Sanctioned share of the billionaire
According to the British company Dun & Bradstreet, since 2014 the number of Czech companies with Russian owners has decreased by almost a third. Most of these enterprises were liquidated in the first year of the NWO in Ukraine. Journalists from Investigace.cz (partner of OCCRP) found outhow businessmen got rid of Czech assets Mavlit and Musa Bazhaev, Vladimir Evtushenkov And Viktor Vekselberg.
Mavlit and Musa Bazhaev
Mavlit and Musa Bazhaev (both under international sanctions) are Chechen businessmen from the environment Ramzan Kadyrov and Vladimir Putin. The Bazhaev family had a whole portfolio of development projects in the Czech Republic, but after the start of the SVO in Ukraine, all companies owning or managing their Czech assets passed to new owners who do not seem to be associated with the Bazhaevs. Until 2021, a number of their assets were owned by a Czech company Aza Trade, which the Chechens owned through the offshore Harton Engineering Ltd, later transferred both companies under the control of the Cypriot Higglo Investments, also controlled by Bazhaev.
According to the register of beneficiaries, Higglo Investments is now owned by Rustam Mukhamedrakhimov from Kazakhstan – in his homeland he owns a network of food warehouses and Green House Trading stores. He paid almost 290 million crowns for Czech assets.
Mukhamedrakhimov’s representative told Investigace.cz that the businessman has “great experience in development, more precisely in the construction of logistics, retail, industrial and residential facilities,” and met the Bazhaevs only at the time of the deal.
Aza Trade was taken over by Elena Derbentseva at the end of last year and is now called Trabcde. According to the trade register, Derbentseva, who bought the company from the Bazhaevs for 1.8 million crowns, is the owner of the Ukrainian travel agency Voyage.
Investigace.cz learned that through another offshore, the Bazhaevs owned the Mendel Plaza company, which is to build five residential buildings in Brno with about 500 apartments. Last year, the firm was taken over by Yasser Sofyan Assad Amro of Jordan, who owns a fifth of shares in the Ukrainian travel company Cosmos Travel Star.
Vladimir Evtushenkov
Billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov controls the RTI Systems concern (under the sanctions of Ukraine, the US, the UK and the EU), which has been supplying the Russian military with radio equipment for control and communication systems since the beginning of the NWO in Ukraine.
Yevtushenkov also owns the Russian investment company AFK Sistema, whose portfolio includes enterprises from various sectors of the economy. Until January 2023, she owned the Czech company Lunoft, sro, which manages the five-star hotel complex Savoy Westend in Karlovy Vary.
On the day when the UK put Yevtushenkov on the sanctions list and froze his assets in the country, the billionaire transferred 10 percent of the shares of AFK Sistema to his son Felix in order to make his share non-controlling. Felix owns 15.2 percent of the shares, and Yevtushenkov Sr. – 49.2.
According to the channel, we are talking about the arrest of the five-star Savoy Westend hotel in Karlovy Vary, where Russian politicians, businessmen and cultural figures were allegedly visited in past years, some of them are now under sanctions. In general, Yevtushenkov’s property in Karlovy Vary is estimated at 500 million Czech crowns (about $23 million), according to the TV channel.
The hotel is now working in a limited mode and it continues to accept guests who have paid for accommodation until the end of June. There is a risk that employees will lose their jobs, the head of the hotel told the TV channel. Yevtushenkov is the founder and co-owner of AFK Sistema. His condition Forbes estimates at $1.7 billion.
Investigace.cz journalists learned that since the end of January this year, Savoy Westend, through the Czech company Lunoft, sro, has been owned by the Russian company Hotel Holding, which was founded a month after the start of SVO in Ukraine. The sole owner of Hotel Holding is Elena Anatolyevna Brusilova, who has children from Yevtushenkov. Czech documents still list a Russian businessman as the owner of Savoy Westend.
Viktor Vekselberg
In 2018, the US imposed sanctions on Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and his Renova company, which owned the Czech precious metals refiner Safina.
In the same year, Safina was sold to Alexander Okatov, the general director of the Yekaterinburg Precious Metals Processing Plant, which for many years was part of Vekselberg’s Renova holding.
Safina’s 2021 audit report states that the NWO in Ukraine, however “terrible it may be in itself, does not economically affect the company’s future activities in any way, since the company does not trade with states involved in the conflict.”
Safina’s management denies that the company is in any way connected with Viktor Vekselberg.