Some Latvian woman is reportedly involved in efforts to hide the property owned by Russian oligarch brothers Rotenbergs, who are under international sanctions. This woman is the secret lover of Arkady Rotenbergs and mother of his two daughters, according to a leaked e-mail correspondence accessed by investigative journalists, reports Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
After the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and Russian invasion of Ukraine, international sanctions were imposed on some of the most influential associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. These included brothers Boris and Arkady Rotenberg. These sanctions affected their property owned abroad. They also forced them to restructure at least part of their assets in Russia to ensure greater secrecy.
Special investment tools, known in Russia as “closed-end equity funds” or ZPIF, were used.
These funds are not considered legal persons by the Russian legislation and they are not required to reveal their shareholders. This is why it is very difficult to tell who owns such funds.
By 2017 Rotenbergs had created at least 13 such funds. Management of these funds was entrusted to Moscow-born businessman Maksim Viktorov and his firm Evororp.
One fund managed by Evocorp, according to documents leaked from the Russian Central Bank, seems to be owned by 36-year-old Latvian citizen Marija Borodunova.
One document mentions that in 2017 Borodunova held 80% of shares in real estate property company RG-Development using ZPIF Lontano.
Journalists found out the woman also owned multiple other highly valued assets, including a rich apartment in Monaco, which she rented out to some company owned by Rotenbergs for EUR 260 000 a month in 2017.
She and her two daughters were also the owners of a villa worth EUR 4.25 million on the Azure Coast in France.
According to the leaked Russian tax documents, in 2020 alone Borodunova had earned USD 25.5 million.
Borodunova did not answer questions asked by journalists.
One of the ways she may have gotten such valuable assents was told to journalists by two anonymous sources.
Both sources called Borodunova Arkadiy Rotenbergs’ “unofficial wife”.
One of the sources familiar with Arkady Rotenbergs’ circles, mentioned that his relationship with Borodunova are not public, but “people close to them have known about them for a long time”.
Journalists failed to receive an independent confirmation for this information. However, using Getcontact app, they were able to determine that in at least a dozen cases Borodunova’s phone number was saved in other people’s contact lists under the name “Marija Rotenberga”.
In her youth Borodunova and her family lived in a small private home in Pļavnieki micro-district of Riga. She studied in Moscow.
The yellow press previously reported on her relationship with basketball player Armands Šķēle.
She also owns a number of assets in multiple European countries even though she has no visible history of business activities, journalists say. The document detailing the purchase of real estate in France mentions that her profession is in cosmetology.
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