As of April 13, 2022, France had frozen nearly 24 billion euros of Russian property and financial assets on its territory. This figure, significant at first sight, is paradoxically a sort of admission of impotence by the French authorities. Indeed, the majority of the 33 luxury villa and apartment properties targeted are among the rare properties whose identity of owners is not hidden. But what about the oligarchs whose assets hide behind cascades of offshore companies owned by straw men?
The Russian oligarchs particularly appreciate these montages, as shown by documents from several data leaks (Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers) revealed in recent years by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) whose Cellule Investigation de Radio France is a partner. These data enabled us to partially reconstruct the map of the financial empires hidden from the tax authorities. And as such, the example of Suleyman Kerimov is a textbook case. His name never appears directly, or publicly, or even in the confidential data from offshore firms. To carry out his operations, he takes shelter behind trusted men based in Switzerland and his relatives (children and nephew).
For years, his entourage has been multiplying offshore companies in tax havens (British Virgin Islands, Cyprus) thanks to the firm Trident Trust, which takes care of their registration in the main tax havens of the planet. These empty shells, created in a few minutes, were used to channel hundreds of millions of euros through Mr. Kerimov’s environment through opaque transactions whose aim seems to be to conceal the origin and destination of these funds , as well as the real beneficiary of these operations.
Since the beginning of the 2000s and until recently, we find at the center of these montages a Swiss businessman, Alexander Studhalter. The Swiru holding company (for “Swiss and Russia”), which he claims to own, has administered several dozen companies in tax havens, often linked to Suleyman Kerimov.
First observation: the shareholders of these financial shells change very regularly. These are most often various companies stacked on top of each other. There are sometimes people who appear, but to serve as nominees. In the case of the companies administered by Swiru, there are current and former employees of Alexander Studhalter, clients of his fiduciary company or, even more surprisingly, simple Swiss nationals whose profile is astonishing. This is how a tattoo artist based in Lucerne, the city that hosts Mr. Studhalter’s offices, is listed as a shareholder in the company Fletcher Ventures, based in the British Virgin Islands and administered by Swiru Holding.
In 2013, Fletcher Ventures transferred $100 million from its bank account based at AS Expobank in Riga, Latvia, to the Swiss bank account of LT Trading, also registered in the British Virgin Islands. That same year, Fletcher Ventures sent $202 million to Moscow-based LLC Gilia. In both cases, the money benefited companies linked to Suleyman Kerimov. The first of them is owned by Nariman Gadzhiev, nephew of the Russian oligarch. The address of the second is identical to that of Suleyman Kerimov’s Millenium Group.
Met by our colleagues from Tamedia in Switzerland, the tattoo artist, official beneficial owner of Fletcher Ventures according to documents from the Pandora Papers, refused to answer their questions and referred them to… Alexander Studhalter. The latter denies that the tattoo artist was the real owner of the offshore company. He let us know that “The transaction took place almost 10 years ago, and Fletcher Ventures has been liquidated. We can no longer provide information on this matter”. The businessman nevertheless told us that “all dealings for my own account, in part using nominee shareholders and managers under a fiduciary arrangement, complied with anti-money laundering laws and fully complied with all other requirements “. Before adding: “The identity of the beneficial owner was known to the authorities, offices, and banking establishment concerned, namely Mr. Alexander Studhalter.”
The ease with which these financial flows circulate, passing through large Western banks, raises questions. In 2013, one of the banking establishments through which these transfers transited made a big fuss about the amounts and the profile of the companies involved. But the report made by the Bank of New York Mellon to the American authorities remained incomplete, and confused the company LT Trading, based in the British Virgin Islands, with a homonymous company in Great Britain!
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Other companies managed by the Swiru holding are involved in much larger financial operations. In a contract signed in July 2017 between Russian banks and the gold giant Polyus Gold, long controlled by Suleyman Kerimov, an appendix lists existing loans between companies linked to Mrs. Kerimov and others managed by Alexander Studhalter. And almost all of them are recorded in the British Virgin Islands.
We thus discover that the company Wandle Holding, which holds Suleyman Kerimov’s shares in Polyus Gold, received more than seven billion dollars in loans between 2012 and 2017 from shells in tax havens administered by Swiru. And here again, the purpose of his operations seems difficult to understand. Alexander Studhalter repeats that he “had several offshore companies – for himself. He was the beneficial owner of these companies. So he was doing his own dealings”. As for Suleyman Kerimov, he did not answer our questions on this subject.
