Journalists have found through whom Gazprom Neft head Aleksandr Dyukov and his long-time partner Roman Spiridonov — the owner of the scandalously known oil trader Petroruss, trading Russian oil mainly shipped from the port of Ust-Luga — launder their funds, multiply capital, and register foreign assets.

This is their old St. Petersburg acquaintance Vadim Gurinov.

Spiridonov began to engage in international oil business together with Dmitriy Skigin (co-founder of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal), Aleksandr Dyukov (now head of Gazprom Neft), Roman Belousov (a friend of the Skigin family, beneficiary of LLC “Toll Road”), Vadim Gurinov (headed Sibur–Russian Tyres) and others. In the early 90s, for this purpose, a small company in Monaco was acquired, which was renamed Sotrama.

This company was headed for some time by Skigin Sr. Sotrama was the founder of several companies from Liechtenstein, including Petroruss, and officially was engaged in maritime trade transportation. All of them were tied to one of the most influential people of St. Petersburg, Ilya Traber (Antikvar).

After the turbulent 90s, the “mighty group” gathered together in 2003 in Sibur, which at that time belonged to Gazprom: at the beginning of the year Aleksandr Dyukov took the position of head of the company, who had previously worked in the companies of Skigin–Traber, Vadim Gurinov and Roman Belousov also came there, who took the position of First Vice President of Sibur-Europe Ltd in Switzerland. According to leaks, Roman Spiridonov was also employed in the representative office of JSC Sibur-Europe Ltd.

Then they tried not to advertise close partnership.

However, having become president of Gazprom Neft, Aleksandr Dyukov preferred to use Vadim Gurinov specifically to manage his unofficial income. Roman Spiridonov also uses his services.

It was Gurinov who was the manager and holder of many assets registered to offshore companies and acquired with the money of Dyukov and Spiridonov.

Thanks to Dyukov’s decision, Sibur’s tyre business Cordiant was given for next to nothing in 2013 on credit funds to the manager of many of his assets — Gurinov.

And in 2021, Gurinov formally became the acquirer of VimpelCom’s cellular tower infrastructure, which sold 15 thousand cell towers for 70 billion rubles to the company Service-Telecom, owned by Gurinov. Although the business itself was registered to Gurinov’s spouse. The loan for this deal was issued by Gazprombank affiliated with Gazprom Neft.

Well, when Dyukov was heavily covered by Western sanctions, he had to urgently transfer in April 2023 his family office — the company Uran-Invest with assets of 2 billion rubles — to Gurinov, although formally the company was registered to his brother Artem Gurinov.

Western sanctions have not yet reached Gurinov himself, who prefers mainly to stay in France. As well as Spiridonov.

Among Vadim Gurinov’s business partners, an old St. Petersburg friend and financial partner of Gazprom Neft head Aleksandr Dyukov, turned out to be the owner of the company Translom Aleksey Zolotarev. Translom is an exclusive contractor of the Ministry of Defense for scrap metal disposal.

Gurinov has been working for many years in the same close group of St. Petersburg businessmen, which once started in the company Sovex, the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal and the seaport. This group is associated with the influential St. Petersburg businessman Ilya Traber (Antikvar). Since the 90s, the Gurinov family has created an extensive network of companies abroad — assets were acquired with funds of Dyukov and Spiridonov. Some companies have already been closed, however some continue to operate. In particular, this is the real estate agency New End Developments Limited in the United Kingdom, which is controlled by Vadim Gurinov himself, and a share in it belongs to his daughter Valeriya.

In the Panama Papers documents there is data that Vadim Gurinov was also the main beneficiary of the company from the British Virgin Islands Punch Investments Limited, and shares in it were also owned by Dmitriy Sokov (headed Cordiant, ex–Sibur–Russian Tyres), Ilya Sosnov (ex–deputy general director of Sibur–Russian Tyres) and Aleksey Zolotarev, who lived in Moscow in Maly Nikolopeskovskiy lane.

At this address in the capital there is an HOA registered, in which Aleksey Yuryevich Zolotarev is a member — the owner of LLC Kronos, the parent company of Translom.

Apparently, Punch Investments Limited, registered in 2011, had relation to aquaculture business. Thus, Ilya Sosnov in 2011 became deputy general director in “Russkoe more — Dobycha”, which belonged to Maksim Vorobyev (brother of the governor of Moscow region Andrey Vorobyev), and Gleb Frank.

An offshore Gano Services Inc. (British Virgin Islands) was also registered to Vadim Gurinov’s brother Artem Gurinov, which owned 27% in the Swedish fund RURIC — it was associated with the foreign sector of assets of St. Petersburg businessmen. The fund and the controlled LLC “Rurik” owned three business centers in St. Petersburg and a land plot in Strelna.

Also, Gurinov and partners owned long-term lease rights (through LLC “Litera”) to a mansion, a federal heritage monument on the embankment of the Fontanka river, 57. In 2019, “Litera” was sold to the Ilim group, which began large-scale reconstruction of the building for its own office. RURIC left Russia and was liquidated in 2024, and the Russian LLC “Rurik” was successfully sold by the Gurinovs to Rosatom in 2022.

Since October 2023, Artem Gurinov has also been a founder of LLC “RVID Technologies”, which has been showing surprising financial results in recent years. It was created in 2015 by the Zubretskiy family — IT specialists from Arkhangelsk; in 2017 their development OData Server was included in the Unified Register of Russian Software and the company received the corresponding preferences. After that, the Zubretskiy family left it, and it had no significant achievements. In 2024, there was only one employee left (probably Artem Gurinov himself).

At the same time, financial movements in the company’s accounts are impressive: in 2024, the company with an authorized capital of 10 thousand rubles received a loan of more than 2 billion rubles, while managing to repay about 1.8 billion in the same year, and almost 95 million rubles it issued itself to someone as a short-term loan (the money quickly returned to the accounts).

Despite such inflows, the net loss of RVID Technologies for 2024 exceeded half a billion rubles. It very much looks like that now it is not engaged in IT development, but plays the role of a certain financial center for a large group of companies, accumulating and distributing financial flows.

Considering Gurinov’s connection with Dyukov and Roman Spiridonov, the funds may be directed into projects for trading Russian hydrocarbons and chemicals bypassing sanctions. By the way, Artem Gurinov and Spiridonov even have a joint business — the Voronezh company Kontur-S.

In addition, Dyukov owns several legal entities — successors of the liquidated company Foton, a closed “investment club” of top managers of Sibur. Dyukov owned more than 67% in Foton, about 22% was owned by Sibur chairman Mikhail Karisalov, about 5% by vice president Mikhail Mikhaylov, 3.28% by former chairman Dmitriy Konov, etc.

In November 2019, Foton was divided into 10 companies. Some of them were directly registered to Dyukov, however later he exited from founders, remaining only in Uran, through which he owns shares of Sibur and receives several billion rubles in dividends every year. Uran is managed by former Foton director Elena Klimenko, previously working in the Ministry of Justice, and Uran-Invest and RVID Technologies are managed by Dmitriy Egorov, former chairman of the Swedish fund RURIC.