This is a joint article by The Insider (Sergey Yezhov) and Siena/OCCRP (Sarunas Cerniauskas)
Kaminskas has never been a millionaire. His only business was the Motoideja company, a small shop founded in 2004 in a residential area of Soviet development in Vilnius, where mopeds and motorcycle spare parts were sold. In the latest annual report, Motoideja revealed its 2019 and 2020 sales. In total, the proceeds amounted to 94 euros. The store told us that it no longer belongs to Kaminskas, and that they know him, but have not seen him for many years, because he moved to Russia.
In Russia, he found his love – Elena Shebunova (now Elena Kaminskas), a former flight attendant. As The Insider reported in 2019, Shebunova had an affair and shared children with Sergei Shoigu. Coincidentally, Shebunova earned her fortune on government contracts related to the Ministry of Emergency Situations (during the period when Shoigu headed it) and the Ministry of Defense.
Birth of money
49-year-old Elena Kaminskas (Shebunova) began her career as a flight attendant for a flight squad of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES). In 2001, her son Danila was born, who received the patronymic Sergeevich – on behalf of his father, the current Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.
In 2008, Elena Kaminskas had a daughter, Daria, who also receives a patronymic Sergeevna. Shoigu at that time served as head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
At the same time, Shebunova became a co-owner of businesses that received government contracts from the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Later, when Shoigu took the post of Minister of Defense, Elena's firms also began to earn money on deals with the military department. Kaminskas (Shebunova) had its own company Lega-Pishchevik LLC in 2003. This company was engaged in providing food for the structures of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and later – the Ministry of Defense. On government contracts, Lega-Pishchevik earned 121.3 million rubles (about €2 million at the current exchange rate). In 2022, the company was liquidated. Kaminskas (Shebunova) could not have any significant equity capital for initial investment in the business. According to the leaks we studied from the database of the Federal Tax Service, in 1999-2001 she earned an average of 40 thousand rubles a year in the Ministry of Emergency Situations (about $1.4 thousand a year at the exchange rate of that time).
In 2014, Shebunova became a co-founder of Spetsstroykonstruktsiya LLC. This company received 4.3 billion rubles (about €68.5 million at the current exchange rate) from the state enterprise Main Military Construction Directorate No. 12. Basically, the contracts concerned the supply of finishing materials for the construction of military facilities of the Ministry of Defense.
In 2015, Shebunova acquired a 200-acre land plot in the elite village of Zhukovka near Moscow. She also owned a mansion (1196 square meters). There are several other buildings on the site – with a total area of 1128 square meters. This estate is valued at 1.5 billion rubles (€24 million at the current exchange rate).
Around 2017, according to The Insider, the romantic relationship between Shebunova and Shoigu ended. Shortly thereafter, Elena became friends with Adolfas Kaminskas. She changed her last name in the Russian database of legal entities from Shebunova to Kaminskas in 2019, but officially the marriage could have been concluded earlier.
The guy came to success
In 2019, Adolfas Kaminskas, according to the Moscow traffic police database, became the owner of a Mercedes-Benz GL350 VLUETEC 4MATIC. The previous owner of the car was Galina Akhmetova, a business partner and confidant of Shebunova.
According to data received from Rosreestr, in 2020 Shebunova gave her husband an estate in Zhukovka. On October 5, 2022, Adolfas Kaminskas returned the property to his wife under a donation agreement.
The only company owned by Adolfas Kaminskas in Russia is called A.E.Invest. It was established in August 2019 and registered at the location of a restaurant owned by Kaminskas's wife in Moscow (Minskaya Street, 10). The authorized capital of A.E. Invest is 1 million rubles (€16 thousand). According to the financial statements, the company ended 2020 and 2021 with losses: 4 and 4.8 million rubles, respectively (€64,000 and €76,000 as losses).
In 2021, Adolfas Kaminskas also registered as an individual entrepreneur (the main activity is “Purchase and sale of own real estate”). Thus, the entire Russian business appeared with him after his marriage.
Investments in Lithuania
A study by Siena shows that Kaminskas has started accumulating his Lithuanian fortune with solid partners. In 2017, he invested in Pandos Investicijos, founded by a member of a family that has had a huge impact on recent Lithuanian history. Pandos Investicijos was created by Aygozel Gulmedova, daughter-in-law of Yuri Borisov, a notorious Russian businessman with numerous business interests in both Lithuania and Russia. Known for his helicopter repair business, Borisov is also responsible for the presidential impeachment.
