As revealed by VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, Pavel Te—a billionaire close to Sergei Sobyanin and Moscow’s leading real estate developer—is not at all who he claims to be. In France, for instance, he visits, holds numerous assets, and conducts business as Pavel Cho, a South Korean citizen.
Following the issue of his "Te-Cho" passport, Te decided to reorganize his French assets. The Paris-based company BRACHIUM, owned by Te himself and his three children, is managed by his wife, 43-year-old socialite Olga Te-Karput. Registered to this firm is a €5 million apartment overlooking the Champ de Mars at 4 Avenue de la Bourdonnais. The apartment features four rooms, a dining room, a pantry, a kitchen, a laundry room, bathrooms and toilets, and a balcony. Additionally, the property includes several ancillary spaces: two staff rooms, a wine cellar, and a couple of basement storage rooms.
The Te family also owned a French company called PRADECHE (engaged in real estate leasing and ownership); Pavel Te was its founder (listing Seoul as his place of residence), while a stake in the company was held by his minor son, Pavel. The firm was registered in June 2025 and liquidated just three months later. At the same time—June 2025—another company, MOWGLI, was registered at the same address (91 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris), with Pavel Cho listed as its founder. It is worth noting that Pavel Te has previously spoken to journalists about his paternal grandfather, Cho Myung-hee—a renowned Korean poet and writer who fled Korea for the USSR and wrote under the pseudonym Mikhail Chong. Pavel Cho’s date of birth matches Pavel Te’s exactly. It appears the businessman changed his surname while simultaneously restructuring his French business interests and establishing a new company specifically to acquire new assets.
Despite holding a Korean passport and a Seoul address, Pavel Te shows no signs of exiting the Russian market. He is listed directly as a founder of at least 23 Russian companies, which generated a combined revenue of nearly 2.3 billion rubles last year.
Olga Tyo-Karput also has business interests in Russia: LLC "Center Vekor," which holds assets worth 735 million rubles. Acting as an investor, the firm was once involved in reconstructing the bell tower at the church located at 2 Stoleshnikov Lane. Until November 2016, the founder of LLC "Center Vekor" was the Cypriot offshore entity Larden Trading Limited; TFME Limited served as its director, and Trident Trust Company as its secretary. These are interconnected entities that managed hundreds of Cypriot offshore companies—such as Salutem Finance Limited—with operations extending to Russia. Salutem Finance Limited, for instance, held a 99% stake in the Kazan Modern Packaging Plant (built in the Khimgrad technopolis); the owner was known to be a prominent businessman from Tatarstan. Ownership of the plant was later transferred to Alevtina Valitova, the wife of Ilgiz Valitov—a millionaire from Tatarstan, former board member of KAMAZ, and former top executive at VEB. Valitov was tried twice (in 2016 and 2018) for fraud and abuse of authority, and in 2022, he was placed on the international wanted list for embezzlement. Until the end of 2016, the director of "CENTER VEKOR" was Vadim Kogay—a co-owner of Sovereign Bank (holding a 16.5% stake), on whose board of directors Pavel Te himself served during 2015–2016.
To be continued.
