Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Companies Linked To Ousted Ukrainian President Connected To Magnitsky Investigation

BuzzFeed

Documents found at Viktor Yanukovych’s country residence link his business activities to Russian corruption uncovered by lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Newly found documents show that three companies with links to ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych are also connected to the money-laundering scandal uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who died in prison after exposing high-level fraud and embezzlement among Russian officials.

An investigation by Hermitage Capital Management, the investment firm for which Magnitsky was employed, shows the companies named in the documents uncovered at Yanukovych’s presidential palace are registered at the same United Kingdom address, and share the same offshore shell companies and Latvian directors as were found in Magnitsky’s investigation.

An employee of Hermitage, Vadim Kleiner, sifted through the documents uncovered by Ukrainian journalists after Yanukovych’s flight from Kiev and posted his findings to YanukovychLeaks.org, a website created to compile the nearly 200 folders of documents found at the estate. He found that three companies mentioned in the documents as holding some of Yanukovych’s assets or being otherwise tied to the president — Navimax Ventures, Roadfield Capital LLP, and Fineroad Business LLP — had strong links to entities exposed in Magnitsky’s investigation into $230 million in tax revenues which were stolen by Russian officials from Hermitage holding companies. The results of Kleiner’s inquiry were provided to BuzzFeed by Kleiner and William Browder, the head of Hermitage.

In his investigation, Magnitsky followed $40 million to a Latvian bank account for Technomark Business Ltd., a U.K.-registered company with an ownership in Nevis. Technomark shared the same registering address as Navimax, and the names of its Latvian directors also appear in documents relating to the other two companies.