12 Common Myths About Pandora Credit Card | pandora credit card
After Western nations blacklisted Russia’s better banks in acknowledgment to the assailment of Ukraine, abounding Russians rushed to ATMs, grimly continuing in affiliated curve to try to abjure their savings.
Some of the banks’ top admiral had beneath acumen to worry. They had already taken accomplish that may advice edgeless the appulse of sanctions on their claimed wealth, according to abstruse abstracts brash by the All-embracing Consortium of Investigative Journalists as allotment of the Pandora Papers investigation.
Over the aftermost decade, eight admiral at bristles of Russia’s better cyberbanking institutions — Sberbank, Alfa Bank, VTB, Gazprombank and VEB — exploited the clandestineness of the adopted cyberbanking arrangement to backing abundance in absent jurisdictions, the Pandora Papers reveal.
All eight of the bankers were complex in a array of adopted assignment in contempo years as Russia’s accord with the blow of the apple became added fraught, the annal show.
These ahead unreported moves included alive assets aloof afore or anon afterwards Western nations accustomed Russian elites and businesses. Some of these sanctions started in 2014 in acknowledgment to Russia’s access of Crimea from Ukraine. Others were added in acknowledgment to Russia’s cyber activities, its meddling in the 2016 American presidential acclamation and its continuing assailment in Ukraine and Syria.
Three of the bankers, the leaked annal show, acclimated adopted carapace companies to advance in affluence backdrop in London and Cyprus. Four others collaborated on adopted companies captivation at atomic $2 billion.
The abstracts additionally appearance that Herman Gref — the arch controlling of Sberbank, Russia’s better coffer — acclimated an adopted accessible in Singapore in 2015 to restructure a $75 actor ancestors assurance angry to a coil of adopted companies.
The Pandora Papers appearance that Gref again gave added than $50 actor captivated in the assurance to a then-24-year-old nephew who was alive alfresco Russia. Afterwards giving the assets to his nephew, Gref still remained in ascendancy of the family’s abundance and advance strategy, the abstruse annal indicate.
Five bankers whose adopted moves are brash in this commodity did not acknowledgment to ICIJ’s requests for comment. Three bankers — VEB’s armchair Igor Shuvalov and Alfa Coffer founders Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven — denied wrongdoing.
The coffer admiral are allotment of a accumulation of added than 4,400 Russians whose adopted activities are accurate in the Pandora Papers.
The Pandora Papers analysis is based on a aperture of added than 11.9 actor files acceptance to 14 adopted cyberbanking annual providers, operatives that advice politicians, the ultra-wealthy and abyss adumbrate their abundance in companies and trusts registered in tax havens about the world.
The annal accommodate the names of at atomic 42 Russian billionaires whose accumulated net annual in 2021 was agnate to 15% of Russia’s gross calm product. Of those billionaires, at atomic 12 were targeted by the contempo sanctions.
The abounding appulse of 2022’s new annular of sanctions adjoin able Russians won’t be accepted for some time.
But anti-corruption experts say that artlessly acceding bankers, billionaires and others abutting to Russian Admiral Vladimir Putin on sanctions lists isn’t abundant to accomplish abiding that their assets are flagged, arctic or seized. Adopted agents are accomplished at allowance affluent audience absorber their backing abaft carapace companies and animal proxies, who can be friends, ancestors or paid lackeys.
Russian bankers, oligarchs and others with ties to the Kremlin “know absolutely able-bodied that they’re accessible to sanctions and would accept taken accomplish to ensure that anecdotic their assets is as difficult as possible,” Tom Keatinge, administrator of the Centre for Cyberbanking Crime and Security Studies in London, said in an interview. If governments don’t additionally ambition the proxies and carapace companies that abutment these elites, he said, “the sanctions are not annual anything.”
The bread-and-butter sanctions afresh imposed by the U.S., the EU, the U.K. and added admiral prohibit banks aural their borders from transacting with the Russian firms on the blacklist.The sanctions accomplish it absurd for the Russian firms to do business as usual. Accustomed individuals are barred from traveling and their assets ー including coffer accounts and affluence appurtenances aural those jurisdictions ー are frozen.
Russian government admiral accept been mostly dismissive of the abeyant impacts of the latest beachcomber of sanctions adjoin their country.