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These strange financial operations also took place in France, and more precisely in Cap d’Antibes on the Côte d’Azur. Because the same Swiru holding found itself at the center of a resounding legal case.
In summary, justice reproached the Swiss holding company for having disbursed 127 million euros for the acquisition of the Villa called “Hier”, while the official sale price transmitted to the tax services was only 35 millions of euros. In all, Swiru purchased four villas in Cap d’Antibes between 2006 and 2010. A time indicted and placed in pre-trial detention, Alexander Studhalter and Suleyman Kerimov finally saw the charges against them lifted. But the elements collected by the investigating judge show that the Swiru holding company, although officially owned by Alexander Studhalter, was in fact the property of the Russian oligarch. What the two men still dispute.
According to court documents consulted by the investigation unit of Radio France, the banks involved in the purchases of the villas (Credit Suisse, Barclays and Société Générale Private Banking in Monaco) have indeed certified to the investigating judge, documents at the support, that the oligarch Kerimov and/or his nephew Nariman Gadzhiev were the economic beneficiaries of this holding, and therefore the owners of the villas. It is notably mentioned a declaration of trust signed by Alexander Studhalter attesting that he holds the shares of Swiru on behalf of the Russian oligarch and/or his nephew. The latter have also signed, according to the bank documents, certificates as beneficiaries of the companies.
These elements were confirmed during a hearing by an employee of one of the banks: “During a visit to the [villa] Médy Roc by Barclays, Mr. Studhalter tells us that he had to redo the kitchen three times because it displeased Mrs. Kerimov”. The investigators also got their hands on emails showing the involvement of Suleyman Kerimov, referred to as “the boss” by the employees, in the operation of the villas.
Alexander Studhalter claims that Barclays and Société Générale documents were falsified by an employee who worked at both banks. He argues that this fraud would have been recognized by French justice. Judicial sources have however specified to the Investigation Unit that the Court of Appeal, which canceled the indictments of Suleyman Kerimov and Alexander Studhalter, was not seized of this subject, and that it never pronounced on a possible fraudulent nature of these bank documents.
Mr. Studhalter did not comment on the other bank documents, including those of Credit Suisse, showing Suleyman Kerimov’s nephew as the beneficial owner of Villa Hier. In one of his replies, he simply specifies that he has not been in business with Suleyman Kerimov since 2013, and that the villas have been sold. Moreover, the Register of Commerce and Companies, like the Register of Beneficial Owners, designates as the owner of the companies holding the villas Gulnara Kerimova, the daughter of Suleyman Kerimov, a disturbing coincidence.
Gulnara Kerimova is also no stranger to the world of offshore companies according to documents from the firm Trident Trust. At the end of 2015, she appeared, alongside her brother Said, as a shareholder in a company from the British Virgin Islands, Millennium Executive Ltd. At that time, the manager of the offshore shell was… Alexander Studhalter. “I haven’t been in contact with Said Kerimov and Gulnara Kerimova for a few years”specifies however the Swiss businessman.
More recently, in January 2018, the name of Philipp Studhalter (Alexander’s brother) appears, again, in connection with Gulnara Kerimova and Said Kerimov. A lawyer by profession, he affixed his signature to certify the passports of the two Russian citizens. He also sent a letter of recommendation to Trident Trust for Suleyman Kerimov’s two children. “We [cabinet d’avocats] We are pleased to confirm that our long-time client, Mrs. Gulnara Kerimova, is a highly respected person of integrity.”he wrote.
Finally, still in January 2018, the VP Bank of Vaduz in Lichtenstein sent a “strictly confidential” letter to the firm Trident Trust: “At the request of our client, we confirm that Mrs. Gulnara Kerimova […] has had a business relationship with our bank since November 2016”. A business relationship that caused some turmoil, since several transfers made in 2016, from the VP Bank account to the company Definition Services Inc in the British Virgin Islands, were reported to the American authorities by Deutsche Bank. According to the German bank that interviewed VP Bank, “the beneficial owners of Definition Services are Russian citizens, Said Kerimov and Gulnara Kerimova, the children of Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov.” These suspicious transactions amount to 143 million euros, and are judged by the German bank as “without apparent economic or commercial purpose”.
We tried to reach Gulnara Kerimova, in vain. Introducing himself as his lawyer in the letter of recommendation, Philipp Studhalter replied to us “no longer be in contact with her and her brother for years”, and being unable to convey our questions to them. The managers of the companies domiciled in France and Switzerland, of which Ms. Kerimova appears as the beneficiary, refused to answer our questions.