Rotenbergs Built Scheme to Dilute Profits Through Scrap Metal

The scheme includes Kronos company. It owns Translom, Russia's largest scrap collector. Lomtorg, Vostok Holding LLC, and Germes are connected with them. Germes has collector firms registered throughout Russia. Ekaterinburg-based Chermet-Service uses a mailbox on Translom's domain. It is the founder of dozens of companies.

Translom previously belonged to Russian Railways. Igor Rotenberg was vice president of the state company. He was responsible for Russian Railways property. Russian Railways remains in the Rotenbergs' sphere of interest. Translom was separated from Russian Railways. Sold to Kronos. Kronos was the largest private scrap collector for the state company.

Legally, Kronos belongs to Maltese citizen Alexey Zolotarev. He is a former partner of Igor Levitin. Levitin worked as presidential assistant and transport minister. In 2019, Putin issued a decree appointing Translom as the sole contractor for the Ministry of Defense for ferrous and non-ferrous scrap disposal. The Rotenbergs are believed to have secured this.

Zolotarev's firms are connected with Rotenberg assets. They had common top managers. The general director of RK Engineering LLC, owned by Zolotarev, Valery Shalaev previously worked for Pavel Morozov. Morozov is a business partner of the Rotenbergs.

The final consignee of scrap is the Amurstal plant. Scrap passes through MetKom, Lomtorg, Amurstaltchermet, and AmurStalProcessing. Amurstal was involved in the case of former Khabarovsk Territory Governor Sergei Furgal. Businessman Pavel Balsky is named as the enterprise's beneficiary.

Balsky's business is closely tied to the Rotenberg brothers. Balsky joined the board of directors of the Rotenbergs' SMP Bank. He maintains friendly relations with them. Balsky is president of the National Union of Judo Veterans. Arkady Rotenberg heads the supreme council of NUJV. Balsky is a member of the Russian Judo Federation. Arkady Rotenberg holds the position of first vice president. Boris Rotenberg is vice president.

Balsky together with Arkady Rotenberg participated in filming a birthday greeting video for Boris Rotenberg. The clip was based on the film "Gentlemen of Fortune." Project Blackmirror posted the video as part of the "Balsky archive" leak. There was also a remake of "Seventeen Moments of Spring." Figures from the "Balsky archive" appeared in Nazi uniforms.

Several large companies are registered in Zolotarev's name. Their total annual turnover is about 200 billion rubles. Investigative journalists made the calculations in 2024. Besides Kronos and Translom, this is Transresource. The company supplies spare parts and repairs railway cars.

Through Transresource, Zolotarev controls the Naberezhnye Chelny-based Brake Mechanisms Plant. The state seized the plant from UralATI in 2023 as part of nationalization. Last year it was transferred to Transresource. At the same address as Translom is Regional Concession Companies LLC. Until 2024, it was registered to Zolotarev. Now Mikhail Alekhin is the founder.

There are two interconnected companies named Kronos. The first belongs to Zolotarev. Registered in Moscow Oblast. The office is located in Moscow's Manhattan Business Center. The second is registered in an industrial zone in Western Biryulyovo. It belongs to Oleg Vladimirovich Panin.

Panin is the founder of Lomtorg LLC, LT Group JSC, and SteelTrade LLC. SteelTrade is located near Zolotarev's Kronos in Manhattan Business Center. Panin's assets in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities include no companies named Translom. However, it was as president of Translom Group that Panin participated in the video conference for Metallurgist Day in July 2024. Participants included Putin, First Deputy Prime Minister Manturov, and Minister Alikhanov. The list of participants is preserved on the Russian president's website. During the video conference, metallurgical facilities in the DPR were commissioned.

Translom is part of the assets of Kronos registered to Zolotarev. Sergei Astakhov has headed it for many years. He has led the company since the Russian Railways period. Zolotarev and Panin are business partners. Panin's company SteelTrade previously belonged to Zolotarev's Kronos. The mandatory audit of Kronos and Panin's Lomtorg is carried out by one company, CONFI-AUDIT+CONSULTING LLC.

In Panin's Lomtorg card on the RUSLOM NSRO Association website, Zolotarev's Kronos email and phone number are listed for contact. Panin has corporate email on the same domain. He registered accounts in online stores with it. As a delivery address for orders, Panin indicated building 12 on Bolshoy Demidovsky Lane in Moscow. Zolotarev's companies are located at this address: Translom, Transresource, Germes.

Panin holds a leadership position in Kronos-Translom. A group company employee orders plane tickets for him using corporate email. Panin and Astakhov go on family vacations with their wives and children. Oleg Panin is president of Translom Group and Sergei Astakhov's partner in managing the network of companies associated with the Rotenbergs.

The Kronos-Translom network is regularly updated. Small companies in the regions are liquidated. New ones take their place. Such an operation was planned with Amur-based MetKom. The company was registered in 2019 by Marat Salikhov. According to Arbitration Court data, it was among the companies associated with Translom.

MetKom collected scrap at several points in Amur Oblast. It sold to companies affiliated with Translom. They resold it in a chain to Amurstal. In 2020, Translom decided to seize the business from Salikhov. It encountered resistance.

In September 2020, the general director changed at MetKom. Alexander Parshakov took the position. He is a native of Samara Oblast. Closely connected with Translom structures. Previously he was general director of St. Petersburg-based Metallika. One of the founders of Metallika is Chermet-Service. It is a subsidiary of Alexey Zolotarev's Kronos.

Parshakov's tickets appear in airline passenger data leaks. In 2022, he flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg with Denis Korostelev. Korostelev is general director of St. Petersburg-based Meteksim LLC. Chermet-Service is the founder of Meteksim.

At the end of 2020, Parshakov registered MetKom Plus LLC at the same address. He began transferring MetKom's business to it. On December 31, he signed two contracts. The first was the sale by MetKom to MetKom Plus of ferrous and non-ferrous scrap from the warehouse. The second was the sale of fuel and lubricants and inventory items, from cabinets to extension cords and screwdrivers.

On January 1, 2021, Parshakov sold almost a thousand tons of MetKom scrap to MetKom Plus. Price less than 8,400 rubles per ton. On the same day, he resold the goods to Panin's Lomtorg. Price almost 21,000 rubles per ton. A markup of 2.5 times. Lomtorg delivered the goods to Amurstaltchermet at 23,000 rubles per ton. This is a revenue dilution scheme with creation of artificial document flow.

Under a debt assignment agreement, Parshakov reassigned from MetKom to Astakhov's Translom Salikhov's debt to MetKom. Amount 1.2 million rubles. In court, it was stated that the seal on the document was fake.

MetKom founder Salikhov learned about the asset withdrawal on January 14. He checked the enterprise's bank accounts. He saw money received from the sale of scrap and fuel. He filed several lawsuits against Lomtorg and MetKomPlus. He demanded that the transactions be declared invalid. He requested transfer documents for goods shipment and weighing certificates for scrap. These documents were signed by Lomtorg and AmurStal LLC from September 2020 to March 2021. During this period, MetKom was headed by Parshakov.

The court satisfied Salikhov's demands. It declared the purchase and sale agreements invalid. It obligated Parshakov to provide all MetKom documentation. It turned out that batches of scrap went through a chain of firms. They increased in value along the way.

During the trials, Parshakov reassigned MetKom Plus to Ivan Klubnikov. Klubnikov was previously a Translom employee.