The owners of the five-star Lazure Hotel & Marina complex in Meljina, Herceg Novi, are linked to members of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB and the country’s intelligence and security services.
This is the conclusion of a major analysis published by Russia’s “Novaya Gazeta Evropa” and Transparency International Russia. The connection of the owner of the complex with people from “Gasprom”, a large energy corporation based in St Petersburg, also stands out.
The investigation clearly exposes the money laundering scheme by claiming that “a luxury hotel in Montenegro could be linked to the mysterious death of Gazprom’s CEO”.
Unexplained death
The analysis points out that in 2022, a number of prominent leaders of Russian oil and gas companies died one after the other in suspicious circumstances. Aleksandar Tyulyakov, Deputy Director General for Corporate Security at Gazprom’s Single Processing Centre, is believed to have committed suicide at the end of February 2022. His body was found in a garage in a secure Gazprom complex near St Petersburg.
Two months later, the body of Vladislav Avayev (51), Vice-President of Gazprom Bank, was found next to the bodies of his wife and minor daughter in their apartment in Moscow. The TASS news agency, citing its sources, then reported that the investigators’ theory was that Avayev had killed his wife and daughter and then committed suicide.
Even a year after the incident, it is still unclear what caused their deaths. There has been no progress in the investigation, nor has there been any response from state-owned companies. ‘Novaya gazeta Evropa’ and ‘Transparency International Russia’ claim that these high-ranking executives once worked in entities allegedly involved in accounting fraud linked to multi-million dollar contracts with ‘Gazprom’.
The beneficiaries of these contracts are, as has been said, the family of the Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and his friends, former security and military officers.
Ownership structure
Recall that Russia expanded its list of “enemy states” after the start of the war in Ukraine. Most of the countries on the list were NATO members or countries where government leaders had spoken out against the Russian invasion. Among these countries is Montenegro, which has been a NATO member since 2017: its President, Milo Djukanovic, condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine immediately after its launch in February 2022. At that time, many Russian citizens who opposed the invasion moved to Montenegro.
In recent years, Montenegro has become one of the most attractive destinations for Russian tourists, thanks to the absence of visas. The municipality of Herceg Novi, located on the Adriatic coast, has a number of prestigious hotels, one of which – the “Lazure” – is located on the coast in Meljina. It has two wings of luxury and standard rooms and apartments, two restaurants, a spa centre and a fitness centre with a swimming pool. The hotel also has its own marina for yachts.
The five-star Lazure Hotel with marina and restaurants is owned by Lazure Montenegro, a Montenegrin company registered in Herceg Novi. This company was set up by Imperio Holdings Ltd, which fully owns the Lazure complex.
Construction of the hotel started in 2015 and was completed in just three years. The new complex is partly housed in the historic buildings of the Lazaret Fortress, built in the 18th century. Following an investment contract owned by Transparency International and Novaya Gazeta Europe, Imperio Holdings Ltd. negotiated the technical conditions for the construction of the hotel with the Montenegrin authorities in 2015, including obtaining the permission of the commissions responsible for the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage.
Distribution of shares
One of the hotel’s investors is Valery Pustarnakov, who brought a collection of paintings by realist artists from St Petersburg in 2015. However, the registration certificate of Imperio Holdings Ltd. states that the shares of the company are divided between four Russian citizens: Valery Pustarnakov, Igor Kalayda, Sergey Martynov and Fyodor Khomyakov.
These four were not mentioned in the official registration of the hotel, but some of their relatives appeared in an earlier version of this document: for example, Martynov’s daughter Anna was mentioned as the manager, and Valery Pustarnakov’s brother Vyacheslav was also mentioned, and had recently been on holiday in Montenegro.
Sources of this media outlet say that the Montenegrin accounts of Imperio Holdings Ltd. could be blocked after the start of the Russian “special military operation”, i.e. the Russian military aggression in Ukraine. It is not known whether this affected the Lazure hotel, but it is clear that it was closed for more than a month, between 4 January and 9 February. The hotel management has indicated that it is preparing for the tourist season.
Sources of this media outlet state that Fyodor Khomyakov and Valeriy Pustarnakov, co-owners of the company, did not explain the origin of at least 30 million euros they transferred to IHL accounts when questioned by the authorities in Montenegro in 2022.
It is pointed out that Montenegrin financial investigators could turn to Russia via Interpol to find out where the Russians got this suspicious money, a source confirmed to Russian media. Russia has not yet responded to Transparency’s queries, leading the authors of the investigation to conclude that all the co-owners of the Montenegrin company are linked to the Russian state gas company Gazprom.