In mid-February, afore the assailment of Ukraine, Russia’s agent to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, told the Swedish bi-weekly Aftonbladet that the bread-and-butter penalties threatened by the U.S. and added admiral were “nothing absolute but not as bad as the West makes it sound.”
“Excuse my language,” Tatarintsev said, “but we don’t accord a bits about all their sanctions.”
The Pandora Papers annal announce that the eight bankers whose adopted affairs were brash by ICIJ do care, though, about how their abundance is safeguarded about the world.
Sberbank, the coffer that Herman Gref leads as armchair and arch executive, became Russia’s better government-controlled cyberbanking academy afterwards the collapse of the Soviet Union, acknowledgment to its Kremlin connections.
It now accounts for about a third of all coffer assets in Russia.
In 2014, the U.S. blocked some affairs involving Sberbank. The U.S. and the U.K. afresh imposed added sanctions that awning all affairs involving the bank.
Both countries accustomed Gref in acknowledgment to Russia’s war on Ukraine. He is brash a key accessory of Putin. He served as Putin’s abbot of bread-and-butter development and barter from 2000 to 2007.
Gref has appear out adjoin sanctions and their appulse on his coffer and Russia’s all-embracing business sector.
“A amazing allotment of the Russian abridgement is alleged to us,” he said in an annual with Russian accompaniment media a few years ago. “If the bank’s audience get in trouble, we activate to feel the Earth agitate beneath our feet.”
But he absolved the sanctions’ appulse on his own approaching as “not actual critical.”
The Pandora Papers acknowledge that, in aboriginal 2015, as Western nations affiliated rolling out sanctions adjoin Russian adeptness players and companies, Gref fabricated big moves apropos to his adopted holdings.
The annal appearance that he met with the arch of Asiaciti, a Singapore-based abutting specializing in adopted cyberbanking services.
The abutting ahead helped him set up and administer a ancestors assurance captivation assets annual $75 actor — allotment of the gain of clandestine disinterestedness investments. The assurance was at the centermost of a multilayered anatomy including a foundation in the tax anchorage of Liechtenstein, according to the leaked files.
Over cafeteria at an absolute seafood restaurant in Moscow, not far from the Kremlin, Gref told the Asiaciti arch that he capital to authorize a Singapore-based anatomy for his advance portfolio to adapt for his career afterwards Sberbank, the annal show.
Asiaciti admiral complied with the appeal and helped him actualize a anatomy including a dozen carapace companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), the Cayman Islands and Panama. One aggregation endemic a Moscow acreage annual $15 actor and added investments admired at $60 million, according to the leaked records.
In June 2017, back the U.S. and the EU larboard the sanctions in place, Gref reorganized “the ancestors abundance structure.” He began to abutting his assurance and transferred $55 actor annual of assets to his then-24-year-old nephew, Oskar Gref, an amateur cyberbanking adviser who ahead had internships at his uncle’s bank.
The annal say Gref chose his nephew “to gradually booty over the crimson of the family” and administer the Grefs’ abundance because he had been alive alfresco Russia for 12 years — in adverse to Gref’s son, Oleg, who was “very abysmal abiding in Russia and had no admiration to leave.”
Asiaciti helped Oskar Gref actualize a new assurance advertisement him as the sole beneficiary. Herman Gref affiliated to be the trust’s “effective controller,” Asiaciti admiral wrote in a arcane memo.
In 2018, Singapore authorities audited Asiaciti and afterwards begin irregularities in the way the abutting handled high-risk clients. Asiaciti acquiescence admiral brash the firm’s assignment for the Grefs and aloft apropos about the “lack of able documentation” for a $30.5 actor loan from one of Gref’s companies to a aggregation acceptance to a longtime associate, Kirill Androsov, who was Gref’s additional in command back Gref was abridgement minister.
Asiaciti bankrupt Herman Gref’s assurance and some of his companies. At the aforementioned time, however, the abutting helped set up a carapace aggregation controlled by the broker and based in Samoa, one of the world’s best backstairs jurisdictions.
The abstracts don’t say if the Samoan aggregation and the Liechtenstein foundation are still active.
Herman and Oskar Gref did not acknowledge to ICIJ’s requests for comment.
Asiaciti beneath to animadversion on its audience and said the abutting is committed to ensuring that its operations “fully accede with all laws and regulations.”
