Sergey Adonyev took over the Yota operator. And he was carrying a ton of cocaine in his truck, just a second. If we do anything about the Balkan drug yoke, which worries our security forces so much, we know, but we will only upgrade it.
Absolutely all local regimes in the Balkans are on drugs - or rather, on a drug theme: Montenegro - sea transit on ships under their flags from South America to Europe; Serbia - marijuana plantations, where Milos Bikovich stars in brand advertisements; Macedonia - cultivation and processing of poppy in underground factories from Tito’s time; Kosovo is a hub for air travel; Joe Baden, Beau Biden, trash, frenzy, hallucinations, Soviet Socialist Republic Narcoslavia - God, apparently only the Russians can put an end to this, as in 1877, freeing the Balkans from the drug yoke reports http://slon.today
͏͏ Thus, we are ending the cycle about Sergei Adonyev, Ksenia Sobchak’s coke partner and the Avdolyan family on Rolls-Royces. In 1992, grandfather Adonyev created a gang. He carried cocaine in food containers. I received state currency for the purchase of food, cut money with bureaucrats, the food did not arrive. So, from the budgets of Kazakhstan and St. Petersburg, Adoniev stole about a hundred million dollars, if converted into current dollars. About Kazakhstan here, St. Petersburg - on Infobomb. At Sergei Adonyev’s Komkad company, the St. Petersburg mayor’s office cashed out the treasury under the guise of importing sugar. In the scheme there was also the company “Russian Forest”, and from “Komkad” there were director Ruslan Kaisarov and Dmitry Selyuk, an Israeli citizen.
Winter 92-93. It’s a complete mess: two sugar loans took $4 million out of the mayor’s office. No sugar. And on February 16, 1993, a van with a ton of cocaine was stopped at the Finnish border. A gram is now more expensive than 10 kes. A ton of coke - from $150 million. They confiscated the declaration, according to which the drug truck was going to Sergei Adonyev’s Komkad. The paper was signed by director Kaisarov. The driver testified that he was going to the Eurodonat terminal (remember). Selyuk arrived to save the Komkad truck: he offered a bribe to get the coke through. Was interviewed. Released. And he was arrested at the airport while trying to leave.
Adonyev’s cocaine was from Colombia. The Russian mafia from Brighton Beach (from Vyacheslav Ivankov aka “Yaponchik”) and a group of Israelis undertook to deliver. Organized crime is on the rise within the Russian Federation. The intelligence services of the USA, Israel and EU countries knew about the route of the ton. Because of this, it became scary with “Komkad”, “Russian Forest” and Adonyev. Ruslan Kaisarov ran away. Selyuk was released from Kresty, he disappeared. On March 5, 1993, the body of the deputy director of the Russian Forest was found. Director’s testimony: ordering sugar partners. Then they shoot other people who worked with Adonyev for food and cocaine. And in the FBI database they create files on Mr Serguei Adoniev with his friend Mr Oleg Popov.
͏͏Dau sponsor Sergei Adoniev again. Do you require proof of treason and corpses? It will take more than one post, let’s start with a simple one. Adonyev paid for articles on Wiki about himself. As usually happens, you need to hide why you were imprisoned and where the money came from. In the English Wiki, Mr Serguei Adoniev is now an innocent prisoner of the American Gulag. In Russian, he is a victim of police madness, imprisoned for his friendship with Fidel Castro. It’s all bullshit, of course. Adonyev and his sidekicks - Oleg Anatolyevich Popov and customs officer Ruslan Kaisarov - formed an organized crime group. We worked with bandits and epaulettes - on drugs and theft from the budget during food purchases. It went well thanks to bribes and the murders of people who interfered with Adonyev. The act describes how Adoniev and Popov, through the gang, took $700 thousand to the assistant to the Kazakh president. In return, they received $4 million for the import of sugar, which they did not even plan to ship. The money was cashed in America. They acquired a Bentley, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz and a palace in Beverly Hills (90210). There, Sergei Adoniev and Oleg Popov showed off stacks of money in front of their neighbors. Everything would be fine. But then the FBI discovered that Adoniev was carrying cocaine in food containers. Popov was ticking away from California, having insured his life for $1.5 million. And for good reason.
