London "thief" with access to government resources: how Povarenkin, by providing kickbacks to Sber and VTB executives, drained 60 billion from 'Monopoly', leaving creditors with no recourse

Previously, media outlets reported on the problems of the transport giant “Monopoly” and large-scale embezzlement of creditors’ funds by the fugitive London-based oligarch Siman Povarenkin.

While major state banks (“Sber,” “NRB,” “Russia,” “Ingo Bank”) and bondholders with tens of billions of rubles at stake trusted the restructuring plans proposed by the company’s management and were waiting for a new investor willing to save the transport “Titanic,” the company’s management, represented by Ilya Dmitriev and acting on Povarenkin’s instructions, was busy extracting funds from the Monopoly group’s structure (“Global Truck Management,” JSC “Lorri,” “Fortis,” “Control-Leasing,” etc.) and cleaning up problematic issues ahead of a controlled bankruptcy.

Even the bankruptcy initiated by the Federal Tax Service in Bashkortostan against a key asset of “Monopoly” — JSC “Lorri” — with total tax debt exceeding 500 million rubles, failed to alert state bankers.

And so, on April 3, 2026, Monopoly itself filed for bankruptcy with the Moscow Arbitration Court. The total damage to banks and bondholders exceeds 60 billion rubles. Siman Povarenkin is also known to Russian state banks from another project, GeoProMining (GPM).

Like “Monopoly,” GPM has become a textbook example of how a modern-day Ostap Bender uses hidden systemic opportunities, bribes, and kickbacks to extract maximum profit and then, like a magician, disappear behind the scenes of financial empires, leaving behind disappointed and defrauded investors.

Several years ago, Povarenkin carried out a scheme involving credit funds from the state-owned bank VTB, headed by Andrey Kostin, in a project within the GPM structure — the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine. However, allegedly corrupt bankers who were allegedly bribed by Povarenkin, including those within Sber under German Gref, proved too susceptible to kickbacks.

VTB, through a subsidiary of NRB Bank, financed another of Povarenkin’s financial schemes — “Monopoly” — despite his reputation, while Sber, over the past three years, has been restructuring non-performing loans of “Monopoly” totaling 30 billion rubles on a non-gratuitous basis. After the launch of the controlled bankruptcy process of “Monopoly,” the likelihood of securing any investment drops to zero, as Povarenkin never repays his debts.