An extraordinary data leak reveals how Vladimir Putin the Rotenberg family, which is part of a close circle, has protected its assets from economic sanctions imposed by the West.
Influential Russian oligarchs Boris and Arkady Rotenberg have used Anonymous tax haven companies, bulvans, i.e. ghost owners, and their close friends when managing their assets. With the help of these means, the Rotenbergs have disappeared their holdings in, for example, some valuable villas and funds.
Leaked documents and e-mails, however, show that the oligarch family’s money has been used to buy, for example, luxury villas in Spain and Austria. With the help of the arrangements, the Rotenbergs managed to keep these holdings hidden from the authorities for a long time.
As many as eight members of the Rotenberg family are on the sanctions list of the United States or the European Union. Among them, the most familiar to Finns are Boris and Roman Rotenbergfather and son, who are also Finnish citizens.
Based on the information leak, the Rotenberg family has repeatedly received help from Western lawyers, bankers and consultants to protect their assets.
‘s MOT delivery requested together of the international journalists’ organization OCCRP with comments from Arkadi and Boris Rotenberg, but did not receive any response. The questions were related to the new information that emerged in the leak.
It is rare that e-mails and other material of oligarchs in such a significant position end up in the hands of investigative journalists. Arkadi and Boris Rotenberg have a total of almost assets of five billion euros. The brothers got to know Vladimir Putin already in the 1970s in Leningrad, i.e. today’s St. Petersburg. They are still considered to be part of the close circle of the Russian president.
A hidden villa on the coast of Spain
According to the leak, Boris Rotenberg and his wife With Karina Rotenberg has been using a villa located in the Autonomous Region of Valencia in Spain. Its grounds include a swimming pool and a large garden. The plot of the villa borders the golf course.
The Rotenbergs’ lawyers and consultants went to great lengths to hide the real owner of the villa.
The Rotenbergs originally planned for a company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to become the owner of the villa.
However, the Rotenbergs’ Spanish lawyer thought the plan was bad.
“The BVI is not a tax-wise sensible option in Spain. That’s why the client created this Maltese structure instead, which would work [verotuksellisesti paremmin] In Spain,” the lawyer wrote.
In Spain, an additional tax had been introduced, which was levied on properties owned by tax haven companies.
“You put Ikea quality in the most important wardrobe”
Karina Rotenberg for contractors
According to the leaked documents, the villa was transferred in 2014 to the ownership of a company registered in Malta. However, a company offering business services was listed as the official owner of the villa. This is often done in situations where you don’t want to reveal the real owner.
The documents reveal that the real owner of the villa is Boris Rotenberg’s wife Karina Rotenberg.
Based on the leaked material, the decoration of the villa seems to have been the responsibility of Karina Rotenberg. In one email, he called the contractors “stupid”.
“You put Ikea quality in the most important wardrobe,” Karina Rotenberg writes.
The e-mails show that a sauna was also built in the villa. However, it had to be fixed during the contracting phase.
“Sauna interior: The designer doesn’t like it, and even though it’s not our fault, we’ll fix it,” wrote the villa’s contractor to Rotenberg’s Russian case manager.
Although Boris Rotenberg does not officially own the villa, the funds used for its purchase and decoration came from his Cypriot company Logotax Development Ltd. The same Cypriot company has financed Boris Rotenberg’s transactions in Finland, such as the purchase of a significant stake in the former Hartwall Areena.
The Rotenbergs spent at least nine million euros on the Spanish villa, of which 2.2 million euros were spent on the interior. The villa’s curtains alone cost more than 200,000 euros.
By 2017, a Russian had become the owner of the Spain villa Aleksandr Kozlov.
According to information from ‘s MOT department, Kozlov has worked as a security guard for the Rotenberg family. Kozlov is a board member and shareholder in a small Finnish company that has been responsible for the maintenance of Boris Rotenberg’s properties in Finland.
