Portrait of Russian Minister Alexey Chekunkov

Diamonds, lobbying and investment in a miracle machine

Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic Alexey Chekunkov For several years, together with his wife, he owned a stake in a Russian oil and gas production company, which he sold last year to one of the companies participating in the Eastern Economic Forum.

“Verstka” and “Arktida” established at least two cases of a conflict of interest in the minister’s business activities, and also discovered his connections with companies in Africa and with a Swiss bank. The latter was suspected of helping Russian businessmen circumvent sanctions. How a native of Belarus, the son of a diplomat and the son-in-law of one of the major businessmen, as an official, lobbies the interests of companies associated with him, receives and sells assets and goes to the front – in the material of “Vorstka” and “Arktida”.

“Successful Investor”Publicly by Alexey Chekunkov present as a successful investor who has implemented “significant projects”. He actually moved to the post of minister after working in several investment funds.

At the beginning of the 2000s, he was a project director at the ALROSA investment group, a subsidiary of the largest Russian diamond mining company. Later he served as vice president in a division of the investment fund The US Russia Investment Fund, created by the US government for private investments in Russian economy.

At the end of the 2000s, Alexey Chekunkov led his own investment company, New Nations Capital, registered in the British Virgin Islands. The jurisdiction of the islands allows not to disclose the final beneficiaries of the companies, for this reason, “Verstka” and “Arktida” could not find any information about whether the fund is working today. But we analyzed the company’s activities in different countries and discovered three projects in which Chekunkov, apparently, invested money during the period while he was managing his own fund.

The first of them, “Vorstka” and “Arktida,” were found in Denmark. There, the future minister invested in the Danish-Norwegian company Johnsen Oil. As local journalists wrote, Chekunkov and his partners invested about one million euros in a machine that could purify oil from water particles. True, in reality such a device did not exist, and instead of it, investors were “sold” a harvesting machine.

The developer of the technological “innovation” was the Norwegian Are Abrahamsen. According to journalists, Abrahamsen stopped responding to Chekunkov’s letters shortly after receiving the money. However, Abrahamsen later founded another company – Norwegian Field Industry AS – and again tried to sell his non-existent miracle machine. It is noteworthy that Chekunkov received several shares of this company in the hope that this device would still be able to be sold to someone and he would return part of the investment. But this did not happen (It is unknown whether Chekunkov maintained contact with Abrahamsen after the unsuccessful investment. Judging by Danish commercial register, Chekunkov joined Johnsen Oil in May 2010, but another investor in the company and chairman of Norwegian Field Industry AS spoke about their joint meetings in Moscow in 2017). In 2022 Are Abrahamsen detained surprisingly in Moscow and extradited to Oslo, where the court sentenced him to five years in prison in a fraud case.

Another investment project of the future minister was located in Mozambique. In 2009, Chekunkov founded the New Nations Water company there. Judging by publications in a national newspaper, the company developed wells and designed construction sites in water areas. When opening it, Chekunkov invested about 19 thousand meticals in cash – approximately $700 at the exchange rate at that time. It was in the possession of the future minister for about a year – in 2010 Chekunkov sold her to her own fund New Nations Capital for 3 million 298 thousand meticals – approximately 97.6 thousand dollars at the exchange rate at that time. At the same time, it is unknown whether the company carried out any real activities. “Verstka” and “Arktida” discovered another company in Mozambique associated with the investment fund New Nations Capital. It is called Alexeigroup and was probably registered during the period when Alexey Chekunkov managed the fund. However, no definitive confirmation of this could be found. Mentions of the company on the Internet date back to 2011 and 2020: in the first case, we are talking about the introduction of new founders who are citizens of Mozambique, and in the second, about the withdrawal of New Nations Capital from managing the company. There is no earlier information about the opening of a company on the Internet.).

The third business project with which Chekunkov was associated during the same period was located in Mauritius. There, the future minister acted as director of Clever Capital Network Ltd. In Mauritius, companies are allowed not to disclose the names of owners and use nominee directors. There is no information in open sources about who exactly was behind Clever Capital Network and what the company did.

“Analyzing this information, we can say that the investment activities of Chekunkov’s company do not have any significant profile or list of investors,” says the director of the Arctida project. Ilya Shumanov.

