Zavod in Balakovo, ZAO Balakovo-Tsentrolit. Stanislav Gamzalov also controls more than 20% of the shares of Kryukov Carriage Works PJSC (Ukraine).
A very difficult situation with the sale of the main products has already affected some of the enterprises. For example, in the corporate reporting of ZMK OJSC it is noted that in 2013 the company suffered losses in the amount of 132 million rubles, the rolling stock was released in the amount of 6,250,119 thousand rubles, which is almost two times less than in 2012.
The decline continues this year. For example, according to the website www.rzd-partner.ru, the Kryukov Carriage Works for eight months of 2014 reduced the production of freight rolling stock by 66.1%, producing 1.687 thousand units. products. According to the company itself, the lost volume amounted to more than 3.2 thousand units. For example, last month the plant produced almost half as many cars as in August 2013. The passenger division of the enterprise is not loaded at all, while for 8 months of 2013 the output was 59 passenger cars.
However, according to a source in CJSC "Vagonostroitelny zavod"(Balakovo), a way out was found in the development of new types of products. For example, an enterprise in Balakovo this year began to produce overhead cranes for industry according to the design documentation of a well-known German manufacturer - the company Demag Cranes AG. About 30 cranes from Balakovo should be delivered to the Engels Locomotive Plant, which is under construction, they also produce housings for pumps, which are produced by Stanislav Gamzalov controlled JSC "ENA"(Schelkovo, Moscow region). The third direction, relevant for Balakovo residents, is the supply of frames for mobile railway laboratories, which are produced in Kaluga.
Let us also note that in Engels, too, things are moving forward. As Alexander Strelyukhin, general director of the Engels locomotive plant, told us, the construction is proceeding strictly according to the schedule.
The oligarch will come to the Saratov region to congratulate the labor collectives of his enterprises on the Machine Builder's Day, which is celebrated on September 28 this year.
As it was said at a recent board meeting of the Ministry of Industry and Energy, in January-July 2014, the volume of production of vehicles and equipment amounted to only 87.7% of the same period last year. Since the main customer in this direction is JSC Russian Railways, the negative result is usually associated with the problem of extending the service life of the rolling stock - specifically, freight cars.
After the abolition of the Russian Railways monopoly on freight transportation and the transition of the industry into the hands of private companies, the production of rolling stock in the country received a huge impetus to develop, but the renewal of the fleet is in conflict with the regulatory framework that allows extending the service life of cars. In addition, the economic downturn leads to underutilization of existing rolling stock.
In the Saratov region Stanislav Gamzalov quite large players in this market are fully or partially controlled - OAO ZMK, the Engels locomotive plant under construction, ZAO Vagonostroitelny Zavod in Balakovo, ZAO Balakovo-Tsentrolit. Stanislav Gamzalov also controls more than 20% of the shares of Kryukov Carriage Works PJSC (Ukraine).
A very difficult situation with the sale of the main products has already affected some of the enterprises. For example, in the corporate reporting of ZMK OJSC it is noted that in 2013 the company suffered losses in the amount of 132 million rubles, the rolling stock was released in the amount of 6,250,119 thousand rubles, which is almost two times less than in 2012.
The decline continues this year. For example, according to the website www.rzd-partner.ru, the Kryukov Carriage Works for eight months of 2014 reduced the production of freight rolling stock by 66.1%, producing 1.687 thousand units. products. According to the company itself, the lost volume amounted to more than 3.2 thousand units. For example, last month the plant produced almost half as many cars as in August 2013. The passenger division of the enterprise is not loaded at all, while for 8 months of 2013 the output was 59 passenger cars.
However, according to a source in CJSC "Vagonostroitelny zavod"(Balakovo), a way out was found in the development of new types of products. For example, an enterprise in Balakovo this year began to produce overhead cranes for industry according to the design documentation of a well-known German manufacturer - the company Demag Cranes AG. About 30 cranes from Balakovo should be delivered to the Engels Locomotive Plant, which is under construction, they also produce housings for pumps, which are produced by Stanislav Gamzalov controlled JSC "ENA"(Schelkovo, Moscow region). The third area that is relevant for Balakovo residents is the supply of frames for mobile railway laboratories, which are produced in Kaluga.
