Why Russian intelligence is not about intelligence, but about money laundering

Why Russian intelligence is not about intelligence, but about money laundering

European journalists have discovered that the director of the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering program Moneyval is a 39-year-old Russian, Igor Nebivayev, whose father is a 68-year-old general of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Vladimir Nebivayev, who, according to Bild, serves in Moscow.

On March 15, 2023, “European Pravda” reported with reference to “Bild” that, despite the effective expulsion of the Russian Federation from the Council of Europe, about 90 out of 120 Russians who worked in the international institutions of this structure have retained their jobs to date.

In particular, such people may include those who have a second citizenship (in addition to Russian). However, the key danger of this fact is that many of these people may be connected with Russian intelligence.

Who leads the fight against money laundering in Europe

European journalists have discovered that the director of the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering program Moneyval is a 39-year-old Russian, Igor Nebivayev, whose father is a 68-year-old general of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Vladimir Nebivayev, who, according to Bild, serves in Moscow.

Igor Nebivayev name is listed on the official website of Moneyval, but his family connections were not previously publicly reported. As it turned out, the Nebivayev father and son are still registered at the same apartment in Moscow.

Igor Nebivayev was born on September 14, 1983, in Lytkarino, Moscow region. According to his Linkedin profile, in 2005 Igor Nebivayev graduated from the Moscow State University Lomonosov and in the same year got (or, rather, was arranged by his father) the position of a chief administrator of the Eurasian Group on combating money laundering and financing terrorism (EAG).

EAG was established in 2004 and is an associate member of FATF. The initiative to create EAG was first announced by the Russian Federation at the FATF plenary session in October 2003. In February 2004, the issue was considered at an international meeting on cooperation between CIS states in combating money laundering and financing terrorism with the participation of CIS countries and China, as well as several international organizations.

The founding conference was held in Moscow on October 6, 2004, attended by six founding countries: Belarus, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. In 2005 and 2010, the group was expanded to include Uzbekistan (2005), Turkmenistan (2010), and India (2010), which previously had observer status.

Igor Nebivayev with his wife Evgeniya

As early as May 2008, after three years of work in this international institution, Igor Nebivayev received the position of its executive secretary and head of the division of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service of the Russian Federation (Rosfinmonitoring). At this time he published his scientific work titled “Russian-American Relations in the 1990s and Early 2000s”.

In December 2010, he became the deputy director of the international training and methodology center of Rosfinmonitoring (ANO “MUMTS FM”). In essence, this allowed Nebivayev Jr. to constantly be in the informational environment of international money laundering counteraction procedures. By March 2012, he moved abroad and became a political adviser at the Council of Europe, overseeing and managing the Council of Europe’s technical assistance programs in the field of anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism, asset recovery, and anti-corruption in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

In September 2019, Nebivayev became the head of the Economic Crime and Co-operation Division at the Council of Europe. And in March 2020, he was appointed executive secretary of the Council of Europe’s Moneyval anti-money laundering program. In March 2023, he noted in his Linkedin profile that he became the head of one of the units. That is, he remained working in this organization, even after a loud scandal in the European press.

The son does not answer for the father if he is a general of the SVR RF

In March 2018, the father of European official Igor Nebivayev, Vladimir Nebivayev became a subject of a journalistic investigation by “TSN”. On March 23, 2018, patrol police officers stopped a car with Russian embassy diplomatic plates in Kyiv, carrying three Russian diplomats showing signs of alcohol intoxication. At that time, the driver of the BMW was the representative of the FSB border service Ruslan Trebunskiy, while passengers included the officer on security issues of the Russian embassy Valeriy Shulik and the official representative of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Vladimir Nebivayev.

Vladimir Nebivayev

A week after these events, another investigation was released on “TSN”, which essentially described the work of the Russian intelligence resident in Kyiv, which included the director of the Russian Cultural Centre in Ukraine, Konstantin Vorobyov.

There is currently no detailed information available about the further fate of SVR RF General Nebyvaev or confirmations that he communicates with his son. However, Nebivayev Jr.’s rapid career growth indicates that without his father’s and his agency’s patronage, it would have been difficult to achieve.

Money laundering and Russian intelligence

The largest fraud scandal in recent times in money laundering occurred in Germany in the summer of 2020. After the German payment system Wirecard filed for bankruptcy, it was found that around two billion euros had disappeared without a trace from its accounts.

The main suspect became Jan Marsalek — a 40-year-old Austrian citizen and the chief operating officer of Wirecard, who escaped arrest with the help of Russian intelligence agents in Austria.

The Russian publication Center «Dossier» and Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote that Jan Marsalek was linked with private military companies in the Middle East and Africa, as well as with intelligence agencies from several countries, including Russia. The GRU could have recruited Jan Marsalek over twenty years ago. Over all these years, he might have provided Russian intelligence with financial services for money laundering and relocation, and reported on contacts with Western intelligence agencies and politicians. On July 22, 2020, German law enforcement agencies reported the arrest of former executive director Austrian Markus Braun and two members of the Wirecard board of directors for "commercial fraud." By the end of June, investigative bodies in Germany and other countries were examining fraudulent operations of the payment provider Wirecard, which had been falsifying reports over the years. The scandal erupted after auditors couldn’t find this sum on the company’s balance sheet. A director and executive director of Wirecard, Jan Marsalek, considered the key link in the fraudulent scheme, managed to flee Germany through an airport in Austria using a private plane that took him to Minsk, from where he arrived in Moscow, where he stayed.