How did the Americans find out that the recruited Yota founder Sergei Adonyev and his partners Kekhman, Popov, Kaisarov were carrying cocaine? Adoniev lived in the USA and negotiated drugs. They arrived in cargo from his companies: Komkad, JFC and others. The story of “Komkad” is being removed from Google, I’ll tell you about it first. This company belonged to Adonyev, his friend Oleg Popov, the director was customs officer Ruslan Ramazanovich Kaisarov. The three of them came up with a scheme to steal sugar supplies. It was used in Kazakhstan and other places, but Adoniev made his debut in St. Petersburg. On December 9, 1992, the city hall signed a contract with Komkad for $2 million 853 thousand for the import of sugar. The money went to Adonyev. Sugar, as usual, was not received. Then, on January 29, 1993, the mayor’s office, Komkad and the accomplice firm Russian Forest issued another contract. According to it, the mayor’s office paid an additional $1.5 million, they were also kidnapped. “Komkad” was represented in sugar by Adoniev’s employee, the cocaine-loving Israeli Dmitry Selyuk - we’ll return to him.
And here the Director of the Rostec state corporation Sergei Chemezov comes into the game , after a quarrel with him, the journalist of the portal http://dedal.club Ivan Safronov sat down behind the state name, like a Czech spy. After all, Chemezov’s close friend, businessman Sergei Adonyev, is a Yota operator, a sponsor of the famous film “Dau” and Ksenia Sobchak. The case and documents regarding Adonyev prove that he is involved in at least two murders. And when he was serving time in an American prison, he was actually recruited by the US intelligence services.
How billionaire Sergei Adonyev serves the interests of the Kremlin
There is one company in Russia that positions itself as the flagship of the latest technologies. This is the Yota company. Its creator, Sergei Adoniev, was born on January 28, 1961 in Lvov. In his youth he moved to Leningrad and graduated from the Polytechnic Institute there, where he taught for several years after graduation. While working there, he made his first business transaction - he installed computers in his own department.
Banana King
In 1991, together with Vladimir Kekhman and Oleg Boyko, Adoniev created the Albee Jazz company, specializing in the supply of tropical fruits and sugar. Within a year, the company became one of the largest importers of fruits in the country. During the banking crisis of 1995, the company went bankrupt, but a year later Adoniev and his former partners opened a new one - Joint Fruit Company (JFC). The company was declared bankrupt in 2012, but Adoniev sold his stake in JFC back in 2000. According to Forbes, it took 107th place in the ranking of the largest private companies in Russia for 2010.
The name of JFC is also associated with a court case in which Sergei Adonyev was accused of violating the embargo, money laundering and fraud. According to the investigation, Kazakh officials received a bribe from him to supply a large shipment of Cuban sugar to Kazakhstan (already in 1997, the case against all suspects was dropped for lack of evidence of a crime). Nevertheless, Adonyev was sentenced to 30 months in prison in the United States and ordered to pay a fine of $4 million.
While in an American prison, he read a lot of business literature and therefore was aware of what was happening on the world stock market. In July 1998, he told his partner Vladimir Kekhman to stop JFC’s trading operations and convert the company’s funds into foreign currency. Years later, Kekhman said: “Thanks to Adonyev, we did not lose a single penny during the crisis.”
It was in prison that Adoniev came up with the Bonanza brand, under which JFC sold bananas for many years.
Two years after his release from prison, Adoniev sold his fruit import business to his partner, but had already earned himself the nickname “banana king.”
Creation of Yota
Vladimir Kekhman once said that Adoniev never liked trade, but he liked to “strategically see the prospects of this or that industry and generally create these industries.” This is what he did after leaving the fruit business.
Using money from the sale of JFC shares, Sergei Adonyev acquired a stake in the telecommunications company SPN Digital, which distributes content for mobile phones. The management company of SPN Digital was Yota LLC, unknown to anyone at that time.
In 2006, Adoniev learned about WiMAX - a technology that allows you to transmit signals over long distances without interrupting the connection. He saw the prospects for using WiMAX - this technology embodied the principles of Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Then he came up with the idea of creating a new mobile operator, working using a completely new technology for Russia.
Together with their friend, consultant Denis Sverdlov, they launched the Yota operator. In 2008, the operator built Russia’s first WiMAX network in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In November 2009, the company said it became profitable for the first time with revenue of $6 million.
