Investment group Quartell Trading Ltd., allegedly associated with the government of the Russian Federation and “the Russian mafia”, translated at least 900 thousand dollars of the company, the owner of which is the US sanctions list for supporting the Syrian regime and production in the Arab country’s chemical weapons. This was reported by the TV channel CNN, who turned out to be the relevant financial documents.
According to the contract, which saw journalists, Quartell in the period 2007-2008, has agreed to transfer more than $ 3 million to a firm Balec Trading Ventures Ltd., however, the channel documents confirm only one perfect translation of about a third of that amount.
Company Balec Trading Ventures Ltd., registered in the British virgin Islands, owns Issa al-zayday, a Syrian with Russian citizenship, who in the autumn of 2014 fell to the sanctions list, compiled by the U.S. Treasury. According to us authorities, Issa al-zayday, through the Cypriot company, helped lead shadow operation to the Syrian government, in particular, was involved in printing a large batch of Syrian rials in Russian go “Goznak”.
According to online reports, al-zayday lives in Moscow, in 1964, he graduated from MSTU named after Bauman. It has pages in Russian social networks “Vkontakte” and “My world”, but an active user did not call: go to your pages, it is very rare.
CNN notes that al-zayday was also a Director of two companies (Enterprises Ltd. and Fruminenti Investments Ltd.), which in 2014 fell under the sanctions for that conduct joint activities with the Syrian scientific research center (SSRC). This centre, according to the US, was responsible for the development and production of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles.
The channel could not figure out what part of the above mentioned 900 thousand dollars transferred from Quartell in Balec, went to the support of SSRC. Contact Issa al-zayday using the contact information on the companies registered in Russia, journalists also failed.
The company Quartell Trading Ltd., it is, according to the U.S. Department of justice, previously used to launder millions of dollars stolen from the budget of the Russian Federation “Russian mafia” of direct relevance to the Kremlin.
Quartell featured in the “Magnitsky case”. In 2012, the media learned that part tekavcic from the Russian Treasury money then was in Moldova in the accounts of fictitious companies, which worked only in the reception of money from Russia and their subsequent sending to offshore firms. After the transfer of funds they are spread across a dozen accounts of offshore companies in different countries.
One such company was the British Nomirex. In 2008, it has transferred 1.9 million Euro on Quartell Trading Ltd. in a Swiss Bank. Then, money in transit was sent via another offshore company to a company from Cyprus, Arivust Holdings Ltd., beneficiary of which is Vladlen Stepanov, the husband of ex-head of the Moscow tax inspection N28 Olga Stepanova.