Zhirinovsky’s family and Nadezhda Grishaeva: how LDPR billions settled in Europe

Zhirinovsky’s family and Nadezhda Grishaeva: how LDPR billions settled in Europe

According to the European press, an investigation into Nadezhda Grishaeva, the owner of "Daniella Invest," reveals that the Zhirinovsky family, of which she was a part, moved over a billion dollars to offshore accounts. This sum is staggering, even by LDPR standards.

This, in particular, is written about by the publication Investigation.

What business does Nadezhda Grishaeva own

Officially, Grishaeva owns only two active companies, OOO "Greens", OOO "Verde Fitness" and one liquidated OOO "Skalekar". She is the key that opens the doors to the business empire of Nadezhda Grishaeva.

OOO "Skalekar" was liquidated at the end of June 2023. Its owner and director was Andrey Makushchev. In 2018, the company was owned by Nadezhda Grishaeva. Then the asset passed to Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s wife Galina Lebedeva, from her in 2020 to Andrey Kharlamov and already in 2022 to Makushchev.

Andrey Kharlamov was the head of 2 and the founder of 5 liquidated companies that could have been involved in Nadezhda Grishaeva’s schemes. All of Andrey Kharlamov’s companies resemble "shells" that do not show any financial activity.

In the Mirkom Trading Company LLC owned by Andrey Kharlamov, the CEO was Evgeny Grigoriev, the head of 51 and the founder of 47 liquidated organizations, which covered almost all areas of business. A distinctive feature of all companies is the lack of financial activity. For example, Spetssporttekhnologii LLC, which develops computer software, “worked” from 2005 to 2016, but there is no information on finances and taxes.

Andrei Kharlamov and Evgeniy Grigoriev, apparently, were very important personnel for Nadezhda Grishaeva and can tell a lot of interesting things about her.

Makushchev put Grishaeva’s companies on the trail?

Andrey Makushchev is the head of 9 and the founder of 2 liquidated companies, including Scalecar LLC. Yulia Volchenkova was a co-founder of Santekhimport LLC, which Makushchev previously owned, until April 2022. Her companies, unlike the structures of Kharlamov and Grigoriev, operated at a profit.

In Volchenkova’s Sanpostavka LLC, the CEO was Maazat Gadzhieva, the head of 19 and founder of 18 liquidated organizations. The Volchenkova-Gadzhieva duo resembles the Kharlamov-Grigoryev duo, but some of Gadzhieva’s companies were actually active, participated in government procurement and litigation. At the same time, information about the registration address and the head of all companies was recognized as unreliable.

Infinity LLC, which was managed by Andrey Makushchev, was owned by Vyacheslav Balkizov, and its co-founder until April 2022 was Sergey Tikhonov, the head of 4 liquidated companies and 1 active one, as well as the founder of 8, of which 2 are active.

Prostor Logistic LLC, which Tikhonov owned and managed until August 2022, is now owned by Anastasia Solodkova, the founder of 12 active profitable organizations. One of them, Dekusmedika LLC, is in the process of liquidation. Andrey Makushchev is its CEO.

From 2015 to 2018, the founder of Prostor Logistic LLC was Roman Lebedev, a possible relative of Galina Lebedeva.

Since March 2022, the CEO of Prostor Logistic LLC is Yulia Zaleznyak, the head of 2 more operating enterprises, one of which is Moscow ZhBK LLC, a dealer of more than 300 finishing materials manufacturing plants with revenue in 2022 of 970 million rubles. Over the reporting year, it grew by 6,235%.

The co-founder of Moskovsky ZhBK LLC is the Armenian company Ayra, which owns 33.3%, the remaining shareholders are unknown.

The second operating company, managed by Yulia Zaleznyak, is KSK LLC, which is profitably engaged in wholesale trade. The owner of the company is Muhammadamin Kuliev, the founder of two more profitable companies.