Khomyakov factor
Sergey Khomyakov has been with Gazprom since 2007 and currently serves as Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee and Head of Corporate Security. Khomyakov, born in Karelia, is believed to be a representative of the Leningrad-Karelian clan within Gazprom, which also includes several former and active employees of the local FSB, such as Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia.
Khomyakov, a former KGB officer, has been in charge of the overall security of Gazprom and its sister companies, as well as the certification of the company and its partners since 2003. There are a number of companies that provide certified software to Gazprom, but only one of them, which is a certification body, is included in the so-called “Gazprom” Certification Authority (CCA) network.
It is pointed out that the CCA is practically part of Gazprom’s structure and has access to the company’s internal framework and its proprietary corporate data. It mainly provides access to companies within the “Gazprom” structure, but there is one commercially reliable facility among them, in particular the “Gazinformservice” certification centre.
It is part of the CCA, officially accredited by the Russian Ministry of Digital Technologies and operates under a licence from the FSB. This licence allows it to develop, produce and distribute cryptographic tools, encrypt information and maintain information and telecommunications systems.
The Gazinformservice Certification Centre was established in 2011 and 90 % of its capital now belongs to Valery Pustarnakov, the same man who owns part of Lazure Montenegro.
Sources of Transparency International and Novaya Gazeta Europe further state that “Gazinformservice” employs as CFO Fyodor Khomyakov (45), son of the head of security at “Gazprom”, as financial director.
Second proprietary link
This is not the last link between Lazure Montenegro and a Russian energy giant. Gazprom is also working with the Research Institute for Complex Security Systems to protect its data.
Its main creation is SafePhone, a platform that powers and secures the mobile business ecosystem. The Research Institute has also created “SafeOperator”, which automates pre- and post-shift medical check-ups and monitors the health status of employees. The company is also licensed by the FSB to work with confidential data. It is also authorised to manufacture and sell “special technical hardware and software for the secret collection of information”.
Igor Kalayda, born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, former employee of a research institute of the Russian Ministry of Defence, heads the Research Institute for Complex Security Systems. This is the same Igor Kalajda whose name appears among the owners of “Lazure Montenegro”. According to the Research Institute’s website, Gazprom seems to be their biggest and probably only client. The company earned more than 2 billion roubles (about €25 million) in 2014-2017 from state contracts signed with Gazprom.
The Research Institute is registered and operates in Moscow. In the same business centre as the institute is “Alyans Real Estate”, another company co-founded by Kalayda. Sergey Martynov is the other co-founder. When the company was registered, the main activity was the rental of real estate, and the operation of computers and equipment was added as an additional activity, as Kalajda knows them well.
Martynov has a daughter, Ana, who is mentioned in the documents of “Lazure Montenegro” as its manager. Her social media profile also states that she has been employed by IHL (“Imperio Holdings Ltd.”) since 2015 and jokingly mentions her military service in the Russian-Pakistani embassy as the daughter of a spy. Her father was probably once an informer or security guard, like Sergei Khomyakov, the analysis points out.
The “Gazprom” scheme
On 25 February 2022, 24 hours after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gazprom’s top executive, Alexander Tyulyakov, was found dead. Like Sergei Khomyakov, Tyulyakov was responsible for security at the energy giant and worked in the financial settlement centre, considered Gazprom’s treasury. He served as deputy head of the department.
The investigation team believes that Tyulyakov committed suicide, but this was just one case in a string of suspicious deaths of oil and gas executives: Leonid Shulman of Gazprom Invest had previously died in the same neighbourhood where Tyulyakov was found.
Tyulyakov’s career path is similar to that of Sergei Khomyakov. Like many security service employees, Tyulyakov came from the security community: he graduated from the FSB academy and served for more than 20 years in KGB and FSB units and agencies. In 1999, the man took a job at what is now known as Gazprom Transgaz St Petersburg”. In 2009, he was promoted to Deputy General Director and then to Deputy Director of Corporate Security and Human Resources Management.
Tyulyakov was transferred to the “Gazprom” Treasury as soon as it emerged as an independent body in 2015.
The Financial Settlement Centre is also linked to Khomyakov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom. Sergei Khomyakov, the Chief Security Officer, has two children. The elder son is called Fyodor and his son is also called Sergei. The Khomyakov family seems to have a tradition of reusing these names for men. Khomyakov senior also has a daughter, Daria, who is the official owner of one of the family apartments in St Petersburg. Daria married in the middle of the last decade and changed her surname to Boldireva.
Novaya Gazeta Evropa and Transparency International revealed that Daria married Denis Boldirev in 2013. However, there is no trace of Denis: there are no photographs or even brief work experience published on the internet before Boldirev joined the State Treasury, , Gazprom as First Deputy Director was established immediately afterwards.
