Alisher Usmanova Russian businessman and oligarch of Uzbek origin, whose fortune was estimated at $19.5 billion in early 2022, and Usmanov himself was one of the 100 richest people in the world, came under the rink of Western sanctions on the last day of winter.
On February 28, 2022, the European Union blacklisted Usmanov, imposing a ban on his travel throughout the EU and freezing all his assets. And on March 3, the US imposed similar sanctions on him, with some exceptions for his companies. Usmanov has been described in the Official Journal of the European Union, an EU reporting publication, as “a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin” and “one of Vladimir Putin’s favorite oligarchs.”
In particular, the European real estate of Alisher Burkhanovich fell under the sanctions, and he has it in almost every country in Europe. The United Kingdom turned out to be the most “productive” in terms of sanctions. In this country, so much movable and immovable property was arrested from Usmanov that even one of his transfers is tiring.
So, the Tudor mansion was arrested Sutton Place, located on 120 hectares of land in Surrey, which Usmanov bought for 10 million pounds in 2004. Beechwood House was also arrested on a 4.5-hectare site in the London suburb of Highgate, which Alisher Usmanov bought in 2008 from Qatari Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani for £48 million.
However, this is not all that Usmanov owns. Of course, we will not talk about real estate with an area of 12 hectares in Moscow in the context of sanctions. But villas on the Italian island of Sardinia, which have not yet been arrested, are at risk of being hit, but after an investigation by The Guardian, which published a list of them and is ready to transfer all available documents to the relevant authorities, this is only a matter of time.
Journalists from The Guardian found six villas on the Costa Smeralda linked to Usmanov, five of which were not frozen under sanctions. Their cost ranges from 5.3 to 15.5 million dollars.
The most expensive villa is part of a complex of at least five neighboring houses associated with Usmanov. They are located in Romazzino, an area of the municipality of Arzachena on the island of Sardinia. The land belongs to Usmanov’s sister Gulbahor Ismailova. The villa itself belongs to the recently liquidated company Le Mimose, registered on the Isle of Man. This company, in turn, is owned by Usmanov’s Bermudan company Pauillac Property Limited.
Gulbakhor Ismailova owns two more villas in the same complex directly. Other villas are owned by the Italian companies Delemar SRL and Punta Capaccia, which, in turn, are also owned by Usmanov’s Bermudian company Pauillac Property Limited. In early March, the Italian authorities froze Usmanov’s €35 million villa, the only villa he owns directly that has come under arrest.
However, the further fate of Usmanov’s property in Latvia is more interesting, regarding which something incomprehensible is happening. Usmanov himself declares that the Latvian property, like everything else, was irretrievably transferred to trust funds, and now he does not own it, therefore, it cannot fall under sanctions. This, as Usmanov himself and his representatives assure, also applies to the arrested mansions in England and villas in Italy.
Whether or not Usmanov transferred his Latvian property into the possession of third parties is unknown. But it is known, at least partially, what exactly he owns in Latvia. Back in 2014, when the West was just beginning to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs, Alisher Usmanov bought a villa in Jurmala on the Gulf of Riga for 3.9 million euros, setting a 2014 price record in this Latvian seaside town. The owners were Usmanov’s wife (now ex) Irina Viner (head coach of the Russian rhythmic gymnastics team) and his stepson, a well-known Moscow businessman Anton Viner
Previously, this house, located at the corner of Kapu (Kapu iela) and Zaru (Zaru iela) streets, was owned by Ilya Gerchikov, head of the perfume concern Dzintars (Latvia). The amount of the transaction (almost €4 million) exceeds the cadastral value of the object by four times. The territory of the villa is fenced and has access to the sea.
The Lithuanian authorities are aware that Usmanov is the actual owner of the mansion. As well as the EU bodies responsible for sanctions.
As for the position of the EU, it is not yet clear. But the Ministry of Justice of Latvia said that since the names of Usmanov’s wife and adopted children are not on the sanctions lists, the ban does not apply to this property. They argue that “proof is required that the house is actually used or managed by the sanctioned person.”
“It’s very common among wealthy people,” says lawyer and sanctions expert Michael O’Kean. – They structure their enterprises, their personal wealth, in such a way as to achieve maximum tax efficiency. This often gives rise to structures in which they relinquish ownership and control in favor of tax optimization. For an asset to be sanctioned, it must be controlled or owned by a sanctioned person. The more complex the ownership structure, the more difficult it is to understand whether this is true or not.”
