After the post about Lesin crossing the border after his death, we got a million messages: so what else is in this villain’s file?
Nothing especially extraordinary—almost all of it, as I said, was compiled from open sources. Here is everything ACF (the Anti-Corruption Foundation) knows about Mikhail Lesin, former press minister and former head of Gazprom-Media (excluding his private life, which is of no relevance to us):
In Moscow, his holdings are fairly modest for a man of his wealth: a 150 sq. m apartment in central Moscow and a dacha off the Novorizhskoye Highway of about 1,500 sq. m (not exactly palace-like). The plot and the dacha have now been transferred to his son Anton.
Lesin was clearly living somewhere else, not in the properties listed above. We did not investigate his actual places of residence.
Vehicles in Russia This is more interesting: a whole fleet of flashy, ostentatious cars and motorcycles is registered directly in Lesin’s name, including:
BMW X5
BMW Z8
BMW 760Li
Porsche Cayenne Turbo
Harley-Davidson
And even this thing:
Here Lesin was a textbook crooked official. His officially declared income was in the range of 8–11 million rubles a year. That is, of course, ridiculous and absurd. His spending and lifestyle exceeded those amounts by an order of magnitude. As RBC reports, for the last several years the guy did not even use regular commercial flights—he flew only by business jet. You do not rack up much private-jet travel on 8 million rubles.
If the law we proposed on combating illicit enrichment had been passed, Lesin would have gone to prison for sure.
There are at least four splendid houses in the United States, each worth several million dollars. We estimate their total value at $28 million.
First house:
Second house:
Third house:
We did not find any photos of the fourth house.
Lesin also owns property in Finland.
Mikhail Lesin’s son Anton lives in an expensive Los Angeles neighborhood called Brentwood. He previously lived in Washington. His Los Angeles house cost $5 million at the time of purchase, several years ago.
Under the name Anton Lessine, Anton “works” as a film producer in Hollywood—which in his case means helping find places to park his father’s money. Here is a concrete example: Anton “invested” about $30 million in the American company “QED International” and became the majority partner of its founder, Bill Block. He was helped in this deal by Lesin Sr.’s friend, Moscow native Sasha Shapiro. Shapiro knew that Mikhail Lesin needed somewhere to place a large sum of money, while Bill Block, for his part, badly needed financing. This story is corroborated by reports that Lesin and Shapiro are suing the former head of their studio.
Thanks to Lesin’s money, Sasha Shapiro is now also a Hollywood producer and a partner at “QED International.”
Anton’s career as a producer is described very well and in great detail in this Business Insider article. In short, he pays for celebrities to appear in films: “Agencies say that if you want Brad Pitt or Bruce Willis or someone else, there has to be $20 million sitting in the bank.”
That said, according to rumors, Lesin’s son does not work anywhere at all and only plays polo, while the films are financed by Mikhail Yuryevich himself.
The hostile Hollywood still remains one of Russian patriots’ favorite ways to “launder” large sums of money. Also, both father and son Lesin have Delaware corporations registered in the United States.
Two separate lawsuits have been filed against Lesin’s company in the United States and against the Lesins themselves—both father and son—by a nanny and a housekeeper.
Both allege discrimination, labor law violations, racism, abuse, and so on.
Also, in 1994 a criminal case was opened against Lesin under the statute covering the illegal acquisition and carrying of firearms.
We believe Lesin moved money to America a long time ago, back in the late 1990s. At the very least, that is the impression one gets from even a quick reading of materials from those years. Whether that flow has continued, and how it has been structured over the last 10 years, we have not yet figured out—understandably, people abruptly stopped writing about it. Video International (Vi), of course, accounts for a huge share of that money. There were always plenty of complaints about the company: audits by the Accounts Chamber (twice, and with serious accusations), monopolization of the advertising market for a decade, findings about unaccounted-for advertising time, and lost profits for VGTRK (the state broadcasting company). Lesin is repeatedly and unequivocally identified as a beneficiary of Vi, and while serving as minister he was often accused of protecting the company. Here are the complaints that a Communist deputy raised against Lesin and Vi in 2000.
There is a huge number of hilarious stories about Lesin from his youth. He was a former KVN player (KVN is a popular Soviet/Russian comedy competition), organized the Miss Soviet Union beauty pageant under an American franchise, and some even write that he used to copy porn tapes in a basement until he was busted and turned into a KGB informant. In any case, even if only a small part of this is true, it is clear that he had a taste for show business and entertainment from a very young age. His alleged presence in Hollywood fits that pattern perfectly.
In summary: he was a vile little man. It is a pity he died (if he did die). Better that he had lived in good health to see ~~the firing squad~~ the defendant’s bench.