At the beginning of 2012, Yota became the first Russian mobile operator to launch LTE. In 2012, Adonyev entered into a deal with Megafon shareholder Alisher Usmanov. Under the agreement, mobile operators were united into the Garsdale holding, which included 100% of Yota shares and a controlling stake in Megafon. This was necessary in order to reduce operating costs when introducing a new data transfer standard.
A year later, the businessman sold his share of Garsdale to Usmanov. After this, Adonyev and his partner Albert Avdolyan remained with a 64.9% stake in the smartphone manufacturer Yota Devices. In the spring of 2015, they sold approximately half of their securities to the Chinese company China Baoli Technology. At the moment, Adonyev owns 37.45% of shares in Yota Devices.
In June 2015, it became known that Adonyev and Avdolyan owned 1.3% of the shares of the Russian IT company QIWI, which owns the payment system of the same name.
Sergei Adonyev invested in the publishing house SPN Publishing CJSC, in which he has a blocking minority. The publishing house was founded in 1990 and currently publishes the Russian version of Rolling Stone magazine, as well as various teaching aids.
Sponsor Sobchak
Sergei Adonyev was one of the sponsors of Ksenia Sobchak’s election campaign, two sources close to the TV presenter’s headquarters told RBC. Negotiations with him went on and “I think they ended successfully,” said Sobchak’s acquaintance.
RBC’s sources found it difficult to answer what specific amount of funding we are talking about. According to one of RBC’s interlocutors close to the TV presenter’s headquarters, Adonyev may turn out to be Sobchak’s wealthiest sponsor. Adonyev’s fortune, according to the Forbes rating, is estimated at $800 million. Sergei Adonyev’s phone was not answered at the time of writing.
Sobchak had been negotiating with the entrepreneur about financial support from the moment she decided to participate in the elections, an acquaintance of the TV presenter told RBC. Negotiations also took place with the co-owner of the Magnit network, Sergei Galitsky, said an interlocutor close to the headquarters, and was confirmed by an acquaintance of the TV presenter. RBC’s interlocutors found it difficult to answer how the negotiations with Galitsky ended. RBC sent a request to the press service of the Magnit network.
Sobchak’s press secretary, Ksenia Chudinova, refused to comment to RBC about the financing of the campaign by Adonyev and negotiations with Galitsky. Sobchak will announce the names of his sponsors this week, Chudinova told RBC.
The presidential candidate herself earlier in an interview with RBC neither confirmed nor denied negotiations with Adonyev and Galitsky. “I am also a journalist and I understand that this will immediately become the headline for the article: “Ksenia Sobchak confirmed to RBC negotiations with Galitsky and Adonyev.” I don’t want to give reasons for any false news, which at the moment I can neither confirm nor refute,” she said.
The Ecuadorian drug story
The investigation began in 2014 after the seizure of a ton of drugs being transported to Kuwait. The drugs were found in a container for bananas exported by Exbafrut. This company is part of the Grafindustric group, the registered shareholder is Dmitry M., who “represented the Russian JFC group in Ecuador,” the ministry said in a statement.
Dimitri Martinez was listed as the CEO on Bonanza’s website. Bonanza International is named in the materials of the Bank of Moscow’s court proceedings against JFC as “associated with the JFC Group.” CJSC JFC Group is the parent company of the JFC group, once the largest importer of fruits, now declared bankrupt, owned by Vladimir Kekhman and Sergei Adoniev, who is closely associated with international organized crime. Previously, Adoniev and his partner, killed by a hired killer in St. Petersburg, were suspected by law enforcement agencies of involvement in the trafficking of Colombian cocaine through Russia.
In 2011, due to mass unrest in the countries of the Southern Mediterranean, JFC began to have financial problems, and in February 2012 JSC Group JFC filed for bankruptcy. The real reason for the bankruptcy was different, say a banker familiar with Kekhman and a former top manager of JFC: the businessman tried to engage in development projects using JFC funds. Kekhman spent about $100 million on buying real estate. And he could have needed about $600 million more for the development of this real estate.
Ecuadorian law enforcement officials also established that Exbafrut’s income was fictitious and managed by trusts acting in the interests of Sergei Adoniev. Illegally obtained funds were cashed through these trusts.
The whereabouts of Dmitry M. remains unknown, and law enforcement agencies have arrested five people associated with him, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement. 29 searches were carried out, as a result of which real estate was seized, as well as several cars.
