When reporters followed the money, the path was clear -- a Moldovan ghost company was used to transfer funds stolen from the Russian tax authority to an international real estate company named Prevezon.  Shortly after, Prevezon bought luxury New York apartments near Wall Street that it still owns. Denis Katsyv, the current owner of that company and the son of a wealthy government official, has denied any involvement saying he bought the company after the transfer.  But new documents and evidence obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) raises more questions about Katsyv’s involvement.

In the winter of 2008, more than US$52 million poured through the bank accounts of Bunicon-Impex SRL and Elenast-Com SRL. The companies were conduits for money stolen by a ring of Russian state officials and organized crime figures through a complex tax fraud scheme.  Sergey Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer, who exposed the fraud, was later arrested and jailed for the crime and died from mistreatment in a Russian prison.

OCCRP tracked some of the Magnitsky money, something Russian officials said was not possible because the records were “lost in an accident”. The investigation is at the heart of official inquiries in the Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and Switzerland. Swiss authorities froze bank accounts associated with some of the persons and companies OCCRP mentioned in its reporting.

The Mysterious Mr. Kim and Mr. Petrov

Most of the money channelled through the bank accounts of Bunicon-Impex and of Elenast-Com did not stay in Moldova but was moved on to bank accounts in many other countries. One recipient was Prevezon Holdings Limited, a Cyprus-based company with accounts in the Swiss UBS bank. Prevezon received at least $850,000 from the two Moldovan companies over two weeks in February 2008.  Banking records seen by OCCRP indicate that the payments Bunicon and Elenast made to Prevezon Holdings were listed as "advance payments for sanitary equipment". There is no evidence Prevezon delivered sanitary equipment to either Bunicon or Elenast which were ghost companies.

The money arrived in the accounts of Bunicon Impex and Elenast straight from the correspondent account of the Russian Bank Krainy Sever which was hosted in the Russia’s Alfa Bank.  It was further transferred to the UBS accounts of Prevezon.  Krainy Sever later lost its banking license in Russia because authorities said it was laundering money.

Prevezon's main shareholder is Katsyv, the son of Petr Katsyv, the wealthy and powerful former minister of transportation in the Moscow region. According to Cyprus company records, Katsyv became a shareholder of Prevezon Holdings five months after the money was transferred from the two Moldovan companies to Prevezon. Katsyv denied he had anything to do with the fraud. Katsyv told OCCRP via a hired British public relations company, Wellington International, that: "The funds derived from a deal between Prevezon owner Timofey Krit and his friend, a Mr. Petrov. In January 2008, they agreed jointly to develop a business based on investments in and management of property. Under the agreement Mr. Petrov was to transfer funds to Prevezon for this purpose. The companies Bunicon and Elenast are named in the agreement. This was because Mr. Petrov was anticipating repayment through these companies of a debt owed him by a third party, a Mr. Kim. The payments were made on 5 and 13 February 2008."

OCCRP asked Katsyv for the contacts and full names of Mr. Petrov and Mr. Kim but Katsyv never provided them.  Mr. Kim and Mr. Petrov are also not named in the Moldovan banking records OCCRP obtained.

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