This post is dedicated to you, the most tech-savvy citizens of Russia. You love technology, gadgets, travel a lot, and ~~use the Russian information network "Cheburashka"~~ the internet.
Now the Anti-Corruption Foundation will explain how your sophistication and love of technology put money into the pockets of the family of our old acquaintance Vladimir Yakunin — a great patriot, billionaire, and owner of an offshore empire.
Tell us, have you ever bought a train ticket online? Through a mobile app? Surely you have — or at the very least, your relatives and friends have.
Set your business aside and let’s wander together through the vast expanses of the fur vault (a mocking reference to Yakunin’s alleged luxury coat storage), peering into its most hidden corners.
Oh, who is that standing there guarding the chests of gold? Could it be a fearsome witch, like in the fairy tale *The Tinderbox*?
Almost. It’s the enterprising Cypriot lawyer Vera Lysiotis. You may remember her from previous ACF investigations.
It is this Cypriot woman, together with her father, who serves as the nominal founder of the Cypriot offshore companies VRL and VERLYS, which own the Yakunin family’s main assets:
the RGS hotel chain (“Regional Hotel Networks”), which includes hotels built (SURPRISE) on land next to Russian Railways stations
the development company behind the famous House with Lions in St. Petersburg, now the Four Seasons Lion Palace hotel
the companies Vodoley Properties and Solnechnaya Properties, which build luxury housing in St. Petersburg
4) and even a stake in the Alexander Grand Hotel in Davos, Switzerland, also belongs to the Cypriot lawyer
Vera Lysiotis’s investment portfolio is not only remarkably diverse, it also completely overlaps with the projects of VIY Management (remember what VIY stands for? Vladimir Ivanovich Yakunin), owned and run by our old acquaintance, British yachtsman Andrei Yakunin. All of these projects are listed on the VIY website.
For that matter, VIY Management itself also formally belongs to the Cypriot lawyer!
At this point, one might begin to suspect that the proxy Cypriot lawyers from VERLYS are deeply embedded in the Yakunin family’s offshore empire and perform an inconspicuous but very important function: distributing profits. They also shield the Yakunins’ business interests from the effects of sanctions imposed by the West against the country’s most honest people.
Have we sorted out who this woman is? Do you understand who she is and what she’s there for?
Now let’s pick up that darkened scroll over there, to the left of the basket of diamonds, and read a few facts from it.
Let me repeat: nothing but facts established by ACF’s investigations department:
In 2012, after Order No. 228 of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation dated August 31, 2011 — “On establishing the form of the electronic travel document (ticket) for rail transport” — came into force, Russian Railways moved seriously into selling electronic train tickets online.
This is an order by Russian Railways Vice President Akulov launching online ticket sales. In this order, special attention should be paid to point 6:
It is entirely reasonable to ask why a state monopoly would suddenly grant exclusive rights to sell tickets to two LLCs. Oh, wait a second! In fact, not even two LLCs, but one. Because both companies belong to the same Cypriot offshore company, AM EBOOKERS.
We offer three possible answers:
a) Because UFS LLC and Electronic Ticket LLC won tenders that had been properly announced in advance on procurement platforms
b) Because UFS LLC and Electronic Ticket LLC possess unique knowledge and expertise, and no one else knows how to sell tickets online
c) Because the head of Russian Railways, crook and thief Vladimir Yakunin, secured a contract for an offshore company controlled by his son Andrei Yakunin, in order to skim off a percentage from every Russian Railways ticket sold and build himself a fur vault.
Have you chosen an option?
And now, ATTENTION, THE CORRECT ANSWER:
This is an official extract from the Cypriot registry.
Good heavens! VERLYS and our old acquaintance, the Yakunin family’s treasurer Vera Lysiotis. The director of AM EBOOKERS is a certain Alastair Matthew Cunningham:
Not remarkable in any way, really, except that the British newspaper The Guardian ranked him number one on its list of fraudulent directors. In just a few of the jurisdictions mentioned, more than 1,000 companies are registered in his name:
Thus, the ownership chain looks like this: the Yakunin family → Vera Lysiotis → VERLYS → AM EBOOKERS → UFS LLC. All of this is confirmed by official databases.
And now quickly! Drop everything and run to the App Store or Google Play! We need to check one thing. You’ve probably started having doubts too! Let’s download the only official app for selling Russian Railways tickets.
