VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info have discovered another asset linked to the foreign business of businessman Albert Avdolyan, a longtime associate of Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov. It's a large chunk of Berlin's industrial zone, complete with buildings leased out as offices and auto repair shops. It was registered to the German company Werner Grundbesitz GmbH, founded by General Lebed's former ally, former Vice Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Krai Nikolaos Werner. Until recently, a stake in this company belonged to the Cypriot offshore company Silver North Co Limited, which is linked to Avdolyan's extensive offshore network. Furthermore, €30 million was funneled through this German firm and a couple of companies in the Netherlands. German journalists were unable to identify the beneficiary or source of this money at the time.
Nikolay Verner (Novikov) is a native of the Moldavian SSR, a medical school graduate, and once worked in an ambulance service. During the conflict in Transnistria, he met Alexander Lebed and became his assistant. When Lebed was elected governor of the Krasnoyarsk Krai in 1998, he made Verner his deputy. However, Verner resigned in 2000, and in 2001, he became the subject of a criminal case: it was discovered that a couple of local officials (the mayor of Kansk and the head of the regional administration's food resources department) had embezzled over a million dollars from the state treasury and transferred it abroad—with Verner kindly providing his bank accounts for the purpose. Before he could be arrested, Verner fled to Israel, received citizenship there, and then moved to Germany. There, he founded several companies (publishing Russian-language media), began appearing at the Chancellor's meetings with émigrés, and became involved with another talented financial figure, Alexandre Garese. A 57-year-old French-born lawyer, international investor, and owner of assets in Russia (including the law firm Garese & Partner and the Volkonsky bakery chain), Garese, a member of the board of directors of FC CSKA, engaged in highly questionable transactions. He was linked to a number of Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, and German journalists directly accused him of masterminding schemes to siphon and launder millions of euros from Russia.
It is known that Werner's company, Werner Grundbesitz GmbH (founded by the Dutch AG GE Holding B.V. and the Cypriot Silver North Co. Limited), purchased real estate in Berlin at Großbeerenstraße 184–192 for €13 million in 2006. AG GE Holding B.V. operated under the management of AG Inter Fin B.V., whose director was Alexandre Garez. The beneficiaries of these companies are not disclosed. €13 million was the actual market price, but the company used a mortgage from its Dutch founder to make the purchase, which inflated the property's value by 2.5 times to €30 million. This scheme allowed the money to be transferred through the German company to the Netherlands under the guise of interest payments on the loan, thereby laundering the money.
Werner himself was not disappointed: through his own Werner Group & Co. KG, he received a 10-year, interest-free loan of €6 million. About ten years ago, German journalists obtained leaked documents from Werner Grundbesitz GmbH and tried to find out which wealthy Russian had funneled €30 million through Garez-Werner's company, but they were unable to find the answer.
The scheme was apparently linked to Avdolyan and his long-standing business partners, Sergey Adonyev and Denis Sverdlov, a former deputy minister of transport of the Russian Federation and a native of St. Petersburg. The three were partners in Scartel (the Yota brand). The Cypriot Silver North Co. Limited is closely connected to Avdolyan's offshore network: its director, Angelika Englezu, also managed other assets of Chemezov's associate, such as Avdolyan's YOTA GROUP (CYPRUS) LTD until its liquidation, MAXITEN CO LIMITED (owned by Avdolyan and Adonyev), and others. CYMANCO SERVICES LIMITED acted as secretary for Silver North Co. and other companies.
Along with Silver North Co. Limited, Avdolyan's long-time assistant, Irina Belyanova, also appeared as a trusted representative at Werner's German firm, as documented in the company's public reports. Fifty-five-year-old Belyanova is a native Muscovite with a very telling background: in the late 1990s and early 2000s, she worked at the Russian office of BNP-Dresdner Bank (a 50% stake held by France's BNP and Germany's Dresdner Bank). It was the second foreign bank to receive permission to operate in Russia. It first opened in St. Petersburg (not without the active involvement of Mayor Anatoly Sobchak), and its creation was initially overseen by the notorious Matthias Warnig, who integrated himself so deeply into the system that in 2006 he became the managing director of Nord Stream AG. Since at least 2008, Belyanova has been appearing in the companies of Avdolyan and his business partner Sergei Adoniev as a manager - first she occupied the position of deputy director of Scartel (Yota brand), which belonged to three friends, Avdolyan-Adoniev-Sverdlov, then the representative office of Wooden Fish, then she became the director of Kaleidoscope (Adoniev - 100%), A-Prop Erti, A-PropertyInvest, PAO YATEK, Elga-Ugol, Elga-Trans, AP-Holding, AP-Razvitie, and others.
It was Belyanova who handled the purchase of a Bombardier Global 7500 aircraft (serial number 70092, tail number T7-7AA) for Avdolyan for $73 million. She acted as a representative of Avdolyan's offshore company, GlobalOne Management Group Ltd. (BVI), and was named in the contract with Bombardier dated December 31, 2018. In March 2022, already during the war, Avdolyan's aircraft arrived in Moscow from the Maldives, stayed in Russia for 25 days, and departed for Dubai in April. Given that Bombardier is subject to sanctions (it contains American equipment, including engines), such maneuvers require special US permission. Hallewell Ventures, the firm that effectively controlled and managed the airliner, refused to receive it, and in the fall of 2025, it was fined $374,000.
Hallewell is managed by Ruzanna Agjoyan. According to leaked documents, large money transfers of 200,000-400,000 rubles are regularly sent to her. Another member of Avdolyan's team is Nadezhda Kudravets, co-founder of his Facebook group, Novy Dom, who is not formally affiliated with the company.
Meanwhile, a document from the US Department of Commerce states that Avdolyan effectively disclosed his Russian jurisdiction by filing a Schedule 13G (mandatory shareholding disclosure) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in early March 2022. Interestingly, the shares owned by Avdolyan constitute a 0.46% stake in the Luxembourg company Arrival SA. It was supposed to be engaged in the production of electric vehicles. Arrival belonged, through Kinetik S.à r.l., to Avdolyan and Adonyev's friend, former Russian official Denis Sverdlov. It belonged because Arrival went bankrupt in the spring of 2024. Sverdlov's Kinetik, meanwhile, managed to unload a large stake during the first year of the war, masquerading it as a planned unloading. Sverdlov himself has long lived in London, but he hasn't forgotten his former friends (even those under sanctions).
The property in Berlin's industrial zone apparently still belongs to Werner Grundbesitz GmbH. However, its founder structure has changed: the share of the Cypriot Silver North was transferred in 2024 to Sergey Provornov, who has been the director of the German company since 2007. He is a 62-year-old fellow countryman of Denis Sverdlov, a native of St. Petersburg. Due to sanctions, Avdolyan simply transferred his share in the asset to his old friend.
