Panamanian authorities are reported to have launched an investigation into the activities an offshore company owned by Vladimir Putin’s friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin.
As far back as December 2016, Mossack Fonseca company that registers offshores received the request from the prosecutor’s office of Panama. The prosecutor asked for all the documents on Roldugin’s company International Media Overseas S.A. (IMO) so that they could be included in the materials of the probe into allegedly economic crimes.
According to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the IMO played an important role in the offshore empire. This company carried out suspicious transactions involving the shares of the largest state-owned Russian companies, which allowed it to earn millions of dollars.
In April 2016, Mossack Fonseca sent to the authorities of the British Virgin Islands a suspicious activity report in relation to another Roldugin’s company, Sonnette Overseas.
In 2016, the Panama Papers showed at least five secretly owned offshore entities in the Mossack Fonseca files linked to Roldugin. He reportedly used to conduct a series of highly suspicious transactions, many of which ‘made no financial sense’ but left Roldugin (i.e. Putin) much wealthier. Billions of dollars flowed through the companies, which received ‘donations’ from Russia’s richest businessmen and controlled the activities of strategic Russian enterprises.
According to the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP) the total wealth of the people belonging to the so-called ‘personal circle’ of the Russian President may reach $24 bn.
ІІ, belsat.eu, following Новая газета