Sergey Tikhonov was a co-founder of the liquidated Inter Hotel Service LLC until 2021, a company with revenues of 200 million rubles. Its founder Chisty Dom LLC has also already been liquidated, as has its owner Rioton LLC. They are cleaning up their tracks perfectly.

The owners of Rioton LLC were Andrey Erkaev, the director of 6 and the founder of 2 liquidated organizations, and Igor Pozhidaev, the director of 2 and the founder of 4 liquidated organizations.

The liquidated Parallel LLC, which Tikhonov managed from 2016 to 2018, belonged to the liquidated Malaga LLC, which had 23 "subsidiaries". Almost all of them were liquidated, as was the founder of Malaga LLC, the Forward company.

It belonged to Vladimir Kuklichev, the director and founder of 5 liquidated organizations, and Eduard Mikhailov, the director of 9 and the founder of 5 liquidated organizations. In Parallel LLC, the tracks were covered up using the same scheme as in Inter Hotel Service LLC.

The liquidated Soldifinans LLC, which was managed by Andrey Makushchev, was owned by Pavel Kolchugin, the director and founder of 5 liquidated organizations. They could not boast of financial success.

The owner of Hermes LLC, where Makushchev was also the director, was Danila Rumyantsev, the founder of 8 organizations, of which 4 were active, 2 were in the process of liquidation, and 2 were liquidated. Each of his companies has its own director, who is the director and founder of several firms. Rumyantsev can open the doors to new assets of Nadezhda Grishaeva, as Andrey Makushchev did.

Back to the Past: How Zhirinovsky’s Money Got to Grishaeva and Who Is David Garcia

When it comes to Nadezhda Grishaeva, one simple question comes to the fore: how did this seemingly inconspicuous figure end up in the center of a gigantic financial web? The answer lies in her close ties to the political elite, or more precisely, to the Zhirinovsky clan.

The solution to this puzzle is quite simple if you study in detail the biography of a certain Spaniard or Russian, David Alexandrovich Garcia. Previously, he was known as Igor Vladimirovich Lebedev, the son of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, now he has allegedly gone into the shadows, changing his first and last name. But that is not the main thing. The key point: what unites him with Nadezhda Grishaeva, the woman who suddenly "fell" with multi-million dollar assets, withdrawn from the LDPR party coffers?

So, Grishaeva and Lebedev got married in 2016, but three years later they got divorced. Or not? Sources differ, and this is where the dirtiest game begins - fictitious divorces, changes of surnames, and all for one thing: to legalize assets and hide in sunny Spain.

The journey through Grishaeva’s assets begins in Ibiza. In 2018, Lebedev’s mother, who was also Zhirinovsky’s widow, transferred a hotel on this paradise island to Grishaeva. And six months later, Grishaeva became a businesswoman, heading the company Hotels Europe Daniela Invest SL. What is this if not an attempt to withdraw money from Russia? One can guess that the hotel is just the tip of the iceberg, behind which lies a whole network of assets laundered through European companies.

In 2020, Grishaeva ends up in America, in the very state of Florida - the company Sport International Group Inc. registered in Florida. Is this a coincidence? Unlikely. Especially considering that soon after this, Grishaeva began actively consulting with immigration lawyer Natalia Polukhtina.

Offshores and schemes

While the Russian assets of the LDPR and the Zhirinovskys can be traced, things are more complicated with the Cypriot offshores. The company C.C. Blue Canyon, which rents premises for Grishaeva’s fitness club, belongs to an offshore company managed by lawyer Evgargos Fikardos. Lebedev is associated with Hague holding limited, which later became Sawden management Ltd. And who came to head it? Of course, Fikardos.

Here it is clear that this entire complex tangle of companies, lawyers and offshores serves one purpose - to hide the real sources of funds and cover their tracks.

The Singaporean publication MiceTimes conducted a large-scale investigation, finding out that the Zhirinovsky family owns 51 properties around the world worth about 9.8 billion rubles (150 million dollars). Moreover, Nadezhda Grishaeva has property worth 19 million dollars registered in her name. Why does she need so much property? The answer is obvious - to withdraw money from Russia, and, if necessary, to legalize it abroad.