After trying to manage his own investment company, Chekunkov in 2011 moved to the post of director, board member and member of the investment committee of the newly created Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). There he was responsible for healthcare, energy, the raw materials sector and for the creation of the Russian-Chinese investment fund. In 2014, Chekunkov headed the Far East and Arctic Development Fund JSC, and in 2020 he became Minister for the Development of the Far East and Arctic.

Three Vorstka sources close to federal officials confirmed that he was promoted to the post of minister by Putin’s plenipotentiary representative in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev. One of the interlocutors noted that Chekunkov was recommended to Trutnev by the General Director of RDIF, a native of Kyiv Kirill Dmitriev.

How the family of the Russian minister is connected with the Indian company and oligarch Yorich

“India is now turning into one of the largest consumers of energy resources from Russia, and in the future it can become a serious buyer of goods that our Arctic produces – LNG, oil, concentrate,” said Alexey Chekunkov in TASS interview in September 2023, a week before the start of the Eastern Economic Forum. Before this, the minister visited Delhi, where he discussed joint Arctic projects with the Indian authorities.

True, neither in that interview nor in any of the previous ones did the minister mention his own business projects with Indian companies.

Back at last year’s EEF, one of the companies with which Russian officials signed memorandums of cooperation, turned out to be Indian conglomerate Enso Group. The main profile of the company is oil and gas production. Then the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation agreed with an Indian company on cooperation in the production of medicines and the creation of an entire satellite city in the Nadezhdinskaya priority development area in the Primorsky Territory. Enso Group was promised tax benefits, a free customs zone and no quotas for attracting foreign labor.

By the end of 2022, the Indian company will didn’t register resident in the Far Eastern priority areas. But the company included in its structure – Enso Holdings Limited – bought out the share of the family of Minister Chekunkov in the Irkutsk LLC Kada-Neftegaz (The company has its own oil and gas field in Irkutsk (Zaslavsky license area), is engaged in their extraction and processing), which owns the field oil and gas, and also began purchasing Russian gold and diamonds.

Alexey Chekunkov owned a third of Kada-Neftegaz. He received it in 2019, when he headed the OJSC Development Fund of the Far East and Baikal Region (now JSC VEB.DV). The value of his share, judging by the data from the Kontur. Focus” was about 200.5 million rubles.

The future minister got this share from the Cypriot company New Investment Group Holdco Limited, whose owners at that time were Russian businessmen from the American sanctions list Alexey Gnedovsky And Dmitry Bugaenko. They are also the founders and owners of the Veles Capital company (This is a Russian investment company that is actively involved in managing private and corporate investments. In February 2023, the Veles Invest group of companies, as well as Alexey Gnedovsky and Dmitry Bugaenko came under US sanctions. As a justification for inclusion in the sanctions lists, the American regulator mentioned the participation of Veles and its management in capital management UHNWI (Ultra High-net-worth individual). Such persons related to Russia are usually called oligarchsmany of which are already on US and EU sanctions lists).

In 2021, Chekunkov transferred his share in Kada-Neftegaz LLC to his wife Olga, and she, at the end of 2022, sold it to Enso Holding Limited, the Dubai division of the Indian Enso Group. At the same time, Olga Chekunkova herself remained the mortgagee of this share, that is, the buyers have not yet paid off their obligations.

In fact, the controlling shareholder of Kada-Neftegaz since its opening is Evgeniy Yorich, son Vladimir Yorikh, ex-shareholder of the Russian mining and metallurgical company Mechel. Through Cypriot Crossvion Ltd and Swiss Pala Investments, he owns 55% of the company.

Vladimir Yorich positions himself as a German-Swiss tycoon who has no connection with Russia and controls uranium mining in the United States. Previously, nothing was known about his oil and gas assets in Russia and his business with the family of the federal minister.

The fate of Russian diamonds

A few weeks after the end of the EEF 2022, the Indian Enso Group began purchasing Russian diamonds from Yakutia. Three months before this, the company carried out two transactions to purchase gold, as follows from the closed customs data available to VERSTKA.

As Vorstka found out, over the six months of 2022, Enso, through its subsidiaries, bought diamonds and gold from Russian suppliers for a total amount of more than 33.2 million US dollars or 2.1 billion rubles. For this money, the company bought 779.5 thousand carats of diamonds (155.9 kg) and 55 kg of gold.