The acquisitions of the Financial Settlement Centre, headed by Khomyakov’s son-in-law, have been confidential over the last few years. It is still unclear why Gazprom needs this agency: the energy giant channels only part of its procurement through the centre, and the Treasury itself does not list its activities.
“Dynasty” Khomyakov
In addition, all government contracts awarded by the Centre were fulfilled by a single supplier. Many of them have a very unclear purpose. For example, one such contract was for the “provision of remote consultancy services” worth 500,000 roubles (6250 euro). Novaya Gazeta Evropa and Transparency International managed to reveal the name of the winner in one contract with confidential information: good old Gazinformservice. It is possible that other contracts were awarded to companies linked to the Khomyakov dynasty. However, this cannot be independently verified.
It is known that the Financial Settlement Centre, headed by Denis Boldirev, signs state contracts with a certification body operating within Gazinformservice and owned by friends of the Khomyakovs. Again, it is impossible to ascertain the total amount of contracts fulfilled because the centre does not always disclose its suppliers. At the same time, Gazprom’s coffers spend at least one billion roubles (€12.5 million) per year.
“Novaya gazeta Evropa” contacted Denis Boldirev. The only thing he said was “No” to questions about the empire, Lazura Montenegro, the death of Alexander Tyulyakov and his marriage to Daria Khomyakova, before hanging up the phone.
Homjak senior was not only concerned about his former colleagues and business partners, he was also concerned about the future of his children. According to the investigation, his daughter Darja worked or still works in “Gazprombank”. There is also no publicly available information about her. It is worth mentioning that Vladislav Avayev, Vice-President of “Gazprombank”, committed suicide two months after Tyulyakov’s death.
Khomyakov’s son Fyodor is also not only the CFO of Gazprom’s partner Gazinformservis, but also founded or co-founded several companies – Datagil and Nauka-Servis-Medicina.
“Datagile” of Khomyakov Jr. is, like other companies related to the Khomyakov family, involved in information security. The organisation is headed by Sergei Lihomanenko, who also works with “Gazinformservice” and even receives awards at the end of the year for outstanding performance at work.
If we count the amounts collected through state contracts between “Gazprom” and companies related to Sergei Khomyakov, we get just over 6 billion roubles (74.75 million euros), even without taking into account the revenues of “Strojreanimacije”, which officially did not sign any direct contracts with the state energy giant. One territorial grid company, apparently set up just to fulfil these contracts, generated almost a billion roubles (€12.5 million) in one year.
Final sale
It is noted that when Montenegrin financial investigators asked Fyodor Homjakov, co-owner of “Imperio Holdings Limited” and the “Lazure” hotel, to explain the origin of the funds he had transferred to the business accounts, he referred to “Nauka-Servis-Medicina” ” and unspecified “income generated on the Russian stock exchange”. At the time, Khomyakov Jr. could only provide documentation justifying transactions worth €211,000 from his personal accounts, which were part of his personal income for four years of work from 2013 to 2017, and €500,000 from “Nauka-Servis-Medicina”. But these sums were only a fraction of the total figure of interest to Montenegrin investigators: in just a few years, Fyodor Khomyakov transferred a total of €15 million to the foreign accounts of “Imperio Holdings Limited”.
Homjakovov’s answer, of course, did not satisfy the investigators. Therefore, the investigator’s source claims that the company’s accounts are blocked until he explains where the money came from. “Science-Service-Medicine” really could not have made that much money even in a few years: the company’s revenues have not exceeded tens of millions of roubles recently (10 million roubles = 125,000 euros), while all its assets together are worth about 100 million roubles (1.25 million euros).
According to the company’s documentation, “Lazure Montenegro” for some reason started selling the apartments it owns at the end of 2021. This was stated in December 2022 by Ana Martinova, former hotel manager and daughter of Sergei Martinov. She explained that “Lazure Montenegro” owns not only the hotel, but also the furniture showroom with which they furnished their apartments.
Here is the fantastic furniture showroom that we had in Lazure. It was used as a package deal by the buyers of the flats to make it easier to choose designs, fabrics and colours. Only one of the 58 flats was sold unfurnished (with only a kitchen and wardrobe), and even though the other buyers had initially ambitiously planned to furnish everything themselves, they would eventually succumb to the appeal of our showroom. It was partly just an inspired creative project, like our “mini IKEA”. The showroom is currently being closed down and a very interesting project is taking its place, she announced on Instagram.
For example, in January this year, Igor Klaide’s wife, Tatjana, got it. These apartments are worth around 600,000 euros, according to the website of the company, which sells several of them.
As pointed out at the end, Novaya Gazeta Evropa contacted Valery Pustarnakov and Fyodor Khomyakov, but they refused to answer any questions./Pobjeda/