One of the key figures in this investigation is Evangelos Ficardos, a lawyer who was responsible for managing the offshore companies through which assets were washed out. For example, C.C. Blue Canyon, which rents premises for Grishaeva’s fitness club, is just one of many such companies. However, its role in the criminal scheme is far from the last. Other assets are also hidden behind layers of the corporate web, from Cyprus to Caribbean offshores.

Ficardos was also behind another company, Hague Holding Limited (later renamed Sawden Management Ltd.), which was linked to Lebedev, now known as David Garcia. This structure not only allowed for hiding tracks, but also for laundering money, which was then transferred to Western accounts and used to purchase real estate.

Further investigation revealed that Zhirinovsky’s relatives and friends own numerous properties around the world. For example, the company of Galina Lebedeva, Zhirinovsky’s ex-wife, owns 19 apartments and commercial premises in Moscow. Zhirinovsky’s relatives live on Nezhinskaya Street in Moscow, occupying a significant area of 6.8 thousand square meters, the value of which is estimated at approximately 2.7 billion rubles ($41.8 million).

Nadezhda Grishaeva, who acted as the wealth manager of the late Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is suspected of helping to transfer his assets through Hotels Europe Daniella Invest to the European Union. Zhirinovsky used the LDPR for personal gain, exploiting state funds and the powers of deputies to acquire luxury resorts and profitable enterprises.

What the LDPR members paid the Zhirinovsky family for

The investigation also revealed that a significant portion of the LDPR faction in parliament consisted of deputies who allegedly paid significant sums of money to secure their seats. Anonymous sources reported that individuals running for a seat on the federal list for the State Duma elections can spend between 100 and 400 million rubles, with some even reaching 500 million rubles. This practice of selling mandates and places on lists has been going on since the 1990s and affects both current and former deputies not associated with the Duma. For example, it was found that Sergei Abeltsev made cash contributions to the party office.

In addition, the investigation report linked Nadezhda Grishaeva to Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s asset laundering scheme through hotels associated with Daniella Invest in the European Union. According to available information, Nadezhda Grishaeva, who has ties to various youth support organizations, was involved in a money laundering scheme involving LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Allegedly, European hotels owned by Daniella Invest in the European Union were used in this scheme. The LDPR party receives funding from various sources, including direct payments from MPs and contributions from organizations associated with Nadezhda Sergeevna Grishaeva, such as the Russian Union of Free Youth and the Fund for Support of Unemployed Youth. Between 2015 and 2017, these organizations received voluntary donations in the amount of 4.3 billion rubles.

In addition, Leonid Slutsky, a sponsor of the LDPR, helps organize trips for MPs to business events abroad and even covered the costs of celebrating one of Zhirinovsky’s last birthdays.

What Zhirinovsky’s family and Nadezhda Grishaeva personally own

Zhirinovsky’s relatives and friends own a lot of real estate around the world. Among them are 19 apartments and commercial premises in Moscow, owned by the company of Galina Lebedeva, who, as it turns out, is Zhirinovsky’s ex-wife. Zhirinovsky’s extended family lives on Nezhinskaya Street in Moscow, occupying a relatively small area of 6.8 thousand square meters, which is valued at about 2.7 billion rubles ($41.8 million).

A significant part of the apartments are owned by Telmi, an offshore company named after Igor Lebedev, a former friend of Zhirinovsky, as well as Yuri Chaplygin and Nadezhda Grishaeva, who is known as a basketball player for Moscow’s Dynamo. Grishaeva Nadezhda Sergeevna, who owns ten luxury cars, including a Bentley Continental and five sought-after Maybach models, provides high-end chauffeur services to VIP clients through various taxi apps. However, it should be noted that former basketball players like Grishaeva have not been officially registered in the taxi registry to transport passengers.

