As we all know, the country is going through de-offshorization. At full speed. And even more broadly, there is a campaign against all sorts of harmful foreign investments. On top of that, the President of the Russian Federation, the national leader, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, has set a course toward the nationalization of the elites. That is why civil servants and their spouses are strictly forbidden not only from engaging in offshore/foreign business, but even from holding accounts abroad or owning foreign financial instruments. Anyone whose family has foreign accounts or foreign shares is strictly barred not only from public service, but even from elected office. The chief guardians of the state and overseers keep a strict and watchful eye on compliance with this rule:
President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, Head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Ivanovich Bastrykin, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yuri Yakovlevich Chaika, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Sergei Borisovich Ivanov. They keep a close watch on civil servants and their spouses, reminding them that under Clause 2, Part 1, Article 2 of Federal Law No. 79-FZ of May 7, 2013, "On Prohibiting Certain Categories of Persons from Opening and Holding Accounts (Deposits), Keeping Cash and Valuables in Foreign Banks Located Outside the Territory of the Russian Federation, and Owning and/or Using Foreign Financial Instruments," persons holding public office in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (and their spouses) are prohibited from opening and holding accounts (deposits), keeping cash and valuables in foreign banks located outside the territory of the Russian Federation, and from owning and/or using foreign financial instruments. The Anti-Corruption Foundation keeps less of a close watch on officials than the Supervisory Authorities do, but it watches too. And so we turned our attention to the well-known multimillionaire and, at the same time, Deputy Mayor of Moscow Maxim Stanislavovich Liksutov.
(far left, in a sheepskin coat with an understated beaver-fur collar). In addition to the sheepskin coat, Maxim Stanislavovich owns three plots of land and a residential house measuring 2,130 square meters in Russia, a residential house and a plot of land in Italy, two apartments and six plots of land in Estonia; four luxury-class cars, including two supercars—a Lamborghini Diablo and a Dodge Viper—as well as five motorcycles. Well, fine, you can’t ban people from living well. Are we really supposed to envy a Lamborghini Diablo, knowing that Maxim Stanislavovich Liksutov has now taken on the heavy burden of public office, that he and his wife are forbidden from having foreign accounts and financial instruments, that he is not engaged in business, and that he works as a servant of the people? Liksutov himself firmly confirms this: "I*** sold all assets jointly owned with my former partners. I have no assets left except for a restaurant in Tallinn, which belongs to my wife, and my personal real estate."** http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/7617271/vyshel_v_kesh * And everything would have been fine, if not for Zhora. Zhora Alburov is an employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (nicknamed “Furious George”). He has a very particular way of checking officials’ assets. Have you seen the TV series Sherlock?
In it, the modern Sherlock Holmes looks at your shoe, all sorts of words and images flash through his mind, and then he rapidly rattles off: You have a dachshund named Yvette, you feed her dog food, but yesterday she stole a cutlet from your table, you couldn’t figure out where the cutlet had gone and stayed hungry, so you slept badly, so you didn’t hand in your presentation to your boss on time, so your boss yelled at you, and that’s why you decided to kill him. Zhora’s deductive method works even better: he simply looked at the photo of Sobyanin and Liksutov posted above. The same words and images appear in his head, and one phrase grows larger and larger, crowding out Liksutov’s face: BEAVER-FUR COLLAR.
Then Zhora leans back in his chair and tells us: Liksutov is lying; his family has assets prohibited by law. After Zhora, Estonia—of which Maxim Stanislavovich was formerly a citizen—delivers a treacherous blow to civil servant Liksutov’s back. The thing is, Estonians are obsessed with transparency and electronic data that anyone can check. That’s good for Estonian citizens, but bad for officials hiding their assets. This nice-looking young woman is Tatyana Liksutova, the wife of Moscow Deputy Mayor Maxim Liksutov.
