A Kazakh oligarch who reportedly used a Cyprus corporate structure to assist cohorts of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is likely to be sanctioned soon by the EU.
Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and the EU began implementing sanctions against Russians, Ibragimov became the owner of an Italian luxury resort worth several hundred million euros to protect it from being frozen by Italian authorities.
Officials in both Brussels and Kyiv believe the Oligarch, Shukhrat Ibragimov, helped Putin’s associates to skirt EU sanctions.
Musa Bazhaev, a Chechen oligarch known to be close to Putin, transferred the ownership of the multi-million-euroluxury resort to a string of his relatives starting from the day after the invasion – February 25, 2022, Cypriot company records show.
Ownership of the prestigious resort, whose parent company owns various assets in Sardinia totalling about EUR 700million, was then transferred to Ibragimov in early 2023, according to the records.
Bazhaev, who was born in Chechnya and made his fortune in the oil industry before turning to precious metals, was hit with sanctions by the EU and the UK in April 2022 and remains on the list to this day despite attempting to have them annulled.
Given their close ties, his business partner, Ibragimov, now also faces potential EU sanctions for his role in circumventing sanctions regimes.
Before becoming the latest owner of the Forte Village, Ibragimov and his family, were co-investors with Bazhaev in Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest gold mine, Jeruy.
The Jeruy mine was inaugurated in 2021 by the country’s President Sadyr Japarov and Russian leader Putin, according to media reports. “[This is] one of the largest joint projects [that] has been successfully implemented. We are, indeed, talking about record volumes of Russian investments in Kyrgyzstan, which will amount to about $600mn,” Putin was quoted as saying during the event.
Bazhaev and his nephew Deni Bazhaev acquired the Forte Village in 2014 for a reported EUR 180 million through a complex web of Cypriot, Luxembourg, and Italian companies.
Forte Village Resort is ultimately owned by Cyprus-based Retivia Investments, now owned by Ibragimov. The resort’s immediate owner is a Sardinian-based company called Progetto Esmeralda, which owns other assets on the island,including the Palazzo Doglio hotel in the city of Cagliari, according to the resort’s website. Ultimate ownership is convoluted.
Cypriot records show that Progetto Esmeralda is controlled by Luxembourg-based Sonogest Sarl, owned by Quarmine Limited, a Cypriot company, which in turn is owned by Retivia Investments Limited.
Ibragimov’s role in assisting Bazhaev means he is protecting significant investments for a man who made his millions by being a close ally of Putin.
Progetto Esmeralda’s latest published accounts show revenues of EUR 66 million in 2022.
It also showed a EUR 350 million credit facility with the Russian bank with close ties to the Kremlin – VTB Bank. It is therefore not surprising that Ibragimov has been caught in the crosshairs of shady deals to conceal funds from being sanctioned and may therefore be sanctioned himself.
