Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Why Russia’s Patriots Love to Buy U.S. Real Estate

Moscow TImes

Imagine a newspaper exposé about several members of the U.S. Congress who didn’t declare on their tax forms luxury villas on the Iranian Persian Gulf coast. This would be a scandal of Watergate proportions and most likely produce a couple of best-sellers and a made-for-TV movie. Now imagine an analogous situation in Russia. What happens? Almost nothing. There is no scandal, no movie, only a lot of talk on the Internet.

The story began when a group of Russian senators went to the U.S. last summer to persuade their U.S. counterparts to vote against the Magnitsky Act. One of the most vocal opponents of the act was Senator Vitaly Malkin, who said Magnitsky had died in prison from consequences of alcoholism. The senators’ “anti-Magnitsky road show” in Washington raised suspicions that their actions not only were not just political but also that their personal interests might have been threatened by the act’s ban on visas and asset holdings for some Russian officials.

Journalist Andrei Malgin decided to get to the bottom of the mystery. Using just his computer and the Internet, he dug up some very interesting facts. It turned out that Malkin has real estate in North America. Furthermore, since 1994 he has been trying to get a residence permit in Canada, justifying his request by his business interests. In his application, he openly declared that he owns 111 — yes, 111 — apartments in Toronto. The Canadian authorities turned down his request, and Malkin even tried to take them to court. Unfortunately for him, the court refused to hear his suit.

But as Malgin discovered, those aren’t the only properties in the Western Hemisphere belonging to Malkin, who is from far-away Buryatia. Public documents show that Malkin’s company, which has the mysterious name 25 СС ST74B LLC, owns a duplex worth $15.6 million in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Malkin’s lawyers denied that he is the owner, but public documents from a suit the company brought against its construction manager show that Malkin owns the apartment. They also solved the mystery of his company name, which is an abbreviation of the address: 25 Columbus Circle, apartment 74B.