Marriage fraud: How Aliaksei Aleksin’s unfamed relatives help the tobacco king evade sanctions

24 August 2024 , 13:10

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“Solvents and Thinners Schemer”, “Tobacco King”, “Orsha Offshore Owner”, “Smuggler” – these “epithets and regalia” brought businessman Aliaksei Aleksin wealth, success and influence in Belarus.

But in the West, the owner of the Tabakerka tobacco kiosk chain is now persona non grata. His closeness to the authorities earned him the nickname “moneybag” of Aleksandr Lukashenko, and in June 2021 he was placed on the EU sanctions list. And just two months later – in August 2021 – Aleksin was also blacklisted by the US authorities.

Before the implementation of restrictions, the businessman covered all bases and “redistributed” some of his assets between his wife and two sons. However, by June 2022, Dzmitry and Vital Aleksins were already subject to EU sanctions. The family is once again confronted with the challenge of finding new, untainted individuals to secure a stake in the business. But as it turned out, the tobacco king had some tricks up his sleeve.

Buro has discovered that Aliaksei Aleksin has secret relatives who are being carefully hidden by the oligarch’s family. After all, some of the businessman’s newfound kinship helps him avoid sanctions.

NOW A KISS!

12 August 2017. A rare 1949 Mercuryrey convertible aVankorrives at vich Manor restaurant in Minsk. In the rear of the vehicle is a young brunette in a snow-white wedding dress, identified as Viktoria Hubanava.

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Viktoria Hubanava’s wedding shoot. Source: Wedding planner’s Instagram account

In a few moments, the bride will exchange vows and rings with her husband-to-be in a ceremony set against a backdrop of vibrant purple hydrangeas and orchids.

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Wedding arch at Viktoria Hubanava’s wedding. Source: Wedding planner website

The sacred vows were followed by a gala at the restaurant. In addition to the bride’s glow, the banquet hall was illuminated by an array of glass, mirrors and silver sequin tablecloths. Organisers described this glittering display as an “icy fairy tale in the middle of a hot summer”.

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Banquet hall décor at Viktoria Hubanava’s wedding party. Source: Wedding planner website

No circus, no bread! The newlyweds and their guests danced the night away to the tunes of some famous show-biz stars, including Ivanushki International, Otpetye Moshenniki, the Belarusian band Brutto and its leader Siarhei Mikhalok.

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Celebrities perform at Viktoria Hubanava’s wedding. Source: Wedding planner website

The evening was rounded off with fireworks.

Buro has lots of photos and even videos from Viktoria Hubanava’s wedding party. Weddings traditionally involve couples, but none of the visuals showed the groom. It seems that both guests and organizers avoided identifying Viktoria’s soulmate on social media for some reason.

We did manage to find out who this mysterious chosen one is, though. What helped us identify the man was the convertible that brought Viktoria Hubanava to the ceremony. To be more precise, its license plate number 0007OA7.

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Screenshot from Viktoria Hubanava’s wedding video. Source: Wedding planner’s Instagram account

The car has been in the personal collection of Viktoria’s father-in-law, Aliaksei Aleksin, for many years, so Buro is very familiar with it.

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Judging by the few photos they share on social media, Dzmitry Aleksin and Viktoria Hubanava have been in a relationship since 2014.

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From left to right: Vital Aleksin, Viktoria Hubanava, Dzmitry Aleksin (December 2014). Source: Vkontakte account

This is them in 2015 on a fishing trip at the Krasny Bor resort.

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Viktoria Hubanava, Dzmitry Aleksin, and their friends fishing in Krasny Bor. Source: Instagram account of Viktoria Hubanava’s friend

And here Viktoria poses by the pool at Syabry, a country estate owned by her husband’s family.

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Viktoria Hubanava at the Syabry country estate. Source: Syabry’s Instagram account

Until 2021, Syabry was part of Aliaksei Aleksin’s tobacco company SZAO Energo-Oil. Following the introduction of EU sanctions against the businessman and the company itself, Syabry was transferred to another legal entity, Syomkovo Club, with 50/50 shares distributed between Aleksin’s sons. Following the placement of Dzmitry and Vital on the EU sanctions list in 2022, the firm was taken over by Aleksin’s wife, Ina. She remains the beneficiary of the firm to this day, with her younger son, Vital, serving as a director.

Buro has learned that Viktoria Hubanava and her relatives have successfully saved several assets previously registered to Aleksin’s eldest son, Dzmitry, from potential sanctions.

BEHIND EVERY GREAT MAN THERE’S A GREAT WOMAN

On 3 June 2022, Dzmitry Aleksin and his brother Vital were included in the new EU sanctions package. Just 27 days later, on June 30, the Belarusian company Metrazh abruptly changed its beneficiary. Dzmitry Aleksin, co-owner of the company since 2007, was succeeded by his wife Viktoria Hubanava.

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The company specialises in real estate leasing. A review of Metrazh’s financial statements for 2023 indicates that the company’s net profit was only 11,000 Belarusian