And here is a screenshot from the publicly accessible business registry, dated January 13 of this year.
full version It confirms that Maxim Liksutov is brazenly lying to all of us (including Putin, Chaika, Bastrykin, and Ivanov). He did not sell the Estonian company Transgroup Invest AS at all, the company through which he owned Russian assets. He simply transferred the shares to his wife. And Tatyana Liksutova, the wife of a Russian civil servant, officially owns prohibited financial instruments—shares in an Estonian company. The screenshot shows (read from bottom to top): the shares are owned by Liksutov and Glinka. the shares are owned by Liksutov and Glinka (but the charter capital is now in euros). (third line from the top) Liksutov sells the shares on 20.06.13. the shares are owned by Glinka and Tatyana Liksutova. And Liksutova has exactly the same number of shares as her husband had. Liksutova also owns the Tallinn restaurant Gianni and the furniture factory Aprica Style. But that is no longer even important. So what is Transgroup Invest AS? Could it be some harmless little company that owns nothing more than a sheepskin coat with a beaver-fur collar? Not quite. Through Transgroup Invest AS, Liksutov controls LLC “DELTA-TRANS-INVEST” and LLC “TRANSGROUP AS,” which in turn own Aeroexpress,
the largest rail carrier of motor vehicles, RailTransAuto, OJSC “Urban High-Speed Tram Transport System”, and many other companies. Clicking the links opens extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. The information is one hundred percent solid and verifiable. Let me remind you that Moscow Deputy Mayor Liksutov is not just any deputy mayor—he is in charge of transport.
http://www.mos.ru/authority/vice/7/ And, what an amazing coincidence, all of Maxim Liksutov’s surviving and expanding business interests also lie in the field of public transport. We all love public transport and support its development. But we very much dislike a conflict of interest: a person deciding where billions in budget funds go in public transport is running his own private business in that same field. And we absolutely and categorically dislike the fact that an official deciding where billions in budget funds go in public transport is running a secret, concealed business in that same field—while lying to us that no such business exists. That is what is called corruption. Aeroexpress is the largest project in the field of public transport, heavily dependent on government decisions. As for the Urban High-Speed Tram Transport System—well, excuse me, the name speaks for itself. You don’t need any conspiracy theories to look differently at Liksutov’s fanatical love of trams—and that of the Liksutov fans—in light of these facts. This is no longer any kind of public love for public transport. It is a secret love for budget money allocated to public transport. So that Maxim Stanislavovich Liksutov and his boss Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin do not think that the ACF limited itself to merely “running a check” through the Estonian registry, we present for their attention the full scheme of Deputy Mayor Liksutov’s offshore holdings (probably not all of them, but those we uncovered):
Here you can admire the full-size chart (warning: after three minutes of staring at it, your head starts to hurt). The chart is extensive, and explaining it would require a separate post. I very much hope that by the time I write that explanatory post, I will no longer have to refer to Liksutov as a “deputy mayor” and a “civil servant.” The violation of the law is obvious, serious, and irrefutable. The Anti-Corruption Foundation demands that Moscow Mayor Sobyanin immediately dismiss Mr. Liksutov for a gross and deliberate violation of the law prohibiting the spouses of civil servants from holding foreign financial assets. In addition to the formal violation, there is also blatant lying to voters, a concealed conflict of interest, and, most likely, corruption. Our statement to the Mayor of Moscow https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B81CwE1TpzJQMklMbjhmVm9udzA/edit Our statement to the Prosecutor General https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B81CwE1TpzJQQnBtSXBpZHg4dTA/edit Our statement to Putin’s Anti-Corruption Council https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B81CwE1TpzJQT3NTNkhqNEtjN28/edit In addition, the ACF will not deny itself the pleasure of officially appealing to every deputy of the Moscow City Duma (where 91% belong to United Russia, the Kremlin-backed ruling party) with a request to send the appropriate parliamentary inquiries and initiate a review of Liksutov’s activities at the city legislature level. We will see what they say, and how they explain their behavior to voters in the upcoming elections. Of course, there is a chance that the authorities, as they usually do with ACF investigations, will pretend that nothing is happening. Well then, every time some United Russia or Kremlin mug starts mumbling about “foreign agents” and “foreign funding of the opposition,” we will pull out Liksutov with his beaver-fur collar and offshore companies and shove it in that United Russia hack’s face. I urge everyone to help us spread this post and this information. I ask all media representatives to tell their audiences about this wonderful vice mayor and to obtain clear comments from Sobyanin on the matter. Perhaps you have some insider information about Liksutov’s new secret business tricks, or perhaps you can clarify something in the published chart. Be sure to write to us at fbk@fbk.info The Anti-Corruption Foundation exists on donations from private individuals. If you would like to support our work, you can become one of the Foundation’s thousands of donors.