A Russian entrepreneur, the main owner of the coal mining company SUEK, the chemical concern EuroChem and the Siberian Generating Company, a billionaire whose fortune is estimated at 15-19 billion dollars, one of the ten richest people in Russia, Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko, until recently, was not very famous personality.
He gained worldwide fame after, with the help of a primitive trick, he got out of the Swiss sanctions imposed against him in early March. Switzerland repeated the actions of the European Union, which on March 9 approved the fourth package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus. On that day, 160 individuals were added to the list of personal sanctions, including 14 businessmen for “their participation in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on February 24, after the start of Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine.” Andrey Igorevich is not the last on this list: “Melnichenko belongs to the most influential circle of Russian entrepreneurs with close ties to the Russian government,” the rationale said.
Switzerland duplicated the actions of the EU, but already on March 30, Swiss sanctions against Andrey Melnichenko were lifted. To do this, he pulled off a simple and very primitive trick, which for some reason the Swiss authorities “fell for” – Melnichenko left the board of directors of Eurochem, whose headquarters is located in Zug, Switzerland, and transferred the company to his wife Sandra. This was enough for the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to approve the lifting of sanctions against EuroChem.
Immediately after this decision, a wave of indignation arose and SECO was simply bombarded with uncomfortable questions about his controversial decision. Moreover, this was not done by the Ukrainian side, as one would expect, but by representatives of the Swiss business and political circles. The influential Swiss publications Handelszeitung and Tages-Anzeiger were most actively involved in the investigation of the strange decision of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
SECO’s clumsy justifications and the apparently ludicrous rationale behind the decision to unfreeze the accounts of Andrey Melnichenko’s company have led to an investigation into his activities and close scrutiny of the biography of a Russian billionaire with business in Switzerland.
The results were very unpleasant for both the Swiss authorities and the Russian authorities. Of course, they were the most unpleasant for Andrey Melnichenko himself, since not only his very ugly biography and fraudulent transactions that brought him to the Forbes lists became public, but also obvious traces in the history of this success of the special services. And not only Russian ones – no one doubted that – but also Western ones. Western in the plural – because we are talking not only about Swiss intelligence. Although it clearly could not have done without it. The investigators, of course, did not get their hands on certificates from the Service de renseignement de la Confédération (SRC) or the FSB, but they used simple logic that leads to unambiguous conclusions.
To come to these conclusions, we need to look at the path of student Andrei Melnichenko, who, having arrived from Gomel to Moscow, opened a currency exchange office on the territory of the hostel in 1991. And, instead of a prison or a cemetery, he suddenly found himself in 1993, at the age of 21, among the founders of MDM Bank.
The secret is simple – either bandits or representatives of the KGB protected the currency. However, the bandits who protected the currency were covered by the same KGB. Because in 1991 it was a criminally punishable act, and the sanction of the article provided for execution. That is why the money changers cooperated with the authorities not only willingly, but very willingly.
Andrei Igorevich is prudently silent about this, without denying the obvious. Just sidestepping the topic. The KGB gangster mafia helped a talented guy (and he really turned out to be a talented entrepreneur, you can’t take that away) to make an amazing career.
Until 1997, Andrei Igorevich was the chairman of the board of directors at MDM Bank. And in 1997, he buys shares from partners and becomes the sole owner of this organization. Until 2001, Melnichenko holds the post of chairman of the board in his bank. He was supported by the MDM and the Supervisory Board, headed by A. Mamut.
In 2000, the businessman co-founded the MDM Group. The other two participants were Sergey Popov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky (yes, the same one. Only Khodorkovsky then for some reason sat down and jumped out of Russia miraculously and practically naked, and his partner Melnichenko became incredibly rich. The topic of Melnichenko’s participation in the fate of Khodorkovsky, unfortunately, has not been studied to end). MDM Group formed three large industrial companies: OAO Evrokhim, OAO SUEK, and OAO Pipe Metallurgical Company. Melnichenko himself was the president of the organization until 2004.
In 2004, Melnichenko acquires 90% of the shares of Eurochem from the already mentioned Popov. He got the same share from enterprises from Siberia – generating and coal-energy companies. Krasnoyarskugol also falls at the feet of the businessman, initially trying to compete with the new owner of the energy industry.
In 2006, Melnichenko joined the bureau for the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs: he acted as chairman of the Commission on the mining complex. And in 2011, having connected his energy assets, he created the SGK company on the basis of SUEK’s energy assets. And after a couple of years, having bought out partner shares, he becomes the main shareholder.
In the same period, EuroChem invests in several projects, including an ammonia plant in the Leningrad Region, a potash plant in the Perm Territory, and VolgaKaliy (a project in the Volgograd Region). It turns out that Melnichenko concentrated half of the coal industry in his hands. To date, Melnichenko has the following beneficial interests in the industrial sector:
SUEK (92.2%) is one of the world’s (and country’s) leading coal companies;
EuroChem (90%) is the largest global and domestic producer of mineral fertilizers (let’s not believe the nonsense that Melnichenko’s wife, a model from the former Yugoslavia, owns this share, we are not Swiss);
Siberian Generating Company (92.2%) is the leading Siberian company in the power industry.