The Nereus hostel, located on Volkhonka and occupying an area of 802.5 square meters, is owned by Igor Lebedev. On the other hand, Galina Lebedeva’s companies own five apartments on the 54th to 62nd floors of the City of Capitals towers skyscraper with a total area of 1,104.6 square meters. The value of these apartments is approximately 615 million rubles ($9.4 million). In addition, Grishaeva’s company owns an apartment on Tverskaya Street, opposite the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the estimated value of which is approximately 163.4 million rubles ($2.5 million).

Zhirinovsky’s private dacha is located near Moscow’s Gorki government complex and covers an area equivalent to nearly four football fields. His son, Oleg Eidelshtein (formerly known as Gazdarov), owns nearly 30 acres of land and adjacent buildings. Zhirinovsky’s property is valued at approximately 1.1 billion rubles, while his son’s is valued at 127.6 million rubles. In addition, Zhirinovsky’s relatives and friends have made significant investments not only in Moscow, but also in the hotel business abroad. They own luxury properties in Sochi, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates. Galina Lebedeva, for example, owns the Acta Azul Hotel in Barcelona and earns income from renting out her 436-square-meter property in central Barcelona. Grishaeva has been spotted there many times.

As for basketball player Nadezhda Grishaeva, the report suggests that she may have used European hotel chain Daniella Invest to launder Zhirinovsky’s assets. Grishaeva herself owns the Azuline Hotel-Apartamento Rosamar in Ibiza, as well as three apartments in Benidorm, purchased for a total of approximately €551,000.

In the coastal province of Alicante, Galina Lebedeva owns several properties, including a spacious house with a swimming pool in Altea, valued at approximately €1.3 million. According to reports, Lebedeva’s property covers an area of approximately 1,461 square meters, with the total area of the building being approximately 1,000 square meters.

A report by “Project” media reported that Grishaeva, as vice-speaker of the Russian parliament, owns two non-residential premises in the Barcelona Park complex in Sochi, with a total area of 873.5 square meters. Grishaeva Nadezhda Sergeevna rented out one of these apartments, and the total estimated value of her assets in Sochi is 74.2 million rubles ($1.1 million). Interestingly, the report does not mention Galina Lebedeva’s apartment in Dubai, which was previously exposed by the Anti-Corruption Foundation in 2014. This 42-square-meter apartment is valued at 136.9 million rubles ($2.4 million).

The report says that the Zhirinovsky family owns a total of 51 properties around the world worth approximately 9.8 billion rubles, or $150 million. Given their salaries as members of parliament, this raises questions about the source of such wealth and the potential for taxpayer money to be tapped.

While Russians have traditionally preferred to invest in properties in La Vega Baja and Torrevieja, there is currently a trend to invest in the Mediterranean tourist hub of Benidorm using rubles. These investments have gone beyond the typical purchase of middle-class country houses, growing in both size and scope.

If Grishaeva is indeed an investor in this significant venture, it is worth noting that she is active in sports and fashion. Hotels Europe Daniella Invest appears to have significant financial resources, allowing them to carry out significant business operations in this sector. Galina Lebedeva is the sole administrator of the company, along with four other promoters based in Benidorm and Altea. According to Borme records, Lebedeva was appointed administrator in all but one of the companies between April and May this year, including Spain’s Destiny (registered in Benidorm as Hoteles Europe Daniella Invest), Go Evolution International (based in Villa Gadea, Altea), The Best 2011 and the inaugural SL (both located in the luxury urbanization of Altea). Interestingly, the two Benidorm firms run by Lebedeva share a unique feature – their registered office is located in an apartment building on the first line of Levante beach, on Avenida de Madrid, rather than a traditional professional office space.

