Denis Katsyv is a Ukrainian, [1] Russian and Israeli [2] businessman based in Moscow and owner of Prevezon Holdings Limited. He was linked in a civil forfeiture case to money laundering through real estate investments in the United States, in violation of the Magnitsky Act of 2012; the case was settled in 2017 with the United States Justice Department by Prevezon agreeing to pay $5.9 million.
The Parties agree that the Complaints do not allege that any of the Defendants, Claimants, or Denis Katsyv, Alexander Litvak, or Timofey Krit, is responsible, directly or indirectly, for the arrest, detention, or death of Sergei Magnitsky, or that they have acted as an agent of, on behalf of or in agreement with a person in a matter relating to the arrest, detention, or death of Sergei Magnitsky. [3] [ non-primary source needed ]
Katsyv was represented by attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, [lower-alpha 1] who met with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn R. Simpson who was investigating American-British financier Bill Browder for Katsyv, [5] as well as with Donald Trump Jr. in the summer of 2016, during the U.S. presidential campaign of the latter's father, Donald Trump.
Katsyv is the son of Pyotr Dmitriyevich Katsyv, who was the Minister of Transport for the Moscow region from 2000 to 2012, [lower-alpha 2] head of the main department for the Moscow region under Andrei Vorobyov from 2012 to 2013, and vice president of Russian Railways from October 2014 to February 2019. [9] [10] [11] He was educated and took advantage of business opportunities as Russia began to privatize.
Early in the 2000s, Denis Katsyv participated in a scheme that, according to Israeli authorities in 2005, was a money laundering scheme involving millions of dollars among three companies, Follet, Hanway and Bastet, and the Israeli Bank Hapoalim. [4] Martash Investments Ltd., which is a British Virgin Islands company owned by Alexander Litvak and Denis Katsyv and has bank accounts at UBS Bank in Switzerland and at Bank Hapoalim branch 535 in Israel, was a defendant in a money laundering case that paid ₪35 million to have the matter resolved. [4] [12] [13] [lower-alpha 3]
On August 12, 2012, Novaya Gazeta , Barron's , and the International Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP) published articles detailing that Denis Katsyv had become the sole shareholder of Cyprus-based Prevezon Holdings Ltd. shortly after it received mysterious cash payments to its Swiss UBS bank accounts over two weeks in February 2008 from the two Moldovan companies Bunicon Impex and Elenast using the Alfa Bank hosted correspondent account for the Russian Bank Krainiy Sever. [12] [15] [16] [lower-alpha 4] Over $52 million was moved through Bunicon-Impex SRL and Elenast-Com SRL bank accounts throughout the 2008 winter with over $850,000 transferred to Prevezon Holdings' Swiss accounts on February 8 and 13, 2008. [12] At that time, Katsyv's business partner Litvak was an owner of the Prevezon Cyprus properties in New York and had interests with Prevezon Berlin GmbH in Germany. [12] During 2008, Prevezon and its business partner Africa Israel Investments (AFI), owned by Lev Leviev conducted several joint ventures in the United States and Europe. [17] [18] [19] [20] Some of the financing for Prevezon and its partner came from Deutsche Bank. [21] In 2013, Bill Browder insisted that Prevezon had received over $1.9 million through his stolen Hermitage Capital Management companies to purchase New York properties. [22] During 2013, Preet Bharara, prosecuting attorney for the Southern District of New York, seized four luxury apartments, two commercial properties and froze the assets of eleven firms including Prevezon Ltd.
In May 2017, Prezevon, represented by Louis Freeh, settled a case brought by the U.S Department of Justice for $5.9 million in fines. [1] [23] [24] [lower-alpha 5] It was related to Russian tax fraud and money laundering originally uncovered by the late Russian lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky. Katsyv was represented by attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya [28] [23] and the law firm BakerHostetler in cooperation with research firm Fusion GPS, which was concurrently assembling opposition research against candidate Trump. [5] In November 2017, Katsyv's company Prevezon stated that it would pay the fine using money from AFI Europe, which is a subsidiary of Lev Leviev's Africa Israel Investments. [24]
He provided financial support to the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative, a lobbying agent against the Magnitsky Act that was co-founded by Nataliya Veselnitskaya in February 2015 in Delaware. [29] [30] [31] Denis Katsyv was specifically named in testimony [32] by American-British financier Bill Browder to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee of the 115th Congress on July 27, 2017, in regards to the Magnitsky Act. Under the Magnitsky Act [lower-alpha 6] after the Magnitsky list was published in April 2013.[ clarification needed ] [33] [34] According to Alexei Navalny, the apartments, which were purchased by Prevezon Holdings in December 2009, were in the 20 Pine Street building, which is not far from Wall Street in the New York City Financial District, and is the same building that contains several apartments which were purchased within 3 weeks of the Prevezon Holdings purchases and had as beneficial owner Alexander Udodov, whose wife is the sister of Mikhail Mishustin. [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [lower-alpha 7] [lower-alpha 8]
PJSC Sberbank is a Russian majority state-owned banking and financial services company headquartered in Moscow. As the Russian successor entity of the State Labor Savings Banks System of the USSR, it was called Sberbank of Russia until 2015, and in 2020 further shortened its brand to Sber. Following the termination of its operations in the European Union in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, its international footprint is primarily in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Bank Hapoalim is one of the largest banks in Israel, established in 1921. The bank offers a broad range of financial services to retail, corporate, and institutional customers, with a focus on retail banking services. It operates a network of more than 250 branches and offices in Israel and abroad. Bank Hapoalim is a prominent player in the Israeli banking sector, with a significant market share.
