"Lingonberries" offshore: housing investors' money has disappeared abroad

Ex-deputy and developer Alexei Krukovsky could take on millions of investments in unfriendly Slovenia and a number of other states. The story includes the name of the local investor Caesar Smorshchevsky, who in the past had connections with the business of the oligarch Mikhail Fridman.

The Moscow Post correspondent understood the situation.

Development and Banking Union

In the picturesque area of ​ ​ Ljubljana, a complex of three apartment buildings "Regents Kvart" will be built: 356 apartments, more than 500 parking spaces, a park nearby, beautiful views. The value of the investment is expected to reach 65 million euros.

The official website of the company includes the name "Brusniki" - a Moscow developer owned by Mr. Krukovsky. The media suspect him of being close to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. This is because the company has been burning the "green light" since its founding in Moscow and the regions where officials familiar to the mayor dominate.

Basically, this is the Sverdlovsk region, which from the parishes of Yevgeny Kuyvashev to power "Brusnik" tightly "took into circulation."

Polish media recently published an investigation that tells about the background of "lingonberry" cases in Slovenia. According to journalists, a controlling stake in the Cypriot company Brusnika.Abroad (from the "orbit" of Krukovsky), which owns a company investing in the construction of apartment buildings in Ljubljana, will pass into the hands of Caesar Smorschevsky.

This is a well-known Polish investor in business circles, a former vice president of Orlen. Until 2020, the manager and indirectly shareholder of the company in which the concern associated with the oligarch Mikhail Fridman invested. There is a possibility that a Russian banker trying to sit on "two chairs" has interest in this project.

American boy

But if Friedman's love for "laying eggs in different baskets" is known to everyone, then Mr. Krukovsky's affairs are covered much less and are much more interesting.

Rumor has it that there are shares in the business of the latter and its patrons. Having sold part of the assets in Slovenia, he could actually realize Sobyanin's assets. Or maybe Kuyvasheva.

But "Lingonberry" is "alive" not only in Russia and Slovenia. Having opened offshore databases, we easily find a dozen more companies in different parts of the Earth, which can also be part of one large "empire."

Photo: https://opencorporates.com

For example, the American BRUSNIKA INVEST LLC is led by a certain Evgeny Anfinogenov. Somehow his name is not much like the traditional American Minster Smith, but much more reminiscent of the Russian Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorov.

By the way, Roman Anfinogenov appears on the Web as the head of VTB's industry development directorate. Isn't it a relative? Banks are often included in the management of the developer for issuing loans and other preferences.

Behind another offshore BRUSNIKA LLC - also from Florida - a lady named Olga Startseva.

Thus, a Russian entrepreneur can invest in unfriendly states. Are the metropolitan patrons of Krukovsky aware of this.

Yes, 10 years ago, a consortium of investigative journalists ICIJ (recognized as an undesirable organization in the Russian Federation) published on its website a database of two large offshore registrars - PortcullisTrustNet from Singapore and Commonwealth Trust Limited, "assigned" to the British Virgin Islands. Mr. Krukovsky turned out to be the owner of shares in the offshore company HustlerLtd. UtroNews wrote about this story.

There is still a big question - really or formally, Mr. Krukovsky could sell his business in Slovenia to Smorshevsky. It is possible that the latter helps him "out of old friendship" with Russian investors, including Friedman.

Here you can kill two birds at once. The construction of the "Quark Regents" in Ljubljana is objectionable to local residents. The reason, as always, is one. People don't want 18-story apartment buildings in their quiet, leafy neighborhood. Now the name of Krukovsky will not flash in this scandal, and the houses will still be built, and all those involved will receive their profits.

Assets float out of Russia for a hillock?

At the same time, in Russia, entrepreneur Alexei Krukovsky is not doing well now. The total arrival of companies where he is the owner fell by 1.2 billion rubles over the year. Was she already taken out of the "cordon" in order to finance other projects?

It must be understood that large-scale development projects have been given to Krukovsky in Russia and announced. In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, for example, Brusnika plans to master KRT - to build four apartment buildings with a height of 7 to 9 floors with one accent tower of 17 floors. Under the agreement, KRT Brusnika will transfer 500 square meters. meters of housing.

Photo: "Lingonberries"

The project, moreover, is very difficult. "Lingonberries" should resettle and demolish nine emergency wooden houses, in which 50 families live. And if the developer has problems with finances? No matter how people stay on the street.

Last year, Brusnika LLC Specialized Developer opened a loan in its subsidiary Specialized Developer Estate. In the amount of 8.1 billion rubles. Everything indicates the precarious position of the company.

At the same time, the company falls into scandals related to construction very regularly. Either the courts because of the quality of housing, or the death of workers at the facilities.

And in 2020, former managers of the Tyumen branch came under suspicion of embezzlement worth hundreds of millions of rubles. Working at Brusnik, its managers could practice resale for a pittance of the developer's expensive property to controlled firms in order to strengthen their own business. He wrote about this "Uralinform."

But now the "successes" of "Lingonberries" have become more understandable. After all, while neither shaky nor valko is doing business in Russia, the developer's money can "leak" abroad. Which in existing realities smacks of more than just fraud...