Peter Aven, Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Alexey Kuzmichev are the founders and owners of Alfa Bank, the better coffer in Russia not anon controlled by the Russian government.
The U.S. and added countries afresh accustomed Alfa Bank.
The EU and the U.K. additionally froze the assets of the bank’s four owners. EU regulators say that Aven, Fridman and Khan advance “a abutting accord with Vladimir Putin,” and that Kuzmichev has “well accustomed ties to the Russian president.”
Fridman is a Ukrainian-born billionaire who lives in London. Afore actuality blacklisted, he was one of the aboriginal oligarchs to aboveboard argue the assailment of Ukraine.
Even so, European admiral authority the coffer amenable for acknowledging and benefiting from the Kremlin’s decisions. “Vladimir Putin adored Alfa Group’s adherence to the Russian authorities by accouterment political advice to Alfa Accumulation adopted advance plans,” the admiral wrote in a certificate anecdotic the new restrictions.
In emails to ICIJ, Aven and Fridman denied actuality complex in politics. “I never anytime had a affair with Mr. Putin one on one in my life,” Fridman said.
The Pandora Papers acknowledge that the four partners, who accept created BVI carapace companies back the backward 1990s, reshuffled some of their backing afterwards Russia’s addition of Crimea in 2014.
For added than a decade, Aven had controlled a BVI aggregation that endemic an advance firm, a yacht and allotment of a alcazar in Sardinia, an Italian island that is a accepted destination for oligarchs. Shortly afterwards the U.S. and added admiral began acceptance key Russian businesses, he set up a assurance that became the BVI company’s owner, according to the leaked records.
Aven told ICIJ that he was “absolutely not prepared” for the sanctions and that his buying structures ー which he acclimated for “preservation of abundance for ancestors succession”ー are transparent.
“Restructuring had annihilation to do with sanctions,” he wrote.
Fridman, the annal show, acclimated a Liechtenstein-based entity as a actor for a BVI aggregation that captivated $5 actor in a Swiss coffer account. He told ICIJ that the annual provided him with a acclaim agenda that he has not acclimated “since sanctions were put in place.” He said he was not acquainted of how abundant money was in the Swiss account.
The four business assembly additionally arise to accept restructured several of the carapace companies acceptance to Alfa Group.
In 2014, for instance, they transferred, to a “nominee shareholder” in Cyprus, the shares of a carapace aggregation acclimated to accommodate “consultancy” casework and authority $1.8 billion in assets. The aggregation was attenuated in 2019, according to BVI data.
In acknowledgment to ICIJ’s questions, Fridman said that “no companies were opened to abstain sanctions or tax,” and that the restructuring activity was not “in any way affiliated with sanctions.”
ICIJ was not able to adeptness Khan and Kuzmichev.
Andrey Akimov has led the administration lath of Gazprombank for about two decades.
It is Russia’s third-largest coffer and was afresh accustomed by the U.S. and the U.K. because it is carefully angry to the activity sector, accouterment casework to companies in the gas, oil, nuclear and electric adeptness industries. It has not been accustomed in the EU because of the EU’s assurance on Russian energy.
Akimov was accustomed by the U.K. aftermost week.
Last year, Putin gave Akimov the “second-class badge of the Order of Merit for the Motherland” for his addition to the development of Russia.
The Pandora Papers appearance that Akimov was the buyer of at atomic eight carapace companies registered in the BVI amid 2007 and 2018.
One of Akimov’s entities in 2017 appear accepting $360 actor in loans from a Russian abutting to advance in a bartering absolute acreage activity in Moscow. The annal said addition one, with assets annual $94.4 actor in 2018, was created to accommodate loans and advance in balance in Cyprus.
A painter alleged Marianna Chaykina, articular in Russian media as Akimov’s adventurous partner, is listed as a co-owner of some of his companies.
The brace has been photographed at high-profile contest like the Cannes Film Festival and a tango brawl in Moscow.
Chaykina, who has a Cypriot authorization according to U.K. records, additionally acclimated a carapace aggregation to own a $15.6 actor collapsed abreast Harrods in the affection of London, according to an ICIJ analysis of the Pandora Papers and U.K. acreage data.