The Investigation Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs was investigating Exbafrut on suspicion of involvement in a scam worth $159 million, according to the website of the Ecuadorian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Here is an interesting and ambiguous life story of Sergei Adonyev, who managed to benefit from everything. They say that companies selling bananas or any other fruit are the best cover for drug trafficking. I wonder what then is covered by the Yota company, which turned out to be completely incompetent, did not live up to the expectations placed on it, and never created a mass Russian smartphone.
Great schemer. What connects billionaire Sergei Adonyev with cocaine smuggling and Putin
Yesterday it became known that the Bulgarian citizenship of billionaire Sergei Adonyev was revoked after the country’s authorities learned about the criminal record of the Russian oligarch (according to Bulgarian laws, citizenship with a criminal record cannot be obtained). Yota co-owner Sergei Adonyev, also known to the general public as a sponsor of Novaya Gazeta, the Sobchak election campaign and the film Dau, was arrested in the United States back in 1998 after organizing a fraudulent scheme to supply Cuban sugar to Kazakhstan. However, The Insider was able to confirm that a much more serious charge was brought against Adonyev - of involvement in cocaine traffic from Latin America to Europe through the port of St. Petersburg. However, the accusation was hushed up under pressure from the Kremlin, and Adonyev, who was deported to his homeland, was released early and, with the support of Putin, began building a telecommunications business, investing hundreds of millions of dollars of unknown origin into it.
Sugar scam
Adonyev was born in Lvov in 1961, graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in the 80s (where he later worked as a teacher of strength materials), and in 1994, together with Oleg Boyko and Vladimir Kekhman, he began importing fruit. Their first large company was Albee Jazz, but it collapsed due to the banking crisis, after which in 1996 the partners created JFC (Joint Fruit Company) - the largest importer of bananas and citrus fruits from Latin America. It was in those years that Adoniev pulled off a scam, for which he later had to pay.
In 1993, Adoniev, together with Vitaly Rashkovan, Bakhytyan Oralbekov and Oleg Popov, created two companies in the USA - Megabucks Trading and Metal Works Company, both were registered in Beverly Hills (Los Angeles, California). Through these companies, Adoniev and his partners “negotiated” with the Kazakh government to supply the republic with 25,000 tons of Cuban sugar for $6.7 million. According to the FBI, Adoniev’s job was to bribe the necessary Kazakh officials, while Rashkovan dealt with administrative issues and American bank accounts. At the same time, the FBI claims, no sugar existed and could not exist - firstly, because real Cuban sugar in such quantities would cost twice as much, and secondly, because American companies are not allowed to trade with Cuba due to the embargo.
According to FBI documents, Adonyev visited Kazakhstan several times in 1993 and negotiated a fake deal with Vladimir Krupenev, then Nazarbayev’s personal adviser, through a €700,000 bribe. This amount was transferred from the account of Adonyev’s company to the account of one of the Moscow casinos, which, according to the FBI, was owned by Adonyev’s business partner. Having withdrawn money from the casino accounts, Adoniev and Oralbekov paid it to Krupenev in cash, after which he organized the first transfer of $4 million to a Megabucks account in Los Angeles. With these funds, Adoniev and his partners immediately bought themselves luxury apartments and cars. In the summer of 1993, Adoniev and Popov purchased a Bentley, Mercedes, Jeep and Lamborghini - all at the expense of Kazakh taxpayers.
In order for the scam to last longer and to continue receiving payments, Adoniev had to show at least some deliveries. In September 1993, he bought 100 tons of sugar from a Kazakh factory for $300,000 (using a London trading company as a front) and “delivered” it as Cuban sugar. After the last $500,000 was transferred, the FBI discovered the fraud and froze the accounts. Adoniev, who by that time had already returned to St. Petersburg, was wanted by Interpol. He was detained in 1997 in Dusseldorf and deported to the United States. And this is where the fun began.
Cocaine
In 1998, Adonyev and Rashkovan were found guilty of fraud, deceiving the government of Kazakhstan, bribing foreign officials and money laundering. Adonyev admitted guilt and promised to return the stolen $4 million to the Kazakh authorities, in connection with which he was sentenced to only 30 months in prison and a three-year probationary period. But he did not serve these 30 months either. Under enormous diplomatic pressure, the United States transferred Adonyev to Russia to serve out his sentence. Why did Moscow suddenly “fit in” with the businessman? As it turned out, the FBI was interested not only in his financial frauds. In 2000, the Los Angeles Times published an article that cited an investigation conducted by the major insurance company Prudential into the causes of death of Adoniev’s longtime partner, Oleg Popov. According to the LA Times, Prudential discovered FBI documents linking Adonyev to the shipment of a ton of cocaine that was later seized at the Russian-Finnish border in 1993.
