"Lizzy Sex Relax" and Other Russian Aliases
The mystery behind the indictment of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska raises more questions than it answers
Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska with Russian president Vladimir Putin at the International Investment Forum in Sochi on September 19, 2008. (Photo: ILIA PITALEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Yesterday, the DOJ announced the unsealing of a grand jury indictment of a Russian oligarch, charging Oleg Deripaska, his girlfriend Ekaterina Voronina, and two other women (one a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody) with violating the sanctions that have been imposed on Deripaska and one of his corporate entities since 2018.
The indictment tells a curious labyrinthine story that raises more questions than it answers.
Deripaska, 52, is the founder of a mammoth aluminum behemoth, Rusal, now a public company where he no longer has any meaningful direct stake after being sanctioned in 2018 by OFAC in the U.S. for profiting from the Russian government and the Russian energy sector. (He does have a minority 44 percent stake in EN+, which has a 56 percent stake in Rusal.)
The indictment says Deripaska violated the sanctions multiple times in the last four years, using his two associates “to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of services for his benefit in the United States.”
“In or about 2019,” the indictment says, Deripaska’s associate Olga Shriki, a U.S. citizen, facilitated the sale of a recording studio in Burbank, CA for Deripaska for about $3 million. Then, in 2020, he flew his girlfriend, Voronina, now 33, privately to Los Angeles to have a baby, who now has U.S. citizenship. The baby’s surname was registered as a variation of Deripaska. To pay for all this, Deripaska used the funds of a U.S. shell company and the help of Olga Shriki. The scheme went well—so well, in fact, that, in 2022, it appears that Deripaska and Voronina thought they’d try again with baby number two on the way.
Shriki was busy with other work, according to the indictment, so, this time, Natalia Mikhaylovna Bardakova, a Russian national who’d been working for Deripaska, flew ahead and made arrangements in L.A. to meet “funding” needs for Voronina, whose last visit had required five nannies and a housekeeper during her six-month stay, according to the indictment. (Welcome to the lavish world of the ROGs, which I’ve chronicled before.)
However, this time, when Voronina arrived in the United States on a private jet in June of 2022, according to the indictment, she “made multiple false statements to, and tried to mislead, officers of the Department of Homeland Security, in an attempt to prevent the officers from learning DERIPASKA's name and to conceal the roles of DERIPASKA, SHRIKI, and BARDAKOVA in hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal transactions in violation of U.S. sanctions.” She was refused entry to the United States.
Furthermore, according to the indictment, “during the course of law enforcement efforts to investigate the scheme, SHRIKI destroyed evidence, while BARDAKOVA and VORONINA made false statements to U. S. government officers.”
Inevitably, Attorney General Merrick Garland et al. have used this as an opportunity to sound off against Russian mogul hypocrisy, given the war in Ukraine. There are four different statements from senior justice personnel in the press release weighing in on the topic:
“In the wake of Russia’s unjust and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, I promised the American people that the Justice Department would work to hold accountable those who break our laws and threaten our national security. Today’s charges demonstrate we are keeping that promise,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not stop working to identify, find, and bring to justice those who evade U.S. sanctions in order to enable the Russian regime.”
“As today’s charges reveal, while serving the Russian state and energy sector, Oleg Deripaska sought to circumvent U.S. sanctions through lies and deceit to cash in on and benefit from the American way of life,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “But shell companies and webs of lies will not shield Deripaska and his cronies from American law enforcement, nor will they protect others who support the Putin regime. The Department of Justice remains dedicated to the global fight against those who aid and abet the Russian war machine.”
“Today’s indictment reflects the FBI’s commitment to use all of the tools at our disposal to aggressively pursue those who attempt to evade the United States’ economic countermeasures against the Russian government,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “We will continue to aggressively prosecute those who violate measures imposed to protect the national security and foreign policy of the United States, especially in this time of Russia’s unprovoked aggression toward Ukraine.”
“The indictment unsealed today signals the United States’ ongoing support for the people of Ukraine in the face of continued Russian belligerence,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “The enforcement of sanctions is a vital tool wielded by this Office and our law enforcement partners as we seek to deter Russian aggression, and today’s indictment should be taken as a warning that, try as they might, individuals violating these sanctions will be held accountable.”
However, despite the voluminous grandstanding from senior DOJ officials, it remains unclear: Why is Deripaska the one being targeted?
As you may recall, I met Deripaska once, a long time ago. I’ve told the story in this newsletter of climbing on board his enormous yacht while at a party in Montenegro in 2010 and then finding myself on the dance floor with him and his bodyguards, after he’d made the curious (albeit flattering) remark “I hear that, besides me, you are the most dangerous person here.” I remember that he was not a good dancer.
Since then, I’ve kept up with a few people (not Russians but Brits) who know Deripaska either for business or social reasons. He gets around (or he did) and he has (or had) homes in London (overrun in the spring by squatters) as well as in the U.S. And here’s the thing: Just last week, I was having a conversation with a Brit who knows Deripaska well who was expressing concern that Deripaska might be on the growing list of prominent Russians who have mysteriously fallen out of windows to their deaths after having spoken out against the war in Ukraine, as Deripaska was one of the first oligarchs to speak out against the war in Ukraine.
Here's his first tweet on the matter:
And he’s kept going ever since, with a number of public pronouncements.
Further, I am reliably informed by two sources that Deripaska hosted a Ukrainian folk band at his summer dacha this summer, and that he’s been open about his sympathies for the Ukrainian people. All things that would not put him on the top of Putin’s “Favorites” list.
So, okay, he’s violated U.S. sanctions, but why, of all the Russian oligarchs who could be made an example of, would the U.S. single him out? Several Americans who’ve done business with Deripaska told me they find it strange.
It’s also particularly odd, given that the oligarch I wrote about several months ago—who had a 2012 meeting with Hunter Biden, whose firm recently sold its defense contracting business to the Russian State, and who has not spoken against the war—has not been sanctioned by the U.S., although he has been sanctioned by the UK…
Why the unevenness?
My sources say that, in all likelihood, Putin will be pleased, not angry, about what the U.S. has done to Deripaska.
There is also the curious case of the alias the DOJ included for Deripaska in the press release and indictment: “Oleg Mukhamedshin.” What’s odd about this is that there is a real Oleg Mukhamedshin who works in a senior position at Rusal. He has been there for over twenty years and would definitely have known Deripaska. Sources with knowledge say he has almost certainly not met with Deripaska since Deripaska was sanctioned and then basically removed from Rusal four years ago. And he is definitely not under sanctions himself.
The real Mukhamedshin was described to me by a source who knows him well as “a corporate finance guy who goes between Russia and Dubai, does a ton of business with Western banks, and is very well-respected. He’s very smart and he’s very well known in professional circles.”
It’s possible, I supposed, that Deripaska “borrowed” Mukhameshin’s identity to purchase homes. But that seems a bit weird because that’s the kind of thing that would easily backfire, given Mukhameshin’s profile and reputation. Why would you “borrow” the identity of someone you’ve worked with, who is well known to Western banks? A simple phone call would get you found out. And why is it not addressed in the indictment?
What happened here?
I asked the question of the Department of Justice, of Deripaska’s lawyer, and of Rusal, and I am awaiting replies from each.
Meanwhile, per the Daily Mail, “Ekaterina Lobanova”—the alias used for Voronina— is allegedly associated with a porn star who goes by, among others, the name “Lizzy Sex Relax.” Lovanova has been photographed accompanying Deripaska. So, at least that makes sense.
As for the rest? I guess we shall have to wait and see…
