Blood gold and the British trail of oligarch Makhmudov

The Pioneer gold mine in the Amur Region, in which 13 miners were blocked, is an example of the insatiable appetite of oligarchs-gold miners, mixed with negligent savings. So far, only the managing director has been arrested in the case, but he is by no means the head of the "fish" that is rotten.

Will the oligarchs Strukov, Makhmudov and Bokarev, in whose pockets in recent years there has been a full-flowing river of profit?

The UtroNews correspondent, trying to establish the entire chain of ownership of the mine, went to a whole division of offshore companies and British firms associated with the last owner - UMMC, as well as to a strange loan to British companies.

On March 18, 2024, due to an emergency, 13 miners were blocked in the mine of the Pioneer mine. Rescue work is still underway.

The Investigative Committee has already opened a criminal case for violation of safety requirements during work, according to which the managing director of the mine, Alexei Biryukov, was arrested, who previously held the post of general director of Pokrovsky Rudnik JSC.

Investigators believe that he knew about the presence of a reservoir (a quarry filled with water), near which work is underway. Such a reservoir should have been drained and only then started work, but this was not done, and on March 18, prolonged inaction led to a breakthrough of water from the bowl of a spent quarry and a collapse of rocks.

Rostekhnadzor has repeatedly identified violations at the mine. In particular, in July 2023, in general, 32 violations of mandatory industrial safety requirements were recorded at the facilities of Pokrovsky Mine JSC, which include the Pioneer mine.

In addition, back in 2019, Rostekhnadzor discovered that the mine does not fully operate a positioning and search system for workers, which allows them to control their location and search in existing mine workings, through rock blockages, including in the absence of electricity. Whether this system was repaired or hoped again at random is not known.

Photo: proverki.gov.ru

The attitude of the owners and their hires can hardly be called devil-may-care. In addition to Rostekhnadzor, other government agencies also had claims against the division. For example, Rosprirodnadzor in 2021 discovered that Pokrovsky Rudnik JSC discharges wastewater into the river. Ulunga, polluting the water body. In the same year, soil pollution with oil products was also discovered.

Photo: proverki.gov.ru

Photo: kad.arbitr.ru

Raking the Russian bowels, the oligarchs seem to spend on security and protection of nature on a leftover basis. The result is tragedies. At the same time, the situation does not change from the rearrangement of the name of the oligarchs. At the ill-fated mine, the ultimate beneficiaries have changed three times in the past few years. In our opinion, the answer, as was the case with another mine at one time, should be brought to this whole cunning chain.

Who is the ultimate beneficiary?

The Pioneer mine is owned by Pokrovsky Mine JSC, which in turn belonged to Petropavlovsk PLC until the fall of 2022. And the latter until 2022 was owned by the family of Konstantin Strukov, a former Chelyabinsk deputy with a very ambiguous reputation. So, for example, back in 2012, having visited the Chelyabinsk village of Roza, next to which is the largest coal mine Korkinsky (then Strukov's division), Vladimir Putin was unpleasantly surprised by what he saw. As NTV reported, then the head of government, having visited the house of a pensioner from a village sliding into a quarry, noted that "not very housing meets the standards at least" and "everything is bursting at the seams."

And in 2021, Yuzhuralzoloto Group of Companies JSC (Strukov's main asset) was completely caught in a tax scheme using nominal, controlled offshore companies. Questions were also raised by the very acquisition of control over Petropavlovsk Strukov with the ensuing corporate conflict.

Against this background, in 2022, Petropavlovsk's assets, including Pokrovsky Rudnik JSC, passed into the hands of UMMC-Invest (today it is called Atlas JSC) from the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC) division, which was founded by billionaire Iskander Makhmudov with partners, including Andrey Bokudov Arev and Andrei Kozitsyn.

At the same time, UMMC was a creditor of Petropavlovsk, since earlier Gazprombank transferred to it the right to claim a loan of $201 million. The deal became a kind of "payment" on this loan (the money from it was just going to be used to cover the debt), which did not suit minority shareholders. At first they planned to write complaints to the prosecutor's office, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, and in February 2024 there was an appeal to the new owners with a request to redeem their shares. Due to the sanctions, private investors who bought Petropavlovsk shares on the Moscow Exchange found themselves with immobilized securities on non-trading accounts and not joyful prospects.