Look closely.
Bingo!
It turns out that no matter how advanced you think you are, there’s a tiny Vladimir Ivanovich Yakunin sitting inside your trendy iPhone.
When you press the buttons to buy a train ticket, he — Yakunin — pops up like a little leprechaun gnome to take a gold coin from you and drop it into his pot.
Here is how much Yakunin’s offshore clan earns from each ticket sold:
:
Our rough estimate: in its first year, the app was downloaded 800,000 times, and 90,000 tickets were purchased through it. Taking the average fee of 554 rubles (about $15 at the time; we do not know the exact breakdown), UFS earned almost 50 million rubles from this app.
But UFS is not limited to its trendy iPhone app. In fact, every — literally every train ticket sold online outside the Russian Railways website is sold through UFS. With the same fee attached.
By buying tickets from any well-known website, you are enriching the Yakunin clan (though it may seem they hardly need it).
If you’re interested in how this works, you can read about it here.
In short, the Yakunins’ UFS sets the mandatory fee charged on every ticket sold and generously shares 30% of that fee with the partner website. The remaining 70% it keeps for itself.
Another rough estimate: in 2012, 7 million tickets were sold through UFS. Let’s assume that in 2013 they sold a bit more — the market was growing — say, 8 million. Take the same average fee of 554 rubles, subtract the 30% left with agents, and you get 388 rubles × 8 million = 3.1 billion rubles in UFS revenue for 2013.
Isn’t this the business of dreams? You take a state railway monopoly and route electronic ticket sales through your own company, collecting a nice little 600-ruble fee from every ticket.
The Anti-Corruption Foundation is often accused of showing only one side of the story and not giving our opponents a chance to respond.
Here is that chance. We very much want the mighty statesman and patriot Vladimir Yakunin to answer these questions. We strongly urge all journalists to put them to him:
- On what terms did Russian Railways sign a contract specifically with UFS, and what benefit does the state corporation derive from such cooperation?
- Who is the ultimate beneficial owner of the Cypriot offshore company that has monopolized the sale of electronic tickets?
- Is it possible for third-party developers to gain access to Russian Railways ticket sales without going through UFS?
- How can one explain the striking and complete overlap between the nominal owners of UFS and the nominal owners of virtually all known business assets of Andrei Yakunin (RGS and others)?
We would be glad to receive answers from Russian Railways and personally from Vladimir and Andrei Yakunin. In the meantime, we are filing preemptive complaints with the Federal Antimonopoly Service and with blogger Medvedev, stating that Vladimir Yakunin is in fact a brazen swindler and thief, and that he is also lying when he says his son’s business has no access to Russian Railways money.
ACF is also examining how the sanctions imposed on Yakunin should be applied by the American company Apple, through whose app Yakunin siphons money from Russian citizens.
Not without satisfaction, we have added a new branch to the diagram of the Russian Railways empire and left plenty of empty space on both sides just in case:
http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/154101
It is impossible to imagine that in any developed — or even underdeveloped — country, the head of the railways could be caught selling passenger tickets through his own offshore company and still keep his job.
We understand that in Russia this will happen, and the only response to information about Yakunin’s monstrous corruption will be: this is a provocation in response to our work as effective managers.
Yakunin is one of the corrupt officials closest to Putin, and nothing will happen to him.
But a small reward for us would be if you helped spread this information. We very much want all 7,000,000 people who bought tickets through UFS, and the 800,000 people who downloaded the mobile app, to learn why their ticket costs 600 rubles more than it should and who gets those 600 rubles.
We are not asking much of you. If you bought a train ticket through one of these systems, just share a link to this investigation and add something of your own — the sort of thing people usually say when 600 rubles are unlawfully taken from them. Just remember that profanity online is now banned.
The Anti-Corruption Foundation continues to demand that President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev remove Yakunin from office and launch a public criminal investigation into his family’s corrupt activities.
P.S.: Thanks to ACF’s investigations department for its excellent work, proving themselves to be benevolent monsters.
Update: Based on comments received from our readers, we would like to clarify that there is one unofficial app for iPhone and one for Android that work through the Russian Railways website and allow users to buy tickets without paying the UFS fee.
Forgive me for addressing you directly, but let me remind you that the Anti-Corruption Foundation is a non-profit organization funded by citizens’ donations.