Chaika. An investigative documentary by the Anti-Corruption Foundation

in May 2014 the Greek press was full of

reports of an extraordinarily lavish new

hotel called pomegranate a five-star

Marvel on the seafront in haliki a very

popular tourist destination in Mainland

Greece judging by the Interiors the

investors spent tens of millions of

dollars on the Decor alone and staying

here is not cheap renting one of those

rooms will cost you $4,000 a night

though that does give you access to the

basement which houses an enormous Spa

complex built out of solid

marble the opening ceremony had a

distinctly Russian flavor thanks to the

MC pop star and celebrity Philip karov

alongside him were acrobats showmen and

magicians all flown in by Charter flight

from Russia no expense space

the florists and lighting technicians

were Russian too as was the keynote

speaker Vladimir medinsky culture

minister of the Russian Federation

Russian businessmen Regional Governors

and politicians listened to him

attentively before enjoying the show at

the Grand Finale fireworks and lasers

lit up the

building with a gigantic Russian flag

projected onto its side who paid for

such extravagant

what businessman is so important that

the culture Minister himself flies in to

congratulate them on their new project

you might think the only Russian

businessmen capable of such extravagance

would be the billionaire oligarchs that

are household names in the west but

you'd be wrong this video shows the

hotel's owners cutting the

ribbon that is arum chaa son of Russia's

General

prosecutor very few people would

recognize him despite being relatively

famous there were no public images of

him until

now artium chaa was a suspect in perhaps

Russia's most notorious corruption

investigation of the decade that into

illegal casinos in the Moscow

region

a judge threw out the case but it was

remarkable that the general Prosecutor's

son featured in it at all for many years

he has thanks to his father enjoyed

immunity from prosecution or

investigation no matter what he does

that's how he became a dollar

millionaire when still in his

[Music]

30s his business Empire includes hotels

and sand pits cement plants and salt

mines spread across Russia and

[Music]

Beyond

[Music]

when

our curiosity about the Greek hotel

turned into a large- scale investigation

into ties between the mafia and Russia's

General prosecutor we can reveal that

the illegal casinos in the Moscow region

were just one of the many sources of

income enjoyed by chaika

Jr for more than 15 years together with

his father's subordinates and underlings

artium chaa has gradually established

control over key assets all over Russia

in Europe he is considered to be an

ordinary oligarch an international

investor in reality he is nothing but a

link in a long criminal chain which runs

all the way up to the general prosecutor

of the Russian Federation his

[Music]

father

[Applause]

[Music]

