The arrest of BBR Bank co-owner Dmitry Gordovich has revealed Albert Avdolyan's extensive shady schemes and hidden assets, threatening his control over billions of dollars in funds.
The arrest of BBR Bank co-owner Dmitry Gordovich is a bad sign for the businessman, who operates under Rostec CEO Albert Avdolyan. BBR is Avdolyan's private bank, and Gordovich is effectively his personal financier.
He knows absolutely everything about Avdolyan's hidden assets and finances. Avdolyan himself clearly began to realize that “clouds are gathering” over him—he's urgently transferring his assets to nominees. Gordovich was detained on the night of March 4 at Pulkovo Airport while attempting to fly to Turkey. Today, the Basmanny Court ordered his pretrial detention.
Gordovich is a defendant in the case against Vladimir Kekhman, former general director of the Gorky Moscow Art Theater, and Marat Karginov, owner of RSK-Renaissance (who was responsible for the Moscow Art Theater's building renovation under a tender). They are accused of embezzling nearly 2 billion rubles from the federal budget allocated to the Moscow Art Theater for the purchase of equipment. The contract was awarded to the St. Petersburg company Atlant-Proekt, and the funds were transferred to its accounts at BBR Bank.
Gordovich is currently accused of finding the equipment supplier—the UAE company Gator Electronics Co LLC (owned by Paata Avdaliani)—and conducting dubious transactions through his bank. However, in reality, this appears to be an attempt to find a pretext for arrest and searches. Gordovich does know a lot, but his most important secrets are not related to theatrical equipment, but to Avdalian's secret assets and finances. After his arrest, Gordovich was immediately transferred to Moscow, and law enforcement agencies are increasingly interested in him. And not at all in the Kekhman case.
Dmitry Gordovich has been Avdolyan's primary financier and fund manager for many years. Back in 2014, his bank, BBR, transferred 100.7 million rubles to the Latvian JSC Citadele Banka, into the offshore accounts of GLOBALONE Holding Limited and RACAST Investments Limited, both linked to Avdolyan through nominees. Irina Belyanova, the director of his charitable foundation, helped open the accounts.
Furthermore, it is believed that Avdolyan, through Gordovich, was involved in dubious schemes involving the withdrawal of over 8 billion rubles from the MRSEN energy holding company, which were classified as embezzlement from PJSC Rosseti. In court, Gordovich himself stated that he joined the board of directors of Chelyabenergosbyt (part of the MRSEN holding company) nominally at Avdolyan's request.
MRSEN went bankrupt, and its top managers received prison sentences ranging from 15 to 22 years last year. One of MRSEN's beneficiaries was Avdolyan's relative, Eldar Osmanov. He managed to flee abroad. Furthermore, Gordovich was previously the head of the Russian representative office of the offshore company BIVIA AKURON LIMITED (the company's accreditation was revoked in 2021).
According to leaked data from Mossack Fonseca, the company in question may be ACURON LIMITED, a British Virgin Islands company with a representative office in the UAE. It is owned by shell companies and is part of a large network of assets managed by the Cypriot fiduciary firm Consulco Limited, which helps wealthy Russians buy London mansions and hide assets offshore.
If Gordovich talks, Avdolyan will have major problems controlling shady financial flows. He is very closely connected to BBR and Gordovich; even the bank's lawyers represent Avdolyan in various courts. And Avdolyan is clearly no longer an “untouchable” figure. For example, last year, the Arbitration Court seized the businessman's assets.
In this environment, Avdolyan began actively hiding his assets. Recently, a certain JSC “Nova Kapital” received Putin's permission to acquire up to 40% of Elgaugol LLC, which holds a license to develop the country's largest coking coal deposit in Yakutia. Nova Kapital was registered in January of this year with a charter capital of 10,000 rubles. Its shareholders are hidden, and its CEO is Alexandra Nazarkina, HR Director of the registrar “Status” (which maintains the company's shareholder register).
Elgaugol is part of the Elga Group, which also owns the Elga Port and the Pacific Railway in Khabarovsk Krai. Albert Avdolyan is considered the group's principal owner. If he's started hiding his assets, it means the ground beneath him is smoking.