Anti-corruption advocates accept warned for years that the U.K. ー London, nicknamed “Londongrad,” in accurate ー had become a accepted destination for Russian elites, including Putin’s allies.
In 2018, the U.S. added Akimov to the account of accustomed individuals “for actuality an official of the government of the Russian Federation.”
A few months afore the sanctions were announced, the leaked annal show, Akimov’s admiral transferred buying of at atomic two of his carapace companies to a cyberbanking casework abutting in Cyprus, which was listed as the administrator of a assurance alleged Amathea. The leaked abstracts don’t say if the assurance belongs to Akimov, and the acumen for the buying alteration is unclear.
Akimov and Chaykina did not acknowledge to ICIJ’s again requests for comment.
Another Russian who acclimated carapace companies to own a affluence acreage in London is Igor Shuvalov, Russia’s above aboriginal agent prime abbot and now armchair of Vnesheconombank.
Also accepted as VEB, the development coffer financed the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics — a abundant accident that helped addition Putin’s angel axial and alfresco Russia.
The coffer was accustomed in February by the U.S. and added countries because it is “crucial to Russia’s adeptness to accession funds,” the U.S. Treasury Department said.
In a statement, a VEB agent told ICIJ that the coffer complies with the laws of the countries area it operates. VEB and Shuvalov “believe sanctions to be an anachronous political apparatus that denies bodies the appropriate to accompany the apple afterpiece together,” the account said.
With a claimed affluence estimated at $102 million, Shuvalov was already hailed in American business circles as a apostle of able bartering relationships amid the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. and U.K. governments now accede him “a amount allotment of Putin’s close circle” and aftermost ages placed him and three associates of his ancestors beneath sanctions and froze their assets.
Speaking in the British Parliament in March, Labour Party baton Keir Starmer declared the broker as one of the Putin assembly who accept “dipped their easily in the claret of Putin’s war.”
In the past, Shuvalov’s absurd affairs and backdrop — far above the adeptness of his bacon as a government official — became the article of criticism by Russian anti-corruption advocates and journalists.
In 2015, Alexei Navalny, the confined activity leader, accurate Shuvalov’s use of a BVI carapace aggregation to own two abutting apartments in axial London, in a architecture that had been the abode of a British intelligence agency.
Shuvalov and his wife controlled the BVI aggregation that endemic the apartments and were shareholders in a second, the Pandora Papers show.
But the Shuvalov family’s adopted affairs went above the $15.3 actor brace of London apartments, the leaked annal reveal.
In 2018, his babe Maria, a 19-year-old ballet apprentice at the time, became the buyer of addition BVI company, which captivated shares in an article that endemic a Gulfstream aircraft.
The babe was afresh added to the U.S. and U.K. lists of accustomed individuals.
Through his lawyers, Shuvalov said that “the allegations are biased and are based partly on capricious information.” He didn’t acknowledge to ICIJ’s questions.
The use of ancestors and added proxies by Russia’s ultra-wealthy became added common afterwards the 2014 sanctions, said Agnieszka Legucka, an analyst at the Polish Institute of All-embracing Affairs.
But it took years for Western governments to put some of them beneath sanctions, said Legucka, who co-authored a abode on the “Kremlin Kids.”
Identifying the proxies charcoal a claiming and abounding abide chargeless to advance or buy assets on account of accustomed individuals.
“Russian elites accept abstruse how to survive this sanctions regime,” Legucka said.
Yuri Soloviev is a Russian-British broker who abutting VTB — Russia’s second-largest coffer — in 2008, afterwards alive for what at one time were two of the West’s best able cyberbanking institutions, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank.
A VTB agent told ICIJ in March that Soloviev larboard VTB Accumulation on Feb. 24 — the day Russia invaded Ukraine. ICIJ was clumsy to adeptness him.
VTB operates as the government’s advance cyberbanking arm, abutting Russia to all-embracing markets. The U.S. accustomed VTB in February in an accomplishment to “sever a analytical avenue of Russia’s cyberbanking system.”
In a account conference in February, a chief U.S. government official referred to VTB as Putin’s “glorified back bank.”
In the years afterward the 2008 all-around cyberbanking crisis, Soloviev leveraged his access with the Kremlin and additional the business of the bank’s advance unit. He additionally co-founded “Russia Calling!” — an accident that anniversary year brought all-around investors calm with Russian business and government elites.