RTM chaa was not the only investor in

that Greek hotel next to him is a second

owner Olga Latina since she is working

with arom you can already assume she's

not just a random business

woman

a photo taken in

2014 long after the date of their

supposed separation shows her still

wearing her wedding ring on her right

hand moreover alga and Gennady

frequently communicate via Facebook they

play games online together like each

other's photos so it looks like they

divorced in order to avoid disclosing

Family Assets in this declaration before

the divorce her income was listed as

zero rubles and yet somehow just a few

years later she's got together enough

money to build a luxurious Greek

hotel

so the most intriguing question is how

did she earn those tens of millions of

Euros we found out alga La patina is

involved in the sugar business she is

the founding partner in two companies

one in the Moscow region and one in the

kodar region in southern

Russia Alo laaa has some compelling

reasons for hiding her involvement in

this business her fellow founding

Partners were Maria sapok and Natalia

covas both women are married to the

leaders of the cuch of skaya organized

crime group Serge sapok and his

right-hand man veslav

covas this criminal organization ruled

over and terrorized the entire krasnodar

region for 20 years their crimes

included hundreds of rapes dozens of

murders the illegal takeovers of

companies and the corruption of public

officials their last Act was the worst

in the infamous cuch of skaya Massacre

of November 4th 2010 the gang broke into

the house of a local businessman and

killed 14 people among them three

children and an infant they then burnt

the bodies of their victims so it

appears that the deputy General

prosecutor spouse shares a business with

the wives of the leaders of the most

brutal gang in the history of modern

Russia

for after the masked murder the tapok

gang was finally caught and jailed most

members of the organization are now in

prison and its leader Sergey sapok died

in 2014 from a heart attack in his

cell the investigation of sapok gang was

directly rised by Alexander bastrin head

of the investigative Committee of the

Russian Federation who assigned his best

investigators to it it is astounding

that these investigators failed to

discover that the tapok gang did

business with the wives of high-ranking

officials in the prosecutor's office

after all it was quite obvious a

previous criminal case against sapok had

been opened long before but the charges

were dropped following a direct

intervention from District prosecutor

Leonid kenik in addition to the Gang

Leader's wives Latina's sugar business

included her fourth partner nadda

starova wife of Alexis starov the

general Prosecutor's Chief of

Staff in November 2014 he was sacked

when police officers discovered a cash

of weapons and several members of the

so-called GTA gang in his private

residence the gang had killed and robbed

14 people on the highways around Moscow

while the prosecutor gave them Sanctuary

by employing them as security guards and

housekeepers alga did not invest all her

money into the hotel Grace's property

registry shows that she owns a villa

nearby featuring marble stained glass

artwork gold Grand chandeliers and Louis

the 14th style furniture a prosecutor's

vision of

Barack the same company that built the

hotel also built alga's Greek Villa and

its website boasts of another project

yet another Villa on the

[Applause]

Shore Construction is well underway

excavators are working on artificial

Landscapes and an acropolis styled

Arbor The Villa commands views over the

Magnificent and sacred Mount

AOS and its owner according to the

papers is none other than artium

chaa according to local journalists he

visited Greece for the first time on his

honeymoon his father also loves the

country and has repeatedly said that he

visits the Holy Mountain once a

year we've been there with my younger

son lived in monastic cells there you

get into an entirely different state of

mind start appreciating the world in a

different way if I may say so I'm

getting spiritually recharged there

there you see the real values of this

life so much clearer arum's Greek

neighbors like to joke that they live

next door to a friend of Putin's travel

agencies sell VIP tours to pomegranates

Sports and Wellness Center located on

the shore of the Mediterranean Sea the

Greek press is full of stories about the

most expensive and luxurious hotel in

the country behind all this there lurks

the sun of the general prosecutor and

the wife of his Deputy these are family

members of officials whose job is to

fight crime and Corruption yet they are

neck deep in corruption themselves and

this is just the start of the story the

funds arum cha and alga La patina

invested into those hotels and Villas

have a very long

[Music]

[Applause]

Shadow the pomegranate hotel is owned by

a Greek company and this document is the

company's entry from the state

registar and these are the financial

statements of that company signed by

Aram chaa the text is in Greek and only

the family name is discernible an online

translator reveals interesting details

how ever for example we now know that

the son of the Russian general

prosecutor claims Switzerland as his

country of

[Music]

residence

for according to a Swiss open source

database the Russian general

Prosecutor's son lives in this small

house on the shore of Lake Geneva here

is the sign from the post labeled Monsur

and Madame chaa however having checked

the real estate register we discovered

that aram's family does not actually own

the property

[Music]

clearly we needed to continue our search

indeed if RTM cha has decided to spend

the rest of his life in Switzerland he

would need a house more suitable to his

prosecutorial

[Music]

dignity we were encouraged by the fact

that the small house with Cha's name on

the mailbox belongs to a certain Loreno

family Lilia Loreno is a family friend

of Gennady lapatin Deputy General

prosecutor and the supposedly ex-husband

of chaika's Hotel

co-owner arum chica's real house is

about a mile away

he bought it a year ago for almost 3

million Swiss Franks that's around $3

million modern and stylish The Villa

boasts a wonderful Terrace where the

owner can enjoy a cup of tea along with

views of Lake Geneva and the Alps archam

and his family appear to have decided to

relocate to Switzerland on a permanent

basis that being so he'll need to

service his house which means he will

need accounts in the local

banks while searching for these in the

records of the local register of

companies we discovered chica's own Law

Firm the law firm is a true family

business eigor chaa the younger son of

the general prosecutor and arum's little

brother was the sole shareholder in The

Firm until March 2015 when he

transferred his shares to his big

brother chica's firm provides a wide

range of legal services in Switzerland

the firm's name is f t con ft being the

initials of chaika's partner Fran Taran

we went to the firm's registered office

to find out if the general Prosecutor's

son is indeed doing business in

Switzerland Mr tah was in the office but

declined to talk to

[Music]

us I don't speak with the Press you

don't speak with the Press never no you

don't know what questions I ask no

comment Mister no comment okay

Miss thin knows Russian people well in

the 1990s he helped Sergey mikov also

known by his criminal nickname mikas the

leader of the solo organized crime group

to obtain Swiss

citizenship Miss tan previously worked

at a law firm called jural house which

until 2007 was owned by Murat hsov who

is now a senator hsov is the son of

nazer hsov who used to be the general

Prosecutor's chief of administration

this firm is managing ing the chaica

family's bank accounts and their Assets

in Switzerland millions of dollars have

been flowing into the general

Prosecutor's family accounts since

2003 this wealth is being invested into

Lakeside Villas in Switzerland and into

hotels on the

Mediterranean the CH has claimed that

the source of this wealth is a shipping

business in the city of irkutsk which is

where we go

[Music]