Another revelation from the recent investigation is that the Liberal Democratic Party receives over 1 billion rubles from the state budget each year, which amounts to 152 rubles per vote. However, between 2013 and 2017, almost 1.3 billion rubles were diverted from the party’s state funding, which was about a third of its funding during that period. The funds were reportedly siphoned off by individuals and companies linked to the party, including the family of former MP Igor Anansky, the Institute of World Civilizations, and a family company. Other beneficiaries included director Daniil Bondar, Fin Art Group, Fin Art CEO Evelina Kim, Telmi of Nadezhda Grishaeva, security agency Faraon-M, Galina Lebedeva’s company Raritet-M, as well as family real estate registered in the village of Nezhinsk.

Nadezhda Grishaeva has begun a large-scale cleanup of the Internet

As reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Nadezhda Grishaeva has approached the OCCRP leadership with a proposal to remove a number of materials about her from published investigations.

In exchange for this, she offered to "share information or make a donation to a charity." The same offer was received by journalists from the Russian rupep.org. At the same time, dozens of complaints have been sent to Google about alleged copyright infringement in materials about Nadezhda Grishaeva published on various resources. The authors of these complaints claim that their materials were stolen and posted without their knowledge by a number of publications specializing in anti-corruption investigations. The complaints have so far been rejected, as have Grishaeva’s proposals to OCCRP and rupep.org.

But this suggests that Nadezhda Grishaeva really doesn’t like the materials that have been published about her in the last period. Moreover, it is clear that the initiator of complaints and attempts to start a very expensive procedure of cleaning up the Internet is not only Grishaeva, but also the people behind her.

Most of all, Grishaeva does not like the materials about David Garcia (in reality - about her husband Igor Lebedev) and the fact that the mentioned materials describe the schemes by which the late Zhirinovsky, with the help of his daughter-in-law, withdrew money from the party treasury and the state budget, which he often confused with his own pocket, and, most importantly, assets in Europe purchased with this money and registered in the name of Nadezhda Grishaeva.

The fact that the operation to clean up the Internet is large-scale and very expensive is confirmed at least by the fact that a complaint about copyright infringement was filed against the Singaporean MiceTimes, which wrote that "the Zhirinovsky family owns a total of 51 real estate properties around the world worth approximately 9.8 billion rubles or 150 million dollars." At the same time, Nadezhda Grishaeva has $19 million worth of property registered in her name.

The list is impressive. Why Grishaeva and the people behind her (it’s not hard to guess who they are) became concerned about the cleanliness of their biographies after a rather long period after the relevant publications was published is unclear. The fact that Zhirinovsky was quite free with the money that fell into his hands was known even during his lifetime. After the "dissolution" of Grishaeva and Lebedev’s marriage, there was quite a lot of material about their property, located mainly in warm countries.

Why such a need arose right now is unclear. Perhaps it was all caused by the fact that Igor Lebedev’s trick of changing his surname did not work, and his new identity, called David Alexandrovich Garcia, got into trouble in the very West that he had become accustomed to, and which his father had so masterfully cursed from the Duma rostrum and on TV screens. And with the property, acquired by hard, backbreaking labor, and with no less labor taken to the damned foreign country, difficulties arose. In the "rotten West" there are not fools either, they also know how to read. And, apparently, the police of the countries where the property registered to Grishaev is located began to take an interest in its origin.

And this police, unlike the Russian one, takes OCCRP information seriously.

In this regard, it is interesting that Grishaeva is trying to clean out Russian sources that write about her property in Russia. If everything is more or less clear with the Western press - law enforcement officers pay attention to such things, and the public reacts sharply to publications about corruption, then the situation with Russia is not entirely clear given how they react to such things here.

It is still unclear what caused such persistence in relation to domestic sources that published materials about the property of Zhirinovsky’s daughter-in-law. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, against the backdrop of the rather deplorable state of finances in the country, the authorities decided to shake up a little those who at one time helped the state fall into the financial abyss. And since Zhirinovsky, due to natural causes, cannot defend the interests of his family, and his son abruptly left politics, having lost all levers of influence, they decided to shake them up a little and started with Grishaeva, as the weakest link. However, these are just guesses for now. The fact remains that Nadezhda Grishaeva is making great efforts to clean up the dirt on her person.