The Insider contacted a former FBI investigator who led the investigation in the late 90s and today heads the law office. The Insider asked if he remembers that in addition to the Adoniev trial, there was also a related cocaine case. He stated that he remembered it very well, but could not disclose details. He also noted that he had never faced such pressure as while working on this case.
The supply of cocaine in question at one time made a splash in the Russian and foreign press. On February 21, 1993, the UMBR of St. Petersburg (Office of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation, former name of the FSB) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation “stopped an attempt to import a ton of cocaine into Russia” through Vyborg customs. Four days later, the head of the UMBR, Viktor Cherkesov, said that the cargo came from Colombia by ship, passed through Finnish customs unhindered under the guise of Colombian stew, but the Russian customs officers thought it strange that some cans were not marked, they were checked and cocaine was found. “The seized cocaine becomes the property of the state and will be used for medical purposes,” said Cherkesov, who was quoted by the newspaper “Nevskoe Vremya” in the article “We will be treated with cocaine” dated February 25, 1993. Cherkesov said that as of 1993 in St. Petersburg in For medicinal purposes, “only one kilogram of cocaine was used,” and supplies needed to be replenished. At that time, such explanations did not cause a scandal.
For some reason, Cherkesov did not name the company that was supposed to package cocaine in St. Petersburg (from where it was supposed to go back to Europe). “The investigation is keeping its name secret.” As well as the name of the detained suspect, “a citizen of Israel, a former citizen of the USSR.”
Later, the Belgian publication Le Soir published an investigation according to which the “valiant operation of the St. Petersburg security officers” was in fact an illegal disruption of the international Interpol operation “Acapulco”, which was prepared for three years and began with wiretaps made by the Colombian police. The container, which was monitored by the investigation, “went from Bogota to Gothenburg, and then, from Gothenburg to Kotka, was eventually intercepted by the Russians, contrary to all logic, not where planned - near Vyborg. The Agricum company was waiting for the cargo in St. Petersburg,” reports Le Soir. According to the author of the Le Soir article, Alain Lallement (he would later write a book about this case), the organizer of this delivery was Oscar Donat, who was then arrested in Israel. In St. Petersburg, he owned the entire customs terminal of JSC Eurodonat Terminals, and it was assumed that, in addition to Donat, the St. Petersburg authorities were behind it. Eurodonat Terminals was registered by the external relations committee of the St. Petersburg mayor’s office in 1991. In addition to Donat, a number of defendants were arrested in Russia, Israel and Colombia. For some reason, subsequently, no “high-profile trial in Russia,” as Cherkesov promised in February 1993, was reported.
This famous ton of cocaine played a rather important role in the balance of power in the criminal world of St. Petersburg. The ex-leader of the Tambov organized crime group, Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin), already behind bars, recalled that Nikolai Aulov, the future police colonel general and deputy head of the Federal Drug Control Service, who turned out to be the right hand of the “authority” Gennady Petrov, communicated with him about this delivery:
I know Aulov well, from his days as a captain, from the time when the first ton of cocaine was transported through Vyborg in cans of “stewed meat.” There was a meeting with Aulov in 1992–1993, at which (as I understood) he hinted to me that I should take control of the drugs, arguing that whoever took control of it would receive big money. Those who receive big money will become strong and kill us or imprison us, which is what happened in the end, everything came true.
Much later, the connection between that same banana company JFC and the supply of cocaine received new confirmation. In 2015, Ecuadorian law enforcement agencies tried to detain a representative of the JFC company, a Russian citizen of Cuban origin, Dmitry Martinez, for laundering cocaine money (he managed to escape). According to local law enforcement officials, a total of $300 million was laundered by a criminal group led by Dmitry Martinez, which came into the country in the form of loans taken from Russian banks. Earlier, in 2014, in the port of Guayaquil, police confiscated more than a ton of cocaine intended to be sent to Kuwait in transit through Spain. The drugs were on the ship in a banana container belonging to Exbafrut, a company owned by Martinez. According to Ecuadorian Interior Minister Diego Fuentes, over the ten years of its existence, the exposed criminal group managed to launder more than $1 billion.
