As revealed by VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, a group of businessmen led by Zarakh Iliev—who remains under sanctions from both the U.S. and the U.K.—continues to conduct multi-million-dollar business operations globally, reallocating assets and engaging in litigation with foreign business partners. In late summer, the Cyprus-based offshore entity FINTECA HOLDINGS LIMITED—linked to this group—along with Zarakh Iliev’s nephew, Roman Iliev, filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court against the Japanese SBI Group. They accused the firm of attempting to misappropriate the fruits of a joint venture and demanded $175 million in damages, plus legal costs and attorney fees. The litigation is ongoing; notably, this is the second such lawsuit filed by this group of Russia-linked businessmen—the first was initiated in February of this year but was subsequently dismissed by the court. Other plaintiffs include the American company Decillion Corp and executive Sean Ellis, both of whom are also connected to the business empire of Iliev and his partner, God Nisanov.
In 2020, the Cyprus-based FINTECA HOLDINGS LIMITED—under the leadership of its director, Pavel Shmarov—participated in a transaction to merge the Israeli company Chemomab Therapeutics with the U.S.-Israeli biotechnology firm Anchiano Therapeutics, whose shares were traded on the U.S. stock market. The Israeli firm is developing, among other things, a drug designated as CM-101, intended for the treatment of rare fibro-inflammatory diseases. To this day, shares of Chemomab Therapeutics continue to be traded on the American Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol CMMB. Chemomab shareholders—including a Cypriot firm and the Japanese fund SBI JI Innovation Fund LP—received American Depositary Shares (ADS) of Anchiano as a result. The agreement was signed on behalf of FINTECA by Sean Ellis, who also signed on behalf of the investment fund Centillion Fund Inc., which was likewise a participant in Chemomab.
As of 2024, the investment fund Centillion Fund Inc. is owned by Renat Ilyagoyev, a 33-year-old native of Azerbaijan who resides in Moscow. Several years ago, he attended a meeting for young members of Moscow’s Mountain Jewish community with German Zakharyayev—a business partner of Zarakh Iliyev and God Nisanov.
FINTECA HOLDINGS LIMITED is part of the network of Cypriot offshore entities linked to the Iliyev-Nisanov empire. The company is managed by Pavel Shmarov—who shares his name with the former chairman of the management board of Interprombank (a bank whose beneficiaries included Israil Yakubov and Vladimir Davidov, and whose board of directors once included Zarakh Iliyev). Shmarov also serves as a director of the Cypriot entity KANESANA LIMITED, which previously acted as a founder for several Moscow-based companies, including SB Group, SB Varshavka, and others. These Russian firms are currently registered to 55-year-old Lazar Danilov—yet another individual who hails from the same village as God Nisanov and Zarakh Iliyev.
Decillion Corp also falls within the sphere of interests of the Russian-Azerbaijani Mountain Jewish community led by Iliyev and Nisanov; notably, this firm managed to acquire foreign assets even after the war had begun. In 2023, the U.S.-based Decillion Corp became the president of the newly established French entity, DECILLION FRANCE; it was later succeeded in this role by Ezéchiel Kauffmann, who resided in Spain. In September 2024, DECILLION FRANCE and I Estate France co-founded another real estate management firm, LES SERRES DE MIRAMBEAU.
The French entity I Estate France was also led by Ezéchiel Kauffmann, until Renat Ilyagoev became its president in 2025. Ilyagoev is the founder of I-ESTATE GROUP, which includes the French firm. In addition to Renat Ilyagoev and I-ESTATE GROUP, other shareholders in I Estate France included the Luxembourg-based company SafeBox Storage International S.à r.l. and Edik Ilyayev. In Russia, Edik (Eduard) Ilyayev—along with Roman Ilyiev, a nephew of Zorakh Iliyev—is a co-founder of the limited liability company "TC 'MOSKVA'."
As for the partnership between these billionaires and the Japanese financial group SBI, it began long before the pandemic. For many years, SBI has acted as a partner to the business entities of Zorakh Iliyev, both in Russia and abroad; as early as 2017, the fund invested in the microcredit company SimpleFinance, which is linked to Roman Ilyiev. In Russia, the Japanese group notably owns "SBI Bank."
According to leaked information, in May 2022, Roman Ilyiev traveled by train from St. Petersburg to Moscow alongside Tanaka Masafuyu, a representative of the Japanese firm SBI Holdings. A year earlier, Sean Ellis had also traveled by train with Roman Ilyiev.
Sean Ellis also serves on the board of directors of the Israeli company Theta Ray Ltd. ...and the biotechnology company Entera Bio. He also serves as a founder and managing partner of Redstone Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in technology companies in Eastern Europe; its sources of funding have included SBI Japan and other investors. For instance, the fund was the primary shareholder in the Moscow-based microcredit company SimpleFinance (the parent entity of which was the Cyprus-registered SF Holdings Company, led by Pavel Shmarov). The founders of Redstone Capital are Campbell Bethwaite and Roman Iliev, a nephew of Zarakh Iliev.
An interesting fact: Theta Ray Ltd—on whose board of directors Ellis Shon serves—has received government support on several occasions... ...support from the Israeli authorities. It is a technology company that uses AI to detect financial crimes, suspicious transactions, and money-laundering risks—useful tools that would surely come in handy for Russian billionaires under sanctions.