Novaya Gazeta is an independent Russian newspaper. It is known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs, the horrors of the Chechen wars, corruption among the ruling elite, and increasing authoritarianism in Russia. It was formerly published in Moscow until shortly after the war began, in regions within Russia, and in some foreign countries. The print edition is published on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; English-language articles on the website are published on a weekly basis in the form of the Russia, Explained newsletter. As of 2023, the newspaper had a daily print circulation of 108,000, and online visits of 613,000.
Edmond J. Safra was a Lebanese-Brazilian billionaire banker and philanthropist of Syrian descent. He continued his family tradition of banking in Brazil and Switzerland, and was married to Lily Watkins from 1976 until his death. He died in a fire that attracted wide media interest, and was judicially determined to be due to arson.
Sir William Felix Browder, is an American-born British financier and political activist. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, the investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund, which was formerly the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. The Hermitage Fund was founded in partnership with Republic National Bank, with $25 million in seed capital. The fund, and associated accounts, eventually grew to $4.5 billion of assets under management. In 1997, the Hermitage Fund was the best-performing fund in the world, up by 238%. Browder's primary investment strategy was shareholder rights activism. Browder took on large Russian companies such as Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco. In retaliation, on 13 November 2005, Browder was refused entry to Russia, deported to the UK, and declared a threat to Russian national security.
Hermitage Capital Management is an investment fund and asset management company specializing in Russian markets founded by Bill Browder and Edmond Safra. Chief operating officer is Ivan Cherkasov. Hermitage Capital Management headquarters are in Guernsey; it also maintains offices in the Cayman Islands, London and Moscow.
Vitaly Borisovich Malkin is a Russian-Israeli business oligarch and politician who was born in Pervouralsk near Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast. He is married and has three children. His fortune is estimated by Forbes to be $1 billion.
Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer and tax advisor responsible for exposing corruption and misconduct by Russian government officials while representing client Hermitage Capital Management. His arrest in 2008 and subsequent death after eleven months in police custody generated international attention and triggered both official and unofficial inquiries into allegations of fraud, theft and human rights violations in Russia. His posthumous trial was the first in the Russian Federation.
The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia.
Jamison Reed Firestone is an American attorney. Firestone graduated from Tulane University in 1988 and Tulane Law School in 1991. In August 1991, shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, he moved to Moscow, Russia and co-founded the law firm Firestone Duncan. He fled Russia in August 2009 following the arrest of his employee Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison, after eleven months' incarceration without trial.
AFI Europe is a real estate development and investment company operating in several main cities in Central and Eastern Europe. AFI Europe predominantly focuses on the development of large scale residential and commercial projects, and is part of the AFI Group, an international holdings and investments conglomerate.
Fusion GPS is an opposition research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington, D.C. The company conducts open-source investigations and provides research and strategic advice for businesses, law firms and investors, and political campaigns. The "GPS" initialism is derived from "Global research, Political analysis, Strategic insight".
Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer. Her clients include Pyotr Katsyv, an official in the state-owned Russian Railways, and his son Denis Katsyv, whom she defended against a money laundering charge in New York. On 8 January 2019, Veselnitskaya was indicted in the United States with obstruction of justice charges for allegedly having attempted to thwart the Justice Department investigation into the money laundering charges against Katsyv.
A meeting took place at Trump Tower in New York City on June 9, 2016, between three senior members of the 2016 Trump campaign – Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort – four other U.S. citizens, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The meeting was arranged by publicist and long-time Trump acquaintance Rob Goldstone on behalf of his client, Russian singer-songwriter Emin Agalarov. The meeting was first disclosed to U.S. government officials in April 2017, when Kushner filed a revised version of his security clearance form.
Rinat Rafkatovitch Akhmetshin is a Russian-American lobbyist and a former Soviet counterintelligence officer. Bill Browder alleges that Akhmetshin represents Russian intelligence interests. He came to the American media's attention in July 2017 as a registered lobbyist for an organization run by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, along with him, had a meeting with Donald Trump's election campaign officials in June 2016.
Irakly "Ike" Kaveladze is a Georgian-American business executive. He is senior vice president at Crocus Group, the real estate development company run by Aras Agalarov. He was one of eight people attending a meeting with Donald Trump's election campaign officials in June 2016. According to his attorney, Kavaladze is a long-time U.S. citizen and has "never had any engagement with the Russian government in any capacity."
The Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based lobby group, nominally focused on restoring American adoption of Russian children. It is being investigated as part of the 2017 Special Counsel investigation. It is reportedly defunct.
The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is a 2016 film directed by Andrei Nekrasov, concerning the 2009 death in a Moscow prison cell, after 11 months in police custody, of 37-year-old Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky. In 2007, Magnitsky was hired by American-born British financier Bill Browder to investigate the government's seizure of three of Browder's Russian subsidiaries. Discovering evidence of embezzlement, Magnitsky implicated two senior police officers in a tax rebate scam that used shell corporations plundered from Browder's holdings to defraud the Russian treasury of $230 million. Subordinates of those officials then arrested Magnitsky and charged him with the very crime he had exposed.
Mikhail Vladimirovich Mishustin is a Russian politician and economist serving as the Prime Minister of Russia since 16 January 2020. He previously served as the director of the Federal Taxation Service from 2010 to 2020.
Magnitsky legislation refers to laws providing for governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. They originated with the United States which passed the first Magnitsky legislation in 2012, following the torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky in Russia in 2009. Since then, a number of countries have passed similar legislation such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
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