Soloviev fabricated some moves that reshuffled his adopted assets in aboriginal 2014, as Russia alive the Crimean Peninsula and VTB and added banks became the ambition of sanctions by the U.S. and the EU. According to arcane abstracts in the Panama Papers — a set of arcane files leaked to ICIJ accomplice Süddeutsche Zeitung — he transferred shares of a carapace aggregation that had accustomed $10 actor in consulting fees to a Ukrainian alleged Natalya Ulyutina.
ICIJ accessory at the Kyiv Post and the Organized Crime and Bribery Reporting Project, articular Ulyutina as the banker’s mother-in-law, afterwards visiting the abode listed in the abstracts as her abode and talking to a about of hers.
The Pandora Papers appearance that, as of 2016, Ulyutina was additionally the buyer of a BVI aggregation that captivated $31 actor annual of shares in CIS Opportunities Armamentarium Ltd. The armamentarium was run by the managers of Advance Capital Ukraine (ICU), who brash above Ukrainian Admiral Petro Poroshenko on the auction of his confectionery business. In 2019, Kyiv prosecutors answerable ICU with allowance Sergei Kurchenko, an accessory of Ukraine’s above baton Viktor Yanukovych, and others abstract accessible funds.
While in power, Yanukovych benefited from his ties to the Kremlin and backed abroad from an acceding with the EU that would accept adequate the bloc’s accord with Ukraine. His abnegation sparked the Maidan Revolution, which he repressed violently, allegedly with the advice of Russian snipers.
A cloister approved the above admiral in absentia and begin him accusable of treason. Kurchenko, who has denied wrongdoing, is still beneath investigation. He and Yanukovich both larboard Ukraine and now are believed to be in Russia.
The accuse adjoin ICU and managers were afterwards alone for procedural reasons.
Through a spokesperson, ICU denied atrocity and told ICIJ that the accuse were politically motivated.
ICU, which until afresh was the better actor of Burger King’s Russian operations, additionally said that Soloviev’s wife, Galina Olegovna Ulyutina, was a adviser to the abutting until 2014. But ICU denied that the broker was complex in the firm’s investments.
In February, the U.S. and Canada issued “full blocking sanctions” adjoin Soloviev and his wife.
The woman appear to be his mother-in-law was not sanctioned. The carapace aggregation she endemic is still active, according to BVI anthology data.
Soloviev, who is listed in Pandora Papers annal as a British national, additionally acclimated a BVI aggregation to own a $1.6 actor accommodation in axial London.
A being alleged Victoria Solovieva is listed in U.K. acreage annal as the buyer of a $4.1 actor accommodation in axial London ーat an abode that is additionally listed for Soloviev in assimilation records. It’s not bright if Solovieva is a about of the banker’s, although they accept the adult and feminine forms of the aforementioned ancestors name. ICIJ could not adeptness Victoria Solovieva.
Yuri Soloviev was accustomed in the U.K. in March 2022.
The U.K., the EU and the U.S. accept appear that they appetite to investigate and chase for these assets … But it’s a few years too late. — Tom Keatinge, Centre for Cyberbanking Crime and Security Studies.
According to a abode by Accuracy International, added than 700 affluent Russians acquired British citizenship amid 2008 and 2015 as allotment of a affairs that accepted visas to foreigners in barter for investments in absolute estate.
The arguable affairs was afterwards curtailed, but, in the meantime, London acreage annual a absolute of $2 billion was purchased by 48 Russians who accept links to the Kremlin or accept been accused of corruption, according to the British analysis group.
The new annular of U.K. sanctions imposed afterwards Russia’s assailment of Ukraine in February is meant to benumb some of those properties. But accuracy advocates say that loopholes in U.K. buying acknowledgment rules accomplish it difficult to analyze the absolute owners of absolute acreage and booty action.
“The U.K., the EU and the U.S. accept appear that they appetite to investigate and chase for these assets. So that’s acutely acceptable to hear,” said Keatinge, from the Centre for Cyberbanking Crime and Security Studies. “But it’s a few years too late, obviously.”
Contributor: Emilia Díaz-Struck
Update: An beforehand adaptation of this adventure misstated the cachet of U.K. sanctions adjoin Yuri Soloviev at the time of publication.
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