next

[Music]

the river Lena rises in the mountains

near Lake Bal and it was here in

siberia's utk region that Yuri chaa made

the first steps in his

career his son artium started out here

too when he cast his eye on to a

shipping company in the city of UT some

thousand kilm north of

utk the shipping company was

strategically important since it was

crucial to keeping the region of laua

supplied with food and fuel but in 2002

the company came across a serious

[Music]

problem the ver ninski shipping

company's Fleet looks like this now but

it looked very different at the end of

the 1990s when it owned 70 large tankers

and River sea class bulk

[Music]

carriers in 1999 artium and Basher KV a

member of the state Duma Russia's lower

house of parliament co-founded a company

called

Leen Lena loaned the shipping company $2

million to repair its Fleet but once the

money had been spent demanded immediate

repayment the shipping company repaid

the money with difficulty and thus

lacked the funds needed to support its

operations kzv then filed an application

for bankruptcy while Aram chaa a

graduate of the Utz University law

school put together a plan for turning

the company around which envisaged

handing control to his associates the

shipping company's directors rejected

that plan so chiker persuaded a

classmate to become a shareholder and

call a general meeting to debate

replacing the board of directors this

strategy failed

too finally it could City prosecutors

brought criminal charges against the

shipping company's directors at that

time Alina kovalova a friend of the

Chaka family was the aots city

prosecutor

at first glance alinaa kovalova is of

little importance in this story however

we should remember that she had worked

at the otz city prosecutor's office With

Yuri chaa and can still influence his

decisions

shortly after mayoral elections were

abolished her son Dimitri berdnikov was

appointed mayor of Utz and Dmitri does

not try to hide his relationship with

the general Prosecutor's

son

albinaa kovalova disciples have very

successful careers they include Yuri

chaa the general prosecutor his Deputy

Ivan seishin the Zaba ksk region

prosecutor vasil voin The Saratov region

prosecutor Vladimir stenov and the

morans region prosecutor Maxi mov the

current Utz region prosecutor eigor

melnikov and the Kadar region prosecutor

Leonid k NE protector of the infamous

sap key gang also began their careers

under her

supervision arim chaa enjoys a warm

personal relationship with Miss kovalova

whom he reportedly refers to in public

as his second

mother the director of The Shipping

Company who stood up to chaa and the

prosecutor is Nikolai palon and this is

how he described the attack on his

business in December

2002 conflict

for

at that time Nikolai paloni still hoped

that he could appeal to the leadership

of the country and prevent the state

company being

stolen

at 11:00 a.m. on the 30th of December

2002 Nikolai paloni walked out of this

building where he had his apartment to

go to the garage to get his car an hour

later at noon he was found hanged in the

garage a criminal investigation was

never opened and his death was

pronounced a suicide much later

journalists anonymously received these

documents which relate to the forensic

examination they describ the ligature

Mark the furrow that the rope left

around the neck its length was 41 cm

that is the circumference of the neck of

the deceased the full circumference in a

suicide the ligature Mark does not span

the full circumference of the neck

despite the fact that this and other

pieces of evidence point to his death

having been murdered the law enforcement

bodies and the prosecutor's office never

investigated the death of Mr

poon what happened to the ships for the

first time we disclose how these public

assets were misappropriated

the dry cargo ships were assigned to two

ports of registry kinsky and

Alexi these ports executed Freight

contracts with the parent company verk

ninski River shipping company after the

death of Mr Pon the director of The

Shipping Company a managing company with

a similar name United Vernal Linsky

River shipping company assumed the

management of the

vessels it had recently been

Incorporated and registered at the same

address as other Aram chaa companies

building one at five mashkova Street

Moscow then through a chain of pseudo

creditors and fictitious court orders

the company was forced to repay its

debts with the vessels in this manner 16

ships were transferred to a Moscow

equestrian club called

sarafovo the club is controlled by the

same people as United Berk ninski Rivers

company they are backed by rtim chaica

and his

Partners another five vessels were sold

to a bogus company within half a year

all were re-registered to Mr chaa

companies several vessels were sold for

pittance to companies registered in the

island of Malta and more than 10 ships

were rented by arim chaica personally at

a special rate of a third of that

charged on the open

market

unseaworthy vessels were just

[Music]