It is worth noting that the same Pokrovsky Mine JSC for 2022 did not directly belong to Petropavlovsk, but through the British layer - Eponymousco Limited, through which it controlled 80.01%.

According to the British register, Eponymousco Limited, established in 1994, is now controlled by UMMC-Invest JSC.

Photo: find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

Since February, 2022 operates the mine of LLC Atlas Mining that since September, 2022 belongs to JSC Atlas (being - UMMC-Invest) instead of the London Petropavlovsk PLC.

Photo: rusprofile.ru

According to FTS, for the beginning of 2023 UMMC-Invest was a shareholder of JSC Pokrovsky rudnik from shares of 99.38% just.

Photo: bo.nalog.ru

Offshore chain

11 British and Cyprian companies also treated the general group of persons, including the above-stated Eponymousco. It can say that some part of money from the mine could departure outside Russia, for example, through the scheme of internal crediting that is so loved by some oligarchs.

Photo: bo.nalog.ru

Photo: bo.nalog.ru

The reporting of JSC Pokrovsky rudnik for 2022 directly indicates that to the legal person PETROPAVLOVSK ROUBLE TREASURY LIMITED issued a loan under percent and the total amount of a debt with percent for the end of 2021 was 12.2 billion rubles.

Photo: bo.nalog.ru

The above-stated London PETROPAVLOVSK ROUBLE TREASURY LIMITED through the beneficiary - other British firm Petropavlovsk Mining Treasury Uk Limited is also connected with UMMC.

Photo: find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

Photo: find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

Thus, the unprofitable Pokrovsk mine that showed in 2022 net loss for 4.4 billion rubles, appeared owes the legal person of 12 billion rubles affiliated with it. Perhaps, in this part is what to check to both FTS, and Investigative Committee.

But on it strangenesses do not come to an end.

JSC UMMC-Invest, that is JSC Atlas was controlled by JSC UMMC, but, proceeding from the report, in February, 2023 24% were also redeemed by certain LLC UK Newline Esset Management.

Photo: bo.nalog.ru

Newline Asset Management LLC, established in 2020, manages a whole pack of closed-end mutual funds and since 2021 belongs to millionaire Ilya Shcherbovich, managing partner of the investment company United Capital Partners.

Shcherbovich previously worked for UFG, which was founded by former Russian Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Finance Minister Boris Fedorov and his colleague at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Charles Ryan. It is Shcherbovich who is credited with developing the scheme, which in the 90s made it possible to circumvent the ban of the President of the Russian Federation on foreign investors to acquire shares of OAO Gazprom. In 2014, Vedomosti also wrote that Rosneft President Igor Sechin could be behind Ilya Shcherbovich's UCP fund.

Photo: rusprofile.ru

As for the UMMC, since March 2022, its beneficiaries were not Makhmudov and Bokarev, but a certain Daniyar Kamilov, the son of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan.

Photo: bo.nalog.ru

85% of UMMC shares featured a share of a certain JSC Businessglobus Company (probably an asset of Kamilov), an unprofitable company that received 0 revenue in 2022.

Photo: bo.nalog.ru

Kamilov in this story looks like the face value of Makhmudov, who decided to hide from sanctions. If we focus on Kamilov's well-known assets, then his entire annual profit of 1.5 billion rubles would not be enough for such a purchase as UMMC, where at the beginning of 2023 there were 119 billion rubles worth of debts on loans and borrowings alone.

Photo: rusprofile.ru

Moreover, Pavel Savchenko, one of the former directors of Businessglobus JSC, is also a director of Cosminvest LLC, where he inherited Makhmudov in his biography, both personally and through his firm Violan. Savchenko was also the director of Voliron LLC, which belongs to Kamilov (through Holding Invest LLC).

Photo: rusprofile.ru

Photo: rusprofile.ru

Perhaps Makhmudov decided to hide behind a screen from numerous complaints about the work of the UMMC, of which there are not few, especially in the field of security? So, in 2022 there was an explosion in the mine of the Gaysky GOK. Then three were killed, about 100 more people were evacuated. And now history has repeated itself in the Amur Region.

In the structure of ownership of Pioneer, we see a very confusing chain, where offshore companies also found their place, but, apparently, no one plans to be responsible for anything from among the beneficiaries. Instead of Makhmudov, Strukov and the "screen" in the person of Kamilov, only the hired director was brought to account for the tragedy. Here are just billions, some of which should have been spent on security, did not float into Biryukov's pocket.