How We Bought Facebook Shares for Usmanov

All the newspapers wrote about it, and of course

no one understood anything. Hi, this is

Navalny. A publication based on 100 million documents has come out

in yet another so-called scandal

the Paradise Papers. A consortium of

investigative journalists got hold of

several million documents from offshore

companies. From them, you can uncover all sorts of

secrets and financial dealings of various

powerful people around the world, including

our fellow citizens as well. But here's the thing:

a lot is being written about all these different people — there’s

the Queen of England, Bono, U2,

and many of our own people too. So I

received several letters: “Alexei, we

don’t have the energy or desire to read through all this.”

“Tell us what matters most for us.

Is there anything in there that’s important for the citizens

of Russia and that they ought to know?” Yes, there is.

And it’s a story about our beloved Alisher

Burkhanovich Usmanov. Yes, about you too.

Yes, yes — it was you, my dear friend,

who once made a very profitable investment

with your own money by buying shares in

Facebook

but all the profit, as usual, went

to him — and apparently to the officials he shared it with.

Look, here’s the situation. There is

Gazprom

— our national treasure, as they keep

reminding you on TV: “Gazprom

is a national treasure.”

At some point, for some reason, Gazprom decided

to make money on Facebook. Here’s how it

would have looked in a normal

country without corruption: the head of

Gazprom’s investment subsidiary,

Gazprom’s

Gazprom Investholding — his name is Alisher

Usmanov — goes to Facebook in 2011 and says,

“Guys, I want to invest some money from the

Russian people in you.” And they say, “Okay,

Alisher, no problem.” He invests, after which

Gazprom Investholding pays $1 billion

and receives shares, waits a while,

then hype builds around the stock — it’s about to

be listed on the stock exchange, and the price rises sharply

before that. And then Usmanov,

acting as an honest executive in

our interests, sells those shares at

the market price, and Gazprom — and with it,

you and I — gets much more than

it invested: for every dollar, we get $2

or even more. And that money

Gazprom pays into the budget in the form of dividends,

and with it — I don’t know — we build roads

or schools, or pay for medicine for those

who can’t afford it themselves. Everyone is happy,

and the citizens of Russia — you and I — have become

a little bit richer. But that’s all just a dream.

In reality, you and I live in

Putin’s Russia, and things are done

differently here. There is Gazprom, and there is its

division headed by Alisher

Usmanov, Gazprom Investholding. They

for some reason decided to invest in Facebook, and

for that purpose they somehow funnel

$1 billion into some shady, murky

offshore entity controlled by Usmanov.

This fly-by-night outfit is run by

a certain Leonid Semenenko, a longtime partner

of Usmanov. Back in 2004, Semenenko

introduced himself as Usmanov’s assistant and

commented on his deals, and in 2013

he described himself as his adviser at

Metalloinvest.

Then this offshore shell company

buys Facebook shares through

the company of Usmanov’s longtime partner,

Yuri Milner. He is Usmanov’s complete

opposite. While

Usmanov was in an Uzbek prison, Milner

was studying at one of America’s top

business schools.

He lives in Silicon Valley, is friends

with Zuckerberg, and presents himself as this

advanced Western investor and

philanthropist. So, after a while,

the hype begins: the IPO is coming soon,

the forecasts are excellent,

the media, analysts, and bankers are predicting

huge success, everyone wants these

shares — and the shell company sells them.

Having only just bought them. And guess

to whom? That’s right: Alisher Burkhanovich

Usmanov.

And then, with no investment

risk at all, after waiting literally a month, on the eve of

the public offering, he sells those shares

for twice the price, making

an enormous amount of money on it. And Gazprom — and you and

I — earn nothing. We simply

ended up financing

someone else’s great deal with our money.

If nothing had come of it, and

Facebook hadn’t taken off, the losses would have been

ours. But it did take off, and Usmanov kept the profit

for himself. And not only that — he even

did it with a certain artistic flair. In other words, the scheme

is exactly the same as with

the mining and processing plants

that Usmanov squeezed out of Gazprom

and made billions on. So

watch our old video about that and

you’ll be amazed

by how similar the scheme is. Only instead of

Facebook shares, it was Lebedinsky GOK (a mining and processing plant),

and that’s how

Metalloinvest was created. That’s how Alisher Usmanov

ended up at the top of the Forbes list.

That’s how he lived happily ever after.

And again I hear it — I can practically hear the cry from

the other side of the screen:

“But how, Alexei? How did he do it?

You can’t just

take $1 billion of Gazprom’s money

and shove it into some shady offshore entity. That’s an enormous amount of

money — how could anyone dispose of it like that?”

using Gazprom as a personal wallet, and the answer

to that question I already gave you, my

inattentive friends, remember who it was

who was the chief guardian angel

of Alisher Usmanov at Gazprom. Who was this

small but very greedy little man in

bright sneakers? Right now, all of you

my viewers—well, except for Usmanov—

are wondering: how did it happen

that Usmanov could rob Gazprom and no one even

said a word? And it’s very simple.

Do you know who was chairman of the board

of directors of Gazprom at that moment? Maybe

you’ve already guessed it yourselves.

And if not, then please welcome

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev.

Yes, yes, yes—Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev. At the time

of the Facebook deal, Medvedev was already

president of Russia, and there were practically no

issues in our country that our heroes couldn’t

quietly settle. And most importantly,

the story came out.

The exposé was published—but where were the comments,

the investigations, the FSB (Russia’s security service) breaking down doors, and so

on? When it comes to Nemagia (a Russian YouTube channel), their preparatory barrage

happens very quickly. But here

there was nothing at all. Because in Russia

the corrupt and the thieves have taken power.

They rob you completely

openly, every single day. That’s why I’m running

in the election—because I want to stop it

and I will, if I have your support.

Sign in support of my movement

right now and help me

spread this video. To stay silent and

do nothing means helping people like

Medvedev and Usmanov. Subscribe to

our channel.

They tell the truth here. Fun Radio, once again.