Another Russian personality denounced by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Aleksej Mordashov, considered the richest Russian. According to the Consortium’s revelations, he also uses screen constructions to evade sanctions, although he has been on the European Union list since February 28.
According to Forbes magazine, the fortune of Alexei Mordashov was estimated, in 2021, at 29 billion dollars. According to the survey conducted and published by the ICIJ Consortium, this Russian billionaire was able to count on the help of numerous tax consulting companies and specialized law firms, in particular the consulting firm PwC and its Cypriot office. Alexei Mordashov thus has a holding company which administers no less than 65 screen companies housed, among other places, in the British Virgin Islands.
Other documents analyzed by the ICIJ show that the Russian billionaire Mordashov used this spider web of offshore companies to invest in European companies and to expand his empire in Russia, in the steel industries, coal, wood and in the media.
According to the ICIJ, offshore companies linked to Alexei Mordashov are involved in financial transactions mobilizing “large sums around the world suspiciously“. It is in particular a question of at least four transactions involving companies linked to a close friend of the Russian President, Vladimir Poutine. What, according to the ICIJ, to doubt when Alexei Mordashov affirms not to be linked to the Russian President.
According to investigative journalists from the ICIJ, the PwC company also helped Alexei Mordashov’s partner Marina Mordashova to be registered as the owner of a yacht and a private jet. In addition, the tax and legal advisers of the Mordashov couple would have helped them to restructure the network of shell companies, while they were targeted by the sanctions imposed once morest the Russian oligarchs since 2014.