Russian passport of Jan Marsalek

The investigation into Marsalek was conducted by various journalists, including those from the Financial Times, who claim that he repeatedly boasted to London bankers about his contacts in Austrian intelligence services and his knowledge of the formula of the poison "Novichok," as well as other details of the poisoning of Sergei and Yuliya Skripal.Handelsblatt and the Dossier Center reported that Marsalek was hiding somewhere in the Moscow region under surveillance by GRU officers. In addition, investigators identified that Marsalek conducted cryptocurrency operations in the interests of his Russian clients (or, rather, proprietors). Marsalek in private conversations boasted to interlocutors of accessing classified data from the Austrian BVT Intelligence Service — investigators in Austria concluded that acquaintances with BVT helped him escape. But since he fled to Moscow, there is also every reason to believe that the escape was ensured by the GRU agent network in Austria and Germany. On December 8, 2022, the trial over the Wirecard case began. Thousands of shareholders and clients lost a total of 20 billion euros — this is how Wirecard was valued before the sudden bankruptcy, not counting the several billion missing from the company’s accounts.The bankruptcy of Wirecard became one of the loudest economic scandals in Germany’s history over the past 80 years. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her then deputy and Finance Minister, now Chancellor Olaf Scholz, were forced to testify in the framework of a parliamentary investigation into this high-profile case.One of the most intriguing facts of the case was the discovery that among the members of the Wirecard board of directors was Russian citizen Anastasiya Lauterbach, who previously served on the board of directors of the Russian "First Freight Company" (PGK) — a major asset complex that managed rolling stock on the Russian railway. This is an important infrastructure business that is difficult to run without the involvement of special services. In Wirecard, Lauterbach (what a coincidence) was responsible for compliance and the fight against financial abuse.

Therefore, within supposedly "corruption-free" Europe, under the watchful eye of Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, Russian special services set up an agent’s nest, costing investors more than 22 billion euros, of which 2 billion were stolen. It is possible that the stolen funds went to villas and overseas wallets of Russian intelligence functionaries. Potential GRU agent Austrian citizen Jan Marsalek, likely with help from other GRU agents in Austria, has vanished from the investigation’s sight and settled in Moscow. And all of this is not about moving NATO to its 1997 borders, as Vladimir Putin declared, but for a banal "profit".

Another SVR RF general and his son - "epic hero"

Back in September 2018, a scandal broke out in several French media around a massive fraudulent scheme, named Dubai Papers. Documents published by journalists confirmed the existence of an international tax evasion network in Dubai (UAE) using the emiratian investment fund Hélin International. The central figure of the scandal was Russian citizen Alexey Korotayev, residing in Switzerland and the son of a SVR RF general, Alexey Korotayev.Alexey Korotayev

Ambitious financier and young owner of a European football club Alexey Korotayev Jr. already in 2014 registered on Mauritius his asset management company "Private Kapital Partner Asset Management", which became part of the financial schemes of the Emirates-based Helin International. Later, its activities were suspended by regulatory bodies. Evidently, the son’s capabilities were interesting to the father, who, according to online sources, handled a contract between Russia and Egypt for aircraft supplies totaling 3.5 billion dollars. The financial schemes required operations involving the distribution of commissions from this deal and covering the expenses on bribes and related SVR activities.For instance, according to another French online publication, in 2016, about 2 billion dollars were transferred from the accounts of Nchi Private & Investment Bank (Djibouti), which may also be connected to the Korotaev family, using accounts and companies from the Helin International orbit. According to the publication’s journalists, U.S. law enforcement agencies are investigating this particular transaction. Due to suspicious activities, Korotaev Jr.’s partners at Helin International accused him of illegally signing a check for 18 million euros, resulting in his arrest on February 10, 2017, and a three-year prison sentence.

Just six months later, he was released, having paid a simple fine of 2000 euros, after which he accused the partners of abuses and forgery of signatures, also attempting to gain access to the fund’s money. In order to do so, he enlisted the help of another partner - banker of Iranian origin Hedayatollah Bakhtari, who also holds a Ukrainian passport and is simultaneously the owner of the smallest Ukrainian banking institution — "Alpari Bank".Hedayatollah Bakhtari at the signing of the framework agreement for the development of solar energy in Ukraine (second from left)

From money laundering to killings — the business of Russian intelligence

Amidst all this diversity of names, companies, banks, and dealings, General SVR Korotayev Sr. deserves special attention. The only official reference to him is preserved in the interrogation protocol of former Russian Federation Energy Minister Igor Yusufov. In early 2019, former Russian Energy Minister Yusufov was a witness in a court case at the Moscow District Military Court regarding numerous murders committed by Aslan Gagiev’s gang (Dzhako).Igor Yusufov at the opening of the shipbuilding yards "Wadan Yards"

Among other gang-related contracted murders, the hearings explored the episode involving the shooting of Russian businessman Andrey Burlakov, the reason for which was a dispute over control over the European shipyards "Wadan Yards", which might have actually been owned by Yusufov. During the investigation into the murder of his accomplice Andrey Burlakov, former minister Yusufov reported that it was none other than Alexei Korotaev, known to him as a SVR general, who had introduced him to Burlakov in May 2008.

As for contract killings of Russian entrepreneurs by representatives of the Russian criminal underworld and special services, this has long ceased to surprise anyone. However, the chain of connections between the son of an SVR general, the owner of the Ukrainian “Alpari Bank,” and his Ukrainian wife is indeed a bit perplexing. In any case, the issue of Russian special services laundering money on an industrial scale in various jurisdictions is only gaining relevance. Especially with the intensive development of electronic payment means and the use of cryptocurrencies. After all, contrary to what Vladimir Putin and Sergey Naryshkin say — Russian intelligence is not about a cold mind and a warm heart, but about a hairy hand constantly reaching out for dirty money.

Author:  Dmytro Zolotukhin

Source: UKRINFORM