abandoned the proceeds from the sale of

other ships passed through a classical

moneya laundering scheme first the money

was transferred to a Latvian bank and

then moved between accounts until it was

transferred to Switzerland to the family

account of the chikas later still it was

converted into houses on the bank of

Lake

Geneva

following this successful raid several

people from his team went after the salt

business also in the arit

[Music]

region this is tet the fourth biggest

assault mine in Russia in November 2011

this estate Enterprise was sold for 660

million Rubles although it's market

value was estimated at triple

bat with the help of Mr fetisov of the

agency of State Property a newly

established company solidarity

associated with arim chaa became the

owner of the

[Music]

salt

[Music]

as we found out haval fesov also started

his career under albena kovalova

other biders were simply not allowed to

Tender in the privatization auction of

one of the largest salt mines in in the

country this is how the ownership of

properties and Enterprises all over the

country has been changing under the

offices of the prosecutor's

offices RTM Cha's next Target was the

vorobiov salt deposit near

[Music]

kuga in 2013 four companies submitted

bids to developed the deposit two out of

the four biders including the russal

company which was considered the front R

and was the main player in the Russian

salt Market were rejected as they

supposedly lacked the resources to

undertake the work

required Malo Yaro slaveski salt Mining

and the Tet salt mine were allowed to

bid chaa controls malaro svetki salt

mining through a company called gallet

cha controls the tesque salt mine as

well the question is how can this kind

of rigged bid take place the answer is

that it requires the help of regional

prosecutor Dimitri dehin he and RTM cha

are close friends a month after the

tender dehin was promoted to Major

General and moved to Moscow where he

became the head of the anti-corruption

Department of the office of the general

prosecutor of the Russian Federation and

here is arum himself placing a

commemorative capsule into the

foundation of the vorobev salt

processing plant and there next to him

is Igor chaa his brother and the

youngest son of the the general

prosecutor of Russia we'll talk about

him

later not far from the vov soul deposit

there is another sand Quarry its

director OLG kapov has experienced

firsthand how chaa does

business last spring all the access

roads to the biggest sand Quarry in the

kuga region were blocked by fed trees

officers from the local prosecutor's

office were stationed in their cars

outside the quarry's headquarters Around

the Clock pretty sful uh

the quarry's license was revoked one of

the reasons cited by the prosecutors was

the lack of a steering wheel on a

bulldozer a machine that never has a

steering

wheel

some years ago the mski Quarry got a new

neighbor a company named Siberian

element Renta K the companies competed

for contracts to supply sand for the

Reconstruction of nearby highways and

that's when officers from the

prosecutor's office started to inspect

the movi

Quarry

foree

fore

for

when all these internal investigations

were taking place the kuga region

prosecutor was Alexander gagen the son

of Yuri gagen Deputy General

prosecutor quari employees suspected

that it was gagen who was giving orders

to his employes with the best interest

in mind of artium chaa his boss's

son in the time he has free from taking

over State Property arom enjoys riding

motorbikes he's a biker this year he

rode to Minsk with his own ironbirds

bike club to celebrate the opening and

closing of the riding season local

journalists spotted him in a group of

bikers along with his younger brother

eigor eigor the younger son of Russia's

General prosecutor followed in his

brother's footsteps by starting his own

business while a student by the time he

turned 27 eigor had achieved spectacular

results his approach is different from

that of his brothers because eigor

mainly makes money on government

contracts his business goes hand inand

with winning multi-billion government

bids on projects like growing Urban

Greenery improving public services and

waste

collection his administrative

connections guarantee his success via a

network of Affiliated companies that in

each case effectively form a cartel to

win government

tenders

3 days after it opened this skateboard

park the biggest in Europe was closed

for reconstruction it turned out that

skateboarding there was so dangerous it

could kill

you

[Music]