Kozlov did not answer the questions sent by email from OCCRP, and other media involved in the project.
Spanish authorities did not freeze the villa in Kozlov’s name until October 2022 as part of the sanctions. However, the authorities have not publicly disclosed the owner of the villa.
Putin’s daughter Regular guest
The leaked material also reveals the Rotenberg family’s connection to another luxury property.
In January 2013, an Austrian real estate investment company sold a spectacular villa in Kitzbühl, Austria, for 10.8 million euros. According to a person who lives in Kitzbühl and knows the area well, interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel, Vladimir Putin’s eldest daughter Maria Vorontsova has been a regular guest in the alpine villa.
The ownership of the villa has been hidden with the help of tax haven companies, and even the Austrian authorities apparently do not know its real owner. However, the information leak reveals that the money to buy the alpine villa came from a Cypriot company called Olpon Investments Ltd.
Its sole owner is Arkadi Rotenberg.
The same Olpon Investments Ltd has granted a loan of more than 15 million euros to the Rotenberg family’s Finnish company Oy Långvik Capital Ltd. It, in turn, is the major owner of the former Hartwall Areena.
After Russia attacked Ukraine, Austria has frozen nearly two billion euros worth of Russian assets and several properties. However, no sanctions have been imposed on the Kitzbühl alpine villa to date.
Unknown woman made millions
According to the leak, the Rotenbergs have also managed their holdings through Russian so-called ZPIF funds. It’s about funds favored by the rich that don’t have to reveal their real owners publicly. It is very difficult to get information about the assets they manage. Therefore, funds can be used to hide holdings.
According to the leaked material, at least 13 such funds were either owned by the Rotenbergs or directly connected to the family in 2017. It is clear from the emails that information about the real owners of the funds has not been disclosed to outside parties.
For example, when the Russian Sberbank asked about the real owners of the funds, the Russian businessman managing the funds told the bank that he was the sole owner of the funds. The bank did not receive information about the real owners.
The Rotenbergs seem to have transferred their assets to their close circle as well.
Arkadi Rotenberg previously owned two apartments in Riga, the capital of Latvia. In 2018, a Russian woman unknown to the public became their owner. The aforementioned Russian ZPIF fund was used in the ownership arrangement.
The same woman has owned 80 percent of the Russian construction company RG-Development. According to the Russian media, it was founded by Arkadi Rotenberg.
According to the tax data obtained by the Russian investigative journalism online magazine IStories, this unknown woman earned around 25 million euros in 2020. The origin of the funds has remained shrouded in obscurity.
According to two sources who spoke to OCCRP, Arkadi Rotenberg has a close and possibly romantic relationship with the woman. The woman has also acquired a valuable property in Monaco and a villa worth more than four million euros on the French Riviera.
Help to circumvent sanctions from the West
Due to the sanctions, the Rotenberg family’s assets have been seized in various parts of Europe. In Finland, the enforcement agency has frozen, for example, the villas owned by Boris Rotenberg in Hanko and Porvoo, two Ferraris and an apartment building in Helsinki.
The authorities have had difficulty finding out the holdings of banned persons in the West. The work has been made more difficult not only by the large-scale use of tax haven companies and bulvans, i.e. ghost owners, but also by the help offered by Western lawyers and consultants.
Researcher specializing in extortion issues Tom Keatinge says that sanctions authorities have rarely taken action against middlemen. Middlemen refer to persons who help, for example, oligarchs in hiding assets.
Keatinge works at a British research institute Center for Financial Crime and Security Studies.
– The reward is often worth the risk. There are very few cases where people have been added to the sanctions list or prosecuted because they have helped evade sanctions, Keatinge said in an interview with the international journalists’ organization OCCRP.
The MOT program in February 2023 dealt with the enforcement of sanctions. The program also visits the Rotenberg family’s Italian villas.
The subject can be discussed until Wednesday 21 June 2023 until 11 pm.