This is the main one. It is also worth mentioning that, according to the materials of the same Forbes, Melnichenko is not a tax resident of Russia. As two acquaintances of Melnichenko and a federal official, a member of the Forbes list, the main shareholder of SUEK and EuroChem, Andrey Melnichenko, told Forbes, he is a non-resident. His representative declined to comment on the tax status of the businessman. A former employee of EuroChem and an acquaintance of Melnichenko says that Melnichenko spends a significant amount of time outside of Russia and is a non-resident (for this you need to spend more than 183 days a year outside the country). “He literally lives on his own boat,” says an acquaintance of Melnichenko’s.
Melnichenko’s “boat” is a yacht with the laconic name Sailing Yacht A (after the first letter of the oligarch’s name). With a length of 150 meters and a displacement of about 13,000 tons, the vessel is considered the largest sailing yacht in the world. It was built in Germany at Nobiskrug’s Kiel shipyard and is valued at around 500 million euros. Western media wrote that one door handle costs $ 40,000. The yacht has 14 bedrooms, the size of the vessel is huge – 140 meters in length. The billionaire’s yacht is considered one of the best in the world. Melnichenko spends $20 million annually on its maintenance.
Why did Swiss intelligence “leak” double agent Andrei Melnichenko?
According to the federal official, Melnichenko, as an individual, does not pay taxes in Russia and has not had such taxes (in particular personal income tax) in recent years. Most of the businessmen who have become residents in recent years have been getting rid of offshore companies and simplifying business ownership chains, but this did not happen with Melnichenko.
For example, according to EuroChem website dataMelnichenko Linea (Bermuda) owns 100% of the shares of AIM Capital SE (Cyprus, formerly known as EuroChem Group SE), which owns 90% of the shares of EuroChem Group.
If someone says that all this went without the attention of the Russian special services, then he is a deeply naive person. As well as exactly how Melnichenko earned all these assets. Because his name was feared like fire by representatives of the companies he laid eyes on. And the acquisition of assets was accompanied, for the most part, by classic raider attacks. Moreover, for some reason, all law enforcement agencies and courts unconditionally took the side of Melnichenko.
In clashes with the MDM Melnichenko Group, even such authorities in this “specialization” as Interrros and Alfa Group were defeated, and the mention of the name of Andrei Melnichenko aweed the directors of large enterprises, who were considered masters in their regions. The owners of MDM usually did not resort to rough power grabs of the “mask-show” type, however, they acted inventively and extremely boldly. Various courts issued absolutely incredible decisions and rulings in their interests, and employees of the FSFO, RFBR and the Ministry of Energy regularly took their side in conflicts. As a result, MDM absorbed more than 50 joint-stock companies, factories and mines.
As Forbes wrote, in the mid-2000s, the Melnichenko-Popov couple terrified the provincial oligarchs. “Brigades” of cunning corporate lawyers from MDM groups traveled around the country, organizing the interception of management at large industrial enterprises. However, by the end of the first “Putin’s” term, the partners in MDM abruptly slowed down. The assets that Popov and Melnichenko could reach by that time were collected, packed and combed.
This is about doing business in Russia. But at one fine moment, Melnichenko entered the international level. Apart from offshore companies, information about which is sketchy, he has interests in Belgium, Lithuania, China, France, the USA, England, Monaco and Switzerland. Almost in all these countries, Melnichenko has real estate. And in Switzerland, as already mentioned, the head office of his Eurochem is located.
And now, having briefly studied the biography of the former money changer, who in the most fantastic way turned from a street money changer into an oligarch, who crushed the huge resources of Russia and for years withdrawing money from their use to the West, where until February 24 he felt very at ease, answer the question – why Mi-6, the CIA, the Swiss SRC and their counterparts from smaller countries, not to mention the financial authorities, which in the West for some reason are much stricter about the money that is poured into their economies by the billions than in Russia, did not supply the newly minted nouveau riche some conditions?
They had reasons – as already mentioned, all of the countries listed are very scrupulous about the origin of money. This is not Russia. Everyone here plays by the rules. And if the rules are broken, then there is an explanation for this.
And until March 30, when the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs suddenly lifted its own sanctions against Andrey Melnichenko, explaining the decision with a stupid pretext, one could wonder why Mr. Melnichenko was allowed to work in Switzerland. But after this decision, only one explanation comes to mind – Melnichenko has long and closely cooperated with the Service de renseignement de la Confédération.
One could doubt this conclusion, but here is another mystery – not a single property of Mr. Melnichenko in the USA, England, France, Monaco and Switzerland also fell under the sanctions. Moreover, the United States and England can by no means be suspected of sympathy for Russia. But – not a single villa, not a single Melnichenko estate located in these countries fell under sanctions. Despite the fact that they are issued in his name. And the sanctions list of the European Union, unlike the same Switzerland, has not been canceled in relation to Mr. Melnichenko.
So the conclusion is obvious. True, the question arises – was the frankly stupid justification for SECO’s decision to lift sanctions against Andrey Melnichenko an accident, or, on the contrary, was it done intentionally? If so, then Andrei Igorevich has problems – unlike his former partner Khodorkovsky, Melnichenko in the West is not going to cover up from the wrath of the Russian special services. Which was his signal. But this is already deeply his problem.