this skateboarding Park was a part of

the renovation of the huge Aon Kino Park

which was performed by the city stoy

Service Company other companies that

competed for the bid were Innovations of

light Baltic stroy company and

navigational

Solutions Innovations of light belongs

to eigor chaa at first sight the other

three companies are unrelated and were

founded by different people in different

cities however all the firms are

interrelated firstly the website

addresses of their offices and

Affiliates

match at some point three out of four of

the companies use the same legal address

in a business center in

Moscow secondly the owners of two of

thean companies are related through

another firm the Ala which was sold by

the owner of City sty service Dennis

gallagan to the owner of navigation

Solutions Alexander tan it is thought

that Tan's firm won a 15-year 43 billion

Ruble tender for waste collection in

Moscow with the help of eigor chaa the

alsa was registered at the same Business

Center in

Moscow besides all four companies

effectively share the same staff and

don't really try to conceal it each firm

promotes vacancies in the other

companies through employment websites

the architect working for City sty

service also works on projects for

Baltic sty company and eigor chica's

Innovations of light the same web

developer created the websites for all

four companies and also worked on the

brochures for Tourette salt mine and

even on the website for the hotel in

Greece all the property of Aram chaa

Igor's

[Music]

brother thus the four seemingly

unrelated companies in various comp

combinations took part in and won

tenders amounting to more than 2.5

billion rubles this Arrangement

obviously looks like a criminal

cartel

the federal antimonopoly service has

repeatedly extended the deadline to

investigate the anti-competitive

behavior accusation that we

filed as yet there is no

result meanwhile the successes of Igor

chaa continued to be remarkable in May

2015 the Vienna philarmonic Orchestra

conducted by Ricardo Muti gave a concert

in the town of cin in the Moscow region

which is a very long way from its normal

itinerary this was a Triumph for Igor

chaa who has voluntarily served as

cultural adviser to local Governor Andre

vorobiov among other things he created

logos and brand books for the Region's

towns renovated historical houses

created weekend fairs and organized

celebrations for various Orthodox

Saints this is how Igor chaa described

his job in an interview to TV rain

during the music

[Music]

festival and this is a video of The

Humble Igor cha heading into a

helicopter as if to emphasize the status

of their young boss the security guards

are extremely concerned about his

[Music]

safety even more humble is the special

morade that escorts him on his trips

around the Moscow region sometimes

humble Igor chaa drives himself and even

gives gives an occasional lift to his

elder brother before his appointment as

the culture adviser eigor chaa said he

wanted to work in the government and to

make room for eigor the governor fired

his Deputy for culture however 18 months

later on July 20 eigor chaica left his

post of the adviser to the governor

saying he did not want to abandon his

business interests on top of the Park

renovation business eigor also owns a

few other companies according to its

Articles of Incorporation Aqua solid

Steels and chemicals in reality it is a

massive concrete producer visual

Technologies produces road signs and

name plates in 2014 Igor's firm te

industria bought from Russian Railways

50% minus two shares of bans which makes

concrete rail sleepers the purchase

price was 3 billion rubles and the

auction was a

[Music]

sham

despite Igor's attempts to look like a

modern Western minded urban planner he

does business in the same manner as his

older brother winning government

contracts in questionable or outright

rigged tenders while eor was preoccupied

with the concrete tender artium

purchased a stone crushing business from

the state run Russian Railways one could

assume the brothers are doing business

together but this question seems to be

very sensitive for eigor and he avoids

answering

[Music]

it

in reality eigor knows his brother's

businesses well simply because he is

part of it eigor worked as the adviser

to the town of Clint thanks to his

brother's connections with Alona Sakaya

the head of the

district

her husband Alexander klov an ex Deputy

prosecutor of Moscow was involved in the

illegal casino business the head of his

administration eduward kaplun a former

prosecutor of Clint was also involved in

this case Igor's brother arum was

implicated in the case as the organizer

of this criminal Network there are more

connections elizabeta berzina is both a

partner in Igor's Moscow Law Firm and a

participant in the auction for the salt

deposit on behalf of arom she is the

founder of the firm which facilitated

the fake competition for the bobov

deposit arum's firm in Switzerland even

belonged to eigor until spring 2015

their lawyers worked with the son of

nazer hsov the former Chief of

administration at the prosecutor's

office Igor Us's businessman Alexander

ponomarov as his nominee shareholder the

very same ponomarov who helped transfer

the ships from ver ninski shipping

company to RTM so igore is a part of a

huge system in which senior prosecutors

are involved for example prosecutors

from kuga helped rtom gain control over

the salt deposits and prosecutors from

utk helped him seize the ship company

with the lapatine family chaa does

business in Greece through lapatine he

is connected with the tapi gang in kodar

where koval's former student Leonard

kenek is the prosecutor her protes also

protect the family's interests in tomsk

yut mormans and other regions

Witnesses report that arom flies all

over the country instructing Regional

prosecutors which criminal cases to open

and which to

close

[Music]

[Applause]

for

[Music]