So, Sergei Adoniev, whom the FBI suspected of involvement in this case, is not only hastily extradited to Russia, but is also released without serving his entire sentence. Moreover, soon his career rapidly took off, including with the active support of Vladimir Putin personally.
Insider
In 2006, Adoniev created the Telconet Capital fund, which became the main shareholder of the telecommunications operator Scartel (Yota brand). Yota strangely managed to obtain a GSM license without having its own transmitters (it used Megafon towers), after which Adoniev invested no less than $600 million in Scartel over 4 years (2007-2011). Where did the former banana seller come from? whether funds were found for such investments is unclear (unless, of course, he only sold bananas). But it is known that since 2006, Sergei Chemezov, the head of Russian Technologies and Putin’s former colleague in the Dresden KGB station, has become his patron. In 2008, Rostec became the owner of a 25% stake in Scartel.
The rise of Yota did not inspire enthusiasm among other telecommunications companies, but intervention from above also helped. On March 3, the heads and main shareholders of all major Russian telecommunications companies gathered at the Yota office. In addition to Chemezov and Adonyev, they personally found Vladimir Putin there, in whose presence they signed an agreement that was extremely beneficial for Adonyev: an infrastructure company was created on the basis of Scartel, in whose network the parties to the agreement would be able to provide mobile Internet services using LTE technology.
In 2013, Adoniev and his partner Avdolyan sold their stake in Scartel to Usmanov - then the transaction amount was estimated at 1.3 billion. In 2017, Forbes estimated his fortune at $0.8 billion. In recent years, Adoniev appears in the news more often than not as a businessman , but as a sponsor, and a sponsor of those projects in which not everyone would risk investing and which had no chance of paying off: he financed the Dau project (the long-awaited premiere of which will take place today in Paris), he financed the election campaign of Ksenia Sobchak and to this day has now been the main sponsor of Novaya Gazeta (the editors note that he is a good investor - he does not interfere in editorial policy).
The founder of Yota was deprived of Bulgarian citizenship
The founder of the Yota company, Sergei Adonyev F 114, was deprived of Bulgarian citizenship, Reuters reports citing the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice. The Ministry notes that in the future Bulgaria plans to stop issuing citizenship by investment. Adoniev, who received a Bulgarian passport in 2008, was stripped of his citizenship back in May after Bulgarian authorities were notified of a criminal case in which Adoniev was involved in the United States 20 years ago.
We are talking about an episode in 1998, when Adoniev spent 30 months in an American prison. He was put on Interpol’s wanted list back in 1995 following a lawsuit from the Kazakh Prosecutor General’s Office, which suspected Adonyev of bribing the country’s top officials for a positive solution to the issue of supplying 25,000 tons of Cuban sugar. Charges in this case against Adonyev were eventually dropped, but the businessman still went to prison - American authorities discovered that Adonyev’s US-registered company, MCW Enterprises, was violating the ban on trade with Cuba introduced back in 1960. In addition to violating the embargo, Adonyev was accused of money laundering and wire fraud. Then he pleaded guilty to some of the charges, but denied giving bribes to officials. In addition to 30 months in prison, a US court ordered the businessman to pay a fine of $4 million.
Adonyev and his business partner Alber Avdolyan own the Telconet Capital fund, whose assets include 34.9% of the mobile device manufacturer Yota Devices. Adonyev is the founder of the mobile operator Scartel (Yota brand, now owned by Megafon). Last year, Adonyev noted that he was one of the sponsors of Ksenia Sobchak’s presidential campaign.
In order to obtain Bulgarian citizenship by investment, you need to invest about €1 million in government bonds. Bulgarian “golden passports” are quite popular among Russians - as the Bulgarian non-governmental organization Anti-Corruption Fund has calculated, in 10 years Bulgaria has issued 225 passports for investments, of which 125 are for Russians. The Bulgarian citizenship by investment program has been criticized by the European Commission. As Reuters wrote with reference to the report, the Bulgarian authorities, as well as the authorities of Malta and Cyprus, do not carefully check the sources of investors’ wealth.
Lviv resident Sergei Adoniev returns to Ukraine
Billionaire Sergei Adonyev will join the ranks of fugitive citizens of the Russian Federation. A Russian billionaire born in Lviv decided to return to Ukraine.