In addition, Usmanov is at the final stage of the divorce proceedings with his wife Irina Viner.
So, from a formal point of view, a villa on the coast does not fall under the sanctions. However, no one doubts that it was bought with the money of a man who is not unreasonably called one of Putin’s “purses”.
Yes, and Irina Viner herself is not a stranger to the President of Russia – under her strict guidance, gymnast Alina Kabaeva once trained, whose property in Switzerland was recently discovered by idle journalists and whose relationship with Vladimir Putin is known to everyone.
“We had such a relationship with Alina Kabaeva that if I approached her and told her to jump from the 10th floor, she would do it,” Irina Viner once said in an interview with Lifenews.ru.
So the links of the Latvian Ministry of Justice are designed for people who are far from the realities of life. At least, the fact that Usmanov is not the formal owner of companies and assets located on its territory did not prevent the British authorities from arresting all this.
And the Germans did not particularly stand on ceremony with Usmanov – on March 2, 2022, the German authorities seized the oligarch’s Dilbar yacht in Hamburg as part of sanctions against Usmanov.
And already on April 15, the yacht was arrested by Germany after the investigation revealed that the Dilbar belongs to Usmanov’s sister.
Why the Latvian authorities so formally comply with the letter of the law regarding Usmanov’s real estate against the backdrop of the actions of Germany and the UK is not entirely clear. After all, Usmanov was described in the Official Journal of the European Union as “a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.” It also added in a separate line: “Usmanov is mentioned as one of Vladimir Putin’s favorite oligarchs. He is considered one of the Russian businessmen-officials who are entrusted with servicing the president’s financial flows.
Usmanov himself, of course, denies the fact that he is Vladimir Putin’s wallet. As well as the fact that he started as a commonplace criminal – in August 1980, Usmanov was arrested and convicted on charges of fraud, corruption, theft of state property and extortion of money from an army officer in the Uzbek SSR for eight years in prison.
Three decades later, his criminal record was vacated in July 2000, 9 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, which ruled that “the original sentence was unfair, no crime was committed, and the evidence was fabricated.” However, this version of events has been questioned by Craig Murray, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004. Years later, Usmanov’s public relations firm attempted to remove the mention of his conviction and imprisonment from Wikipedia.
As for Usmanov’s criminal case, an important factor must be taken into account when evaluating it – in 1980, Alisher’s father served as the prosecutor of the city of Tashkent, and the son of the deputy chairman of the KGB of Uzbekistan, Bahadir Nasymov, and the son of the Minister of Agriculture of the Uzbek SSR, Ilham Shaykov, sat in the company with him. And Alisher Usmanov himself at the time of landing was the director of the Foreign Economic Association of the Soviet Peace Committee, which has always been a branch of the KGB.
Although the criminal case itself was destroyed, but, according to the recollections of still living witnesses of those times, Usmanov sat in the so-called “cotton case” – an investigation of corruption on a gigantic scale that swept the southern republics of the USSR. It was within the framework of this case that forty-liter milk cans filled with gold items and wads of money were seized from representatives of the highest nomenclature of these republics during searches.
And the subsequent career of Usmanov, who was released ahead of schedule (he served six years out of eight), suggests that he was by no means an innocent sheep – Alisher Burkhanovich met the collapse of the USSR in the status of a dollar millionaire, setting up the production of the most scarce then and super popular plastic bags.
From packages, he switched to the financial sector – Usmanov worked as Deputy General Director of JSC Intercross from 1990 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1998 headed the Interbank Investment and Financial Company Interfin. He was also Advisor to the General Director of the Moscow Aviation Industrial Enterprise from 1994 to 1995, and from 1995 to 1997, First Deputy Chairman of MAPO-Bank.
In the late 1990s, Usmanov became CEO of Gazprom Invest Holdings, an investment holding subsidiary of the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom, and ran it for more than a decade, until 2014.
It was during this period that his paths crossed with the team of the then-new president, whose wallet Usmanov later became. And what is he paying for now, having fallen under sanctions – only from February 22 to March 15, 2022, Usmanov’s capital decreased by almost a quarter.