News
Alina Kireeva, the daughter of Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister for Construction Policy, Marat Khusnullin, has been revealed as the owner of a network of offshore companies by investigative project Dossier. The offshore network was identified as the owner an estate near Paris, a villa in Cyprus, a business on the Côte d'Azur, and a number of other properties belonging to Khusnullin's relatives.
Alina Kireeva (née Khusnullina), lives in Cyprus, and is married to Yevgeny Kireev, son of Sergey Kireev, general director of the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP). According to a Dossier source, Kireev is a Cypriot citizen.
In Cyprus, Alina and Yevgeny own a spacious three-story villa with a swimming pool, garden, gazebo and bathhouse, investigators learned. The total area of the villa, located in a prestigious Limassol suburb, totals almost 1000 square meters, built on a property of 1720 sq. m. According to several property listings, the villa is located in the same area as the residence of the President of Cyprus. Based on average property prices in the area (per square meter), Dossier estimated the cost of the villa at €4.5 million (approx. $4.96 million).
Alina Kireeva represents the Fortress Group, which, according to Dossier, actually turned out to be an offshore network belonging to the Khusnullin-Kireev family office.
This group has five flagship companies: Cypriot-registered Fortress Nominees, Fortress Secretarial, Fortress (Far East) CY, the Belize-based Fortress Services Belize and the Hong Kong-based Fortress (Far East). The firms have 37 offshore companies under their umbrella.
Officially, the companies are involved in different things: shipping, investments, business management and real estate. What they actually do is unknown, the investigators said, suggesting that the firms are needed to conceal real estate, taxes and withdrawal of money to offshore accounts in the interests of both Sergey Kireev and Marat Khusnullin.
The publication’s sources believes that Deputy PM Khusnullin’s connections in the Russian construction industry could be helping Sergey Kireev launder his illegal income.
Dossier reports that the Kireevs have closed the loop of the chain of offshore companies onto their family members, so that the true owners could not be traced. The investigators noted that one of the offshore companies, Stamukha Shipping Limited, in August 2022 bought a 30.5-meter Yacht AB-100 from a Roman Loginov in Sochi and resold it to “NCSP Fleet” in Novorossiysk two days later. “NCSP Fleet” (“Flot NMTP”) is a state-owned company engaged in servicing the ships of Russia's largest port operator, the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port. The investigators speculate that the purchase was probably made in favor of NCSP head Sergey Kireev, Marat Khusnullin's brother-in-law, or someone else in the company.
The listed price of the yacht is €11 million for its standard configuration – an amount that goes up to €12,5 million if the customer wants it customized. The ship’s price totalled close to 682 million roubles at the time of the deal, Dossier wrote.
Fortress Group has made other large purchases. In 2017, Maxadona Investments Ltd. bought the real estate agency SCI Lares from former banker Yuri Milyukov. An old mansion in the commune of Vigneault-Saint-Firmin, 20 km from Paris, is registered in its name. The cost of the estate comes in at €2.35 million, or 164.5 million roubles. Since Maxadona Investments is subordinate to the Fortress group of companies, the investigators conclude that the Kireyev-Husnullin family are its ultimate owners.
Dossier investigators also learned that in 2015, Khusnullin's cousin Ildus Minnikhanov acquired the real estate agency Azur Life, which executes real estate transactions deals to buy and rent apartments and villas throughout the Côte d'Azur. In June 2022, Minnikhanov sold his stake to Azur Life's co-owner Natalia Vinogradova. The deal was merely nominal: 60% of the shares cost Vinogradova €498 – a fraction of the monthly rent for any of the apartments rented by the agency. According to Dossier, the Minnikhanov family remains the real beneficiary of the agency.