"Orthodox oligarch" Konstantin Malofeev continued to use the accounts of his offshore companies for three years after US and EU sanctions were imposed against him. The report of the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP) is devoted to this fact. The organization cites documents obtained by a group of journalists from Distributed Denial of Secrets.
With the help of the Cypriot law firm MeritServus, Malofeev transferred tens of millions of dollars to his offshore accounts. He registered the first of them, Tinello Investments Limited, in 2005, entrusting its management to MeritServus. The oligarch remained the beneficiary of this company, although his name was not mentioned in its documents. At the same time, MeritServus paid dividends to Malofeev from securities owned by Tinello and transferred shares to the oligarch upon request.
Tinello was used by Malofeev to conduct financial transactions with his other companies. Among them is the Marshall Capital fund, which invested in the state company Rostelecom.
Sanctions against Malofeev were imposed in 2014 after being accused of supporting separatism in Ukraine. Alexander Boroday and Igor Strelkov, people who held high positions in the leadership of the “DPR”, were associated with him. His St. Basil the Great Foundation helped the Cossacks who fought against Ukraine.
MeritServus continued to cooperate with Malofeev until 2017. Thanks to this cooperation, the oligarch, with the help of offshore companies, financed, among other things, his propaganda channel Tsargrad TV. For example, it is known that Tinello issued two loans in 2015 in the amount of $17 and $3.6 million to Malofeev's Tsargrad group of companies.
It was only in 2017 that MeritServus, according to an internal company document, became concerned about the figure of its Russian client. The text noted Malofeev's "excessive level of secrecy" and failure to provide justification for any of the transactions made. After that, the company terminated relations with the oligarch.
According to MeritServus lawyers quoted by The Guardian, this was done immediately after the company learned that Malofeev was under sanctions. Prior to this, they allegedly did not know about this fact.
In February, a US court granted prosecutors permission to confiscate $5.4 million that belonged to Malofeev and will now be transferred to Ukraine. This was the result of the work of the KleptoCapture group at the US Department of Justice, which monitors the implementation of sanctions imposed by Western countries after Russia launched a war against Ukraine.