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Nov 28, 2006 · NICE, France – A Russian ... Suleiman Kerimov, 40, and a 31-year-old woman who was in the car with him were injured in the crash Saturday in the southeastern city of Nice, officials said.
Apr 11, 2022 · Leaked documents show how sanctioned oligarch Suleiman Kerimov used shell companies to move $700m. ... he almost died from injuries sustained in an accident in southern France. He skidded off Nice ...
- Overview
- Fast cars, fancy parties
- Family help
On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Vladimir Putin summoned 37 of his country’s most powerful business leaders to the Kremlin.
The Russian president told them the incursion had been “a necessary measure” and asked them “to be understanding of what is going on.”
Russia’s stock exchange had just closed at a 33 percent loss, wiping out an estimated $71 billion in wealth, with a raft of new sanctions from the United States and the European Union already in effect and more on the way.
For many oligarchs in the room, it would be their first taste of international financial restrictions.
But for others, like Suleiman Kerimov, sanctions were nothing new.
The enigmatic, Ferrari-driving billionaire and his family have gone to great lengths to shield their assets, documents suggest, an effort that would have helped to insulate him when he and other Russian elites were sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for benefitting from the country’s “malign activity around the globe.”
Kerimov is lesser known but wealthier than the likes of Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska. He’s worth roughly $14.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the 130th richest person in the world.
Today, much of Kerimov’s wealth is thought to stem from his family’s stake in Polyus — the largest gold producer in Russia. He also has deep political connections. Since 2008, he has served as a senator in Russia’s Federation Council for his native region of Dagestan, in the majority Muslim southeast.
By turns private — Kerimov rarely gives interviews — and flamboyant, he has been called a “Russian Gatsby” for hosting multi-million-dollar parties at his massive villas on the French Riviera, including one soiree that reportedly featured a performance by Beyoncé. He reportedly owns a $325 million megayacht, and his car collection has included such rarities as a Ferrari Enzo, which he crashed into a tree in Nice in a near-fatal accident in 2006.
“That flamboyance, the spending — that’s a part of their persona. But it’s also a way to launder money,” Karen Greenaway, a former FBI agent who worked in the bureau’s International Corruption Unit, said, speaking broadly about oligarchs.
Despite holding diplomatic immunity, Kerimov was arrested in France in 2017 in connection with a tax evasion and money laundering case over the purchase of a nearly $190 million estate in Cap d’Antibes on the French Riviera, an area otherwise known as the Bay of Billionaires.
The year before, the Panama Papers investigation by ICIJ and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that Kerimov-linked companies had transferred $200 million to a financial network associated with Sergei Roldugin, who the European Union has dubbed “Putin’s wallet.”
Setting up numerous companies to obscure his ownership stake in various businesses would have been one way for Kerimov to protect his wealth. But he has also used simpler methods, namely moving wealth into the hands of his family members.
In 2015, his company, Polyus, was delisted from the London Stock Exchange during the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Crimea, so Kerimov took measures to insulate his controlling stake in the Russian gold giant, by transferring it to his then-20 year-old son, Said.
The move proved effective. Kerimov was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, along with seven other Russian oligarchs, for benefitting “from the Putin regime and play(ing) a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities,” including the occupation of Crimea and efforts to subvert Western democracies. Kerimov himself was sanctioned for alleged money laundering and for being an official in the government of the Russian Federation, the Treasury Department said at the time.
But the designation did not extend to his son or to various companies linked to his wealth. Trading in Polyus continued unfettered, until it was suspended from the London Stock Exchange in response to the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
On April 6, the Financial Times reported that the European Union was considering adding Said to its sanctions list, and within hours Polyus announced that the younger Kerimov had resigned from its board of directors and sold off nearly half of his shares in the company. With Said no longer the majority shareholder, the move was seen as an attempt to shield Polyus from the freezing of its accounts.
Polyus said those decisions took place April 4, two days before press reports of possible sanctions against Said.
- 3 min
- Kenzi Abou-Sabe,Andrew W. Lehren,Yasmine Salam,Nancy Ing
2 days ago · In 2018 Kerimov spent seven months under house arrest in Nice, accused of money laundering and non-payment of taxes on his villas at Cap d'Antibes. In 2006, Kerimov had a serious car accident in ...
Nov 21, 2017 · French police have detained Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov in Nice, Russia’s consulate in France said on Tuesday. Mr Kerimov, who is also a member of Russia’s upper House of Parliament, was ...
Jun 28, 2018 · A lawyer for Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov says France has dropped charges of alleged money laundering from tax fraud. Nikita Sychev, Mr Kerimov’s Russian lawyer, told the Interfax newswire ...
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Aug 1, 2022 · YANN COATSALIOU / AFP. There is a new lead that could reboot the Kerimov affair in France, named after the 56-year-old Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin who is suspected of owning four ...
