Mysterious Gazprom deaths may be linked to 'money-laundering scheme'

Mysterious deaths related to Russian gas giant Gazprom may have been linked to ‘money-laundering scheme’ benefiting top exec’s family and his cronies from Putin’s security services, report claims

• Suspicious deaths of Gazprom execs may be linked to money laundering scheme
• The scheme benefited a top gas executive’s family and his close friends at FSB

Mysterious deaths among business executives at Russian energy giant Gazprom are allegedly linked to a complex ‘money-laundering scheme’ benefiting a top gas executive’s family and his cronies at Vladimir Putin’s security services.

Novaya Gazeta Europe, a leading investigative news outlet, and Transparency International Russia, claimed that the high-profile Russian businessmen who have died in suspicious circumstances were linked to a multi-million dollar money-laundering scheme. 

The day after the war in Ukraine started, Alexander Tyulyakov, deputy head of corporate security at Gazprom’s United Settlement Centre, the energy giant’s ‘treasury’ allegedly committed suicide.

He died in Gazprom’s guarded Leninsky corporate village in Leningrad region, near St Petersburg on 25 February 2022. His body was reportedly discovered by his lover.

His neck was in a noose in his £500,000 home yet there are strong suspicions he did not take his own life. 

The day after the war in Ukraine started, Alexander Tyulyakov (left), deputy head of corporate security at Gazprom’s United Settlement Centre, the energy giant’s ‘treasury’ allegedly committed suicide. Two months later Vladislav Avayev, 51, (right) a vice-president of Gazprombank and former Kremlin official, was found dead in Moscow

Sergey Protosenya was found hanged in Spain, after appearing to kill his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria, with an axe

A suicide note was found near the body of a man revealed as a former KGB and FSB officer, but his death has remained ‘mysterious’, said the report, not least since his body was ‘badly beaten’ before death.

Two months later Vladislav Avayev, 51, a vice-president of Gazprombank and former Kremlin official, was found dead in Moscow, alongside the bodies of his wife Elena, 47, and daughter Maria, 13. They were discovered by his adult daughter, Anastasia.

Investigators rapidly concluded Avayev had killed them, before taking his own life. 

However, this was strongly disputed at the time including by a former top Gazprombank official who claimed Avayev had access to the private accounts of elite clients, including Vladimir Putin’s circle and possibly the president himself.

‘These top managers worked in structures that we suspect were linked to financial fraud in multi-billion dollar contracts with Gazprom,’ said Novaya Gazeta Europe and Transparency International Russia.

This was ‘benefiting the family’ of a Russian gas monopoly executive ‘and his close friends from the security services and the military.’

Many contracts involved taxpayers money from the state, it was claimed.

The Montenegro authorities stumbled across an alleged money laundering scam in probing a €30 million payment linked to a company behind a five-star hotel on the Adriatic owned by four Russians, according to the report.

An alleged Interpol request to Russia for details on the payment has not met with a response, it was reported.

‘The reason may be that all owners of the Montenegrin company are united by their belonging to the [Russian] national patrimony – the state company Gazprom.’

Novaya Gazeta Europe and Transparency International Russia say their ‘sources link Tyulyakov’s death to problems with the Montenegrin company’.

No detail is given in what way he may have died.

The top gas executive highlighted by the media outlet is a former KGB and FSB officer. 

Another energy manager, Leonid Shulman, 60, (left) head of transport at Gazprom Invest, died in the same elite Leninsky gated housing development in Leningrad region. In July last year, Yuri Voronov, 61, (right) head of a transport and logistics company for a Gazprom-linked company, was found dead in his swimming pool, with a leading friend who is a top criminologist warning of foul play

A Gazprombank vice-president who quit to fight for Ukraine in the war, Igor Volobuev (pictured), earlier expressed the view that said Avayev had been murdered

Family links connect the top executive and associates to the Montenegrin company, and the allegedly suspicious payment.

Another energy manager, Leonid Shulman, 60, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, died in the same elite Leninsky gated housing development in Leningrad region.

He was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor.

And in July last year, Yuri Voronov, 61, head of a transport and logistics company for a Gazprom-linked company, was found dead in his swimming pool, with a leading friend who is a top criminologist warning of foul play.

A Gazprombank vice-president who quit to fight for Ukraine in the war, Igor Volobuev, earlier expressed the view that said Avayev had been murdered.

‘It is hard to believe that Avayev shot his daughter, 13, [his wife] and committed suicide.

‘In my opinion, this is a staged suicide. His suicide was staged.’

He made the same claim about multimillionaire Sergey Protosenya, 55, a former deputy chairman of Novatek, who died several days after Avayev.

Protosenya was found hanged in Spain, after appearing to kill his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria, with an axe. 

‘All these stories are strange. I don’t believe in suicide. It will not fit into my head,’ Volobuev said. 

A series of mystery energy sector deaths hit Russia in the build-up to the war, and once it had started.

Source: Read Full Article