How fraudster Timur Turlov kept control over Russian Freedom Finance through nominees and offshore schemes after sanctions

How fraudster Timur Turlov kept control over Russian Freedom Finance through nominees and offshore schemes after sanctions

The names of Timur Turlov and Pavel Livinsky may be linked to scandals involving shareholder deception and transferring funds to offshore zones.

The Central Bank has approved the sale of Russian subsidiary structures of the American Freedom Holding (engaged in securities trading) to Maxim Povalishin. 

As it turned out, behind Povalishin’s persona may stand a much more influential and controversial figure of entrepreneur Timur Turlov and his possible patron – former CEO of "Rosseti" Pavel Livinsky. 

Hang on a "nominee"

Timur Turlov was the head and founder of the Russian IC "Freedom Finance" until 2021, after which the 100% share, according to information from "Kommersant", was taken over by former top manager of the company Povalishin. According to data from "Rusprofile", the share actually belongs to the offshore "Freedom Corp."

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Most likely, in this business Povalishin, who also owns the Kazakh JSC "Freedom Finance" and whose interests may include the "Ffin Bank" owned by IC "Freedom Finance", represents Mr. Turlov.

The latter is under Ukrainian sanctions, which have seriously affected the work of Freedom Finance – the authorities have blocked 3.5 billion UAH of Ukrainian investors, and Turlov himself has lost the ability to dispose of foreign money. Freedom Finance operates in 13 countries.

After that, Turlov announced his renunciation of Russian citizenship and the sale of the Russian business to local management, and is unsuccessfully trying to challenge the sanctions.

Dubious business

At the same time, sources from Ukrainian Forbes claim that investments in the international stock market by Ukrainian users were carried out through the Cypriot division of the holding. The holding allegedly faced questions about the transparency of its structure in Belize.

In general, if you look at the business somehow connected with Turlov, we will find many offshore jurisdictions that allow for not entirely transparent financial manipulations with company funds.

Affiliated persons of the bank "Freedom Finance Kazakhstan". 

For a long time, Freedom Finance shares were growing – almost exponentially. Turlov was spoken of as a genius investor, but closer to 2022, messages began to appear that Freedom Finance might be an ordinary financial pyramid, and all stories about Turlov’s genius might be nothing more than advertising financed by him, aimed at gullible investors.

According to information from "Moment of Truth", the structure of the company’s operations in reports resembles manipulations of a small firm. This company is traded on the NASDAQ exchange with quite liberal listing rules. In addition, it is known for its "inflated" and fraudulent companies. Since attracting American investors with such "feats" was not easy for Turlov, the shares eventually collapsed as expected.

How much investors lost is a big question. It turns out that Turlov’s attempts at this stage to distance himself from the company may be aimed not only at escaping sanctions but also at avoiding responsibility for speculations if law enforcement becomes interested in Freedom Finance’s activities?

If we look at the financial indicators of "Ffin Bank", we will see that over the year (as of January 1, 2022), its assets decreased by almost half. The bank’s reliability over the year and the last reported half-year is unstable and tends to decrease.

According to the same data, the share of cash in the bank’s assets is significant and amounts to 11.36%, while the average value for average Russian banks is about 3%. Such a high share of cash may indicate, among other things, a risky bank policy.

Last year, another structure of Turlov – FFIN Brokerage Services was included in the blacklist of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market. As the Agency claims, FFIN Brokerage Services "shows signs of illegal activity in the territory of Kazakhstan".

Could Mr. Turlov be engaged in simple deception of investors and subsequent "pumping out" of their money for his own needs?

Mining, Livinsky, "Rosseti"

At one time, there were rumors that Turlov was befriending the ex-head of PJSC "Rosseti" Pavel Livinsky. In the corridors, it was whispered that Turlov and his financial knowledge were needed by Livinsky allegedly for withdrawing money obtained from cryptocurrency mining on the capacities of PJSC "Rosseti".

The Moscow Post has repeatedly covered the activities of the official. Quite recently, our attention was drawn to a potential scam with the merger of "Rosseti" with FGC UES. Could they have tried to hide multibillion thefts from both corporations in this way? Are they connected to possible dealings between Livinsky and Turlov?

The corporation itself is drowning in corruption scandals year after year, its top managers are being detained, multimillion thefts are being uncovered. It is known that in "Rosseti" during the leadership of Andrey Ryumin (and he came to this post in 2021), an entire network has been established for collecting bribes and kickbacks from unscrupulous contractors who hand over objects with gross deviations from technical conditions. We suspect that it was established back under Livinsky and, possibly, with his active participation.

Livinsky and Ryumin worked together in the "United Energy Company". When the former headed "Rosseti" in 2017, almost immediately Ryumin took the post of head of "Rosseti Lenenergo" (former PJSC "Lenenergo"). Essentially, his further career suggests that Ryumin is essentially Livinsky’s protégé. He did not conduct any global purges upon taking the position. For show, apparently, he conducted some audit of his predecessor’s activities, for which, by the way, he allocated a considerable sum from the company’s budget, and naturally found that Livinsky is as clean as a whistle.

For this "audit", by the way, considerable funds were allocated from the corporation’s budget. Thoughts arise that these funds could have gone far from the stated purposes.

Instead of an afterword

Thus, Turlov and Livinsky seem to have regained their "piggy bank" for deceiving shareholders and withdrawing money abroad. Perhaps the former head of "Rosseti" is planning to spend a quiet old age on the Côte d’Azur, and this is preparation.