Parcels were sent to the two main countries of the diamond industry: Belgium and the UAE. Purchases were carried out through four companies: the Dubai division of Enso Group – Enso Global Trading; jewelry companies from Belgium and Mumbai – Dali Diamond and Saahil DMC; as well as a Dubai company that provides comprehensive security services to businesses, Transguard Emirates Group Security.

In 2023, Enso Group structures continued purchasing precious stones. As Vorstka found out, over the past six months, divisions of the Indian conglomerate have bought diamonds in Russia for a total amount of about 88.5 million US dollars, or almost 7 billion rubles. This cost included 504.8 thousand carats of diamonds (more than 100 kg). Parcels were also sent to Belgium, the UAE and this time to India. Among the recipients are the same Enso Global Trading, Dali Diamond, as well as another Belgian jewelry company Diajewel NV.

The diamonds in question were produced by ALROSA, the largest miner in this field in Russia. In 2022, the US Treasury imposed sanctions against the company against the backdrop of the SVO in Ukraine, and Biden banned the import of rough diamonds from Russia. The European Union did not support the idea of ​​imposing sanctions at that time: Belgium feared that they could cause greater damage to Antwerp, the city center of the entire diamond industry.

There has been talk about a complete limitation of Russia’s income from the sale of precious stones since the beginning of the SVO in Ukraine. A year earlier, the country’s revenues from diamond exports amounted to four billion dollars. Although they are not comparable to revenues from Russian oil, the G7 countries assume that their loss could damage the budget, including the military one. They even started developing a strategy to block Russian diamond miners’ access to the world market: from 2024 politicians plan to introduce a system for tracking gemstones, which has not existed until now.

In August 2023, it became known that the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) frozen $26 million in the accounts of two Indian companies for alleged connections with ALROSA. Names of these companies in the media were not voiced. It is unknown whether we are talking about the Enso Group associated with the Russian minister. “Verstka” asked OFAC to provide the names of these companies.

Belarusian roots of a Russian official and an “insider” in a Swiss bank

About the business of the minister’s wife Olga Chekunkova was not publicly known. She positions herself as psychoanalyst And teacher Department of Psychology, Higher School of Economics. She married Chekunkov in 2001 in Belarus: both Olga and Alexey himself were born and raised there (In 2021, a letter from Alexey Chekunkov to the deputy chairman of the government went viral Tatiana Golikova: The minister asked, on the occasion of his wedding ceremony, to open the border to seven guests from India, Belarus and the United States (coronavirus restrictions were in effect in Russia at that time). Whether we are talking about a new marriage or a re-conclusion of a previous marriage on the territory of Russia is unknown.).

As a girl, the minister’s wife bore the surname Telushkina. Her father, Valentin Telushkin, is a businessman and judging by media publicationswas among those close to Lukashenko oligarchsbeing Head of CJSC Belagrointorg. This is one of the largest exporters and importers of agricultural products, machinery and equipment for the agro-industrial complex in Belarus.

Father of Alexey Chekunkov – Oleg Chekunkov – diplomat. He served as Ambassador Plenipotentiary of Belarus to Vietnam, concurrently in Laos and Thailand. In addition, Chekunkov Sr. was a deputy in the Ministry of Foreign Economic Affairs of Belarus, worked for a large Indonesian company that supplied coal to the EU, and also traded Belarusian potash fertilizers in Poland. Today, the father of the Russian minister, apparently, leads Belarusian company “VIK – Animal Health”, which produces veterinary drugs.

Chekunkov’s brother – Vitaly Chekunkov — citizen of Poland. For the last seven years he has lived in the suburbs of Zurich and works at the Credit Suse bank. It is the second largest financial conglomerate in Switzerland. In March of this year it became known that the US authorities suspected Credit Suse and some of its employees in aiding Russian businessmen in circumventing sanctions after the start of Russia’s SVO to Ukraine. Was there any investigation in relation to the brother of the Russian minister, it is unknown. Now Vitaly Chekunkov takes at Credit Suse the position of liquidity risk manager. Chekunkov became one of the faces of the company for the resettlement of Ukrainians to the Far East. By mid-autumn 2022, about 2,922 Ukrainians were transported to his region. Subsequently, the Russian minister came under European And American sanctions.

Like dozens of other officials, Chekunkov and his boss Trutnev himself traveled to the occupied regions of Ukraine.