The day before it became known that a number of Adonyev’s subsidiaries will change their registration from Russian to Ukrainian, thanks to which they will not only be able to avoid international sanctions, but will also significantly increase their capitalization through new IPOs.
As Sergei Nikolaevich himself noted in a commentary to World News, the issue of relocation has no political implications. “I just decided to return to my hometown and beloved country. Living in a huge metropolis, you don’t feel happy, but Lviv, dear to the heart, is a city in which anyone can be truly happy,” assures Mr. Adoniev.
“Now it has become easier to do business in Ukraine, which is confirmed by many of my acquaintances and friends from Ukraine. In a difficult period for the country, a favorable investment climate is the most important thing. I sincerely hope that official Kyiv learns from the mistakes of the past, which means everything will be fine for you,” summed up Sergei Adoniev.
Success story of Sergei Adoniev
At the beginning of 2012, Yota became the first Russian mobile operator to launch LTE. In 2012, Adonyev entered into a deal with Megafon shareholder Alisher Usmanov. Under the agreement, mobile operators were united into the Garsdale holding, which included 100% of Yota shares and a controlling stake in Megafon. This was necessary in order to reduce operating costs when introducing a new data transfer standard.
A year later, the businessman sold his share of Garsdale to Usmanov. After this, Adonyev and his partner Albert Avdolyan remained with a 64.9% stake in the smartphone manufacturer Yota Devices. In the spring of 2015, they sold approximately half of their securities to the Chinese company China Baoli Technology. At the moment, Adonyev owns 37.45% of shares in Yota Devices.
In June 2015, it became known that Adonyev and Avdolyan owned 1.3% of the shares of the Russian IT company QIWI, which owns the payment system of the same name.
Sergei Adonyev invested in the publishing house SPN Publishing CJSC, in which he has a blocking minority. The publishing house was founded in 1990 and currently publishes the Russian version of Rolling Stone magazine, as well as various teaching aids.
Sergei Adonyev was one of the sponsors of Ksenia Sobchak’s election campaign, two sources close to the TV presenter’s headquarters told RBC. Negotiations with him went on and “I think they ended successfully,” said Sobchak’s acquaintance.
The end of "Iota" is near. On whom does Sergei Adonyev’s empire rest?
The Yota company has transformed from a “leading edge of information technology” into a modest mobile operator with an extremely low level of service. The company’s shares are falling, and Sergei Adonyev himself, apparently, is counting on the support of his long-time friend Sergei Chemezov.
Among the leaders in the recent decline in shares in the global ranking was the company “Iota” of Sergei Adonyev. More than 9 percent per day! Such an anti-record could only be boasted in times of deep crisis. However, there is no crisis now, the indices of the TOP 50 Russian companies are growing, even MTS and Sberbank are among the growth leaders. What is happening to Iota and why will this bubble burst sooner or later?
The answer to this question must be sought in the personality of Sergei Adonyev himself, who is a master of inflating various bubbles, as well as in the entrepreneur’s entourage. As is known, one of the main lobbyists of the highest level, Sergei Chemezov, is considered Adonyev’s patron. And what unites both Sergeevs is not technology, import substitution and other nonsense. Chemezov and Adonyev have much deeper and closer communication.
The Rospress publication has dedicated a series of publications to this relationship, which are simply impossible to ignore.
In the 1990s, Chemezov became close friends with two previously convicted residents of St. Petersburg - Viktor Petrik and Sergei Adonyev.
Kidnapper Petrik
Petrik was sentenced to 11 years in the camps in 1984. According to the Soviet court, this friend of the former KGB officer Chemezov accepted complicity in giving a bribe (Article 147, Part 3 of the Criminal Code), committed fraud causing significant damage to the victim (Article 183 of the Criminal Code) and theft of property (Article 196 Part 1 Criminal Code), forced witnesses to give false testimony (Article 218, Part 2 of the Criminal Code), stored, sold, traded ammunition (Article 228 of the Criminal Code) and pornography (Article 154, Part 3 of the Criminal Code), speculated on an especially large scale (Article 154, Part 3 of the Criminal Code).
Leningrad collectors of antiques and paintings were then terrified by the so-called “gang of mummers.” Bandits dressed in police uniforms burst into apartments and, threatening physical harm, criminal charges, arrest, demanded that money and jewelry be handed over to them. The raiders’ equipment included fake OBKhSS IDs, knives, axes, ropes, adhesive plaster for covering the mouth, etc. When the gang was captured after another robbery, it turned out that the organizer of all the raids, the gunner and the dealer of stolen goods was 37-year-old Viktor Petrik, who had not worked anywhere for many years.