Borissov was the main sponsor of the presidential campaign, which in 2003 brought Rolandas Paksas, a famous aircraft pilot and former mayor of Vilnius, to the most powerful office in the country. Just a year after taking office, Paksas was removed from office for violating the Lithuanian constitution. The President's decision to use his exclusive power and grant Borisov Lithuanian citizenship was one of the main factors that led to the downfall of Paksas.
Borisov subsequently lost his Lithuanian passport, but he never lost his interests in Lithuania, owning several businesses and an impressive estate near Trakai, the historical capital of Lithuania. Borisov's daughter-in-law established Pandos Investicijos in August 2017. A week after the creation, Kaminskas became the owner of 25% of the company. Less than a year later, he became its sole owner. It was this company that served as the launching pad for Kaminskas' investments in Vilnius.
At the end of 2017, Pandos Investicijos acquired a 50% stake in 77 Laisves. The name reflects the main activity of the company – the construction of a house at 77 Laisvės Avenue in Vilnius. In 2018, 77 Laisves reported holding €4.47 million in assets.
The residential building at Laisvės 77 was built in 2019. However, Kaminskas' company never disclosed financial results for the year, and therefore it is impossible to determine how much money it earned from the sale of dozens of new apartments.
Another business that Kaminskas started developing in 2017 is the Vilnius-based company Despecto. Starting with a minority stake, he became the sole owner of the company in mid-2020.
In 2018, Despecto invested in a former shopping center in a residential area of Vilnius. According to company documents, the value of the asset was about 7.9 million euros. In less than two years, the former store has been transformed into Moon Play, a new family-run establishment described in an official press release as "the largest recreation and entertainment center in the Baltics."
According to the latest annual report, Despecto is operating at a loss, but the company's assets are estimated at 11.42 million euros. The company also reported accounts payable of almost 10 million euros without identifying creditors.
War changes plans
The two previously mentioned development projects are not the only place where Kaminskas' money has gone. In 2020, Pandos Investicijos acquired a 1 hectare land plot on the outskirts of Vilnius.
The company Homa, which developed the Kaminskas residential project at Laisvės 77, has announced that it is building a warehouse on this site. It is reported that the cost of the project is 8 million euros. However, Kaminskas no longer owns all of these assets. He started selling them a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine. At that time, Kaminskas was already a Russian citizen.
Data obtained by The Insider shows that the Kaminskas Russian passport was first mentioned in the Russian registry in April 2022. It is not clear exactly when he received citizenship and whether he still has a Lithuanian passport. The new construction site with a future warehouse office is now owned by Foreksas, registered in August 2022. The actual owner of Foreksas is Paulius Kvesalaitis, the owner of Homa Group. Kveselaitis also bought Despecto and Pandos Investicijos from Kaminskas. Both companies were transferred at the same time, on September 15, 2022.
“We do not check such things”
In a telephone interview with Siena, Kveselaitis said that he knew nothing about the origin of Kaminskas' capital, nor about reports of his wife's alleged affair with Shoigu. “We do not check such things. (…) Banks should do this, they probably check the origin of the money,” he said.
According to Kveselaitis, Kaminskas was not the main source of development funding. “It was financed by banks, Adolfas Kaminskas was not the main [source]. He was a business partner,” Kveselaitis said. He argued that the withdrawal of Kaminskas from the Lithuanian enterprises was not a sudden decision. “We broke up this summer. (…) We bought part of it in some of the projects you mentioned and are moving on alone,” he explained.
He declined to disclose how much money Kaminskas received for the business he recently sold. “I cannot comment on this. It's hard for me to say whether he made money or lost it. I can’t tell you that,” Kveselaitis said. When asked if Russian capital was involved in the construction of real estate, he replied that he could not disclose this.
We found two numbers to call Kaminskas, one in Russia and one in Lithuania. However, both numbers no longer worked. At the time of this posting, Kaminskas has not responded to an emailed request for comment.
The Insider phoned Elena Kaminskas (formerly Shebunova) and asked if she was helping her current husband with his investments in Vilnius. “You know, Sergey, I don’t comment either on my husband or on someone else’s husband. Therefore, I will not answer your questions. Write like this: I declined to comment,” she said.