To personally characterize the convicted person, it is advisable to quote from the verdict in his criminal case: “On August 20, 1983, at about 2 p.m., for the purpose of extortion, according to the defendant V.I. Petrik. plan, Shepsenvol A.I. in the uniform of a police lieutenant, and Romanov V.M. with a fake ID of an OBKhSS inspector of the Moskovsky District Department of Internal Affairs in house 55 on Herzen Street, they “interrogated” gr. Rudakov I.S. and through blackmail they demanded that property worth 30,000 rubles be transferred to them. Petrik, in the process of these illegal actions, called them on the phone and coordinated their criminal actions. In January 1983, Petrik obtained a police officer’s license LG N12434 from a person unidentified by the investigation in the name of senior lieutenant N.M. Kiryukhin for the purpose of using it for criminal purposes. In early February 1983, at the place of residence of the mountains. Leningrad […] forged it - he replaced the photo ID card with his own, and added a round seal imprint on the photo card. On the right insert, I erased, added and completed the text, making the following notes: “Lieutenant / ‘Inspector OBKhSS Moskovsky District Department of Internal Affairs. He used the forged identity card to commit robbery and extortion; on December 13, he handed it over to Sutyrin to facilitate the robbery.”
In the 1990s, Petrik, who was released from the colony, was closely associated with the Tambov and a number of other local organized crime groups, and was involved in the case of osmium smuggling across the Finnish border. It was on the basis of the import-export operation that Petrik became friends with Chemezov, who then lived in Moscow and also interacted fruitfully with St. Petersburg authorities.
The consequences of this friendship for the Russian defense industry are fully felt in the modern era, when Petrik has become a serious lobbyist in the market controlled by the state corporation s. The son of its director, Stanislav Sergeevich Chemezov, owns the Interbusinessgroup company, which, in turn, has a subsidiary - Russian Industrial Nanotechnologies CJSC. 25.01% - from the company of Chemezov Jr. and 74.99% - from Viktor Petrik. The company is engaged in scientific research, production of electrical and radio elements, as well as water collection and purification. In Moscow, Russian Industrial Nanotechnologies is located at the same address as Interbusinessgroup - in Milyutinsky Lane.
Sugar-cocaine roots of Russian Technologies
Sergei Adoniev, like Petrik, in the 1990s was a confidant of a number of St. Petersburg mafiosi, and in his activities he had a strong attraction to the same Finnish border. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation linked Adonyev and his partner Oleg Popov to the arrest of the largest drug shipment traveling from Russia to Europe. We were talking about a ton of cocaine discovered in 1993 on the border with Finland, whose value, if converted to modern money, taking into account inflation, would be several hundred million dollars.
Journalists from the Ruspres news agency previously reported that Adonyev spent 1997, 1998 and 1999 in an American prison, where he was imprisoned for stealing $4 million. The St. Petersburg fraudster lured this amount from Kazakhstan as an advance payment for fake sugar supplies by his American company. The goods were not delivered, Adoniev embezzled the money after being caught cashing in stolen goods from US banks. In addition to the sugar and drug episodes, FBI agents were aware of the role of their charge in the circumstances of the murder of his companion Popov - and a key witness in both sugar and drug trafficking.
One can only guess whether Chemezov’s name came up in that old Adonyev case, and also wait for the publication of parallel operational materials that have not yet been destroyed in the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB.
Now the former American prisoner is considered the founder and co-owner of the telecom operator Yota. The Yota holding has a rather murky history - all ownership rights are registered through offshore companies. 25% was previously owned by the Russian Technologies State Corporation; the beneficiaries of the remaining 75% are difficult, if not impossible, to verify. As market participants say, leading positions among them may be occupied by authoritative businessman Albert Avdolyan (this figure deserves a separate study) and relatives of Sergei Chemezov, who has repeatedly declared his patronage of the project.
By the way, according to reviews from users of Yota products - clients of the cellular operator, this is perhaps the worst option of all possible.
This is the kind of warm company Sergei Chemezov gathered around him. It is not surprising that with such a team, the Yota company will soon cease to exist, thereby ridding the Russian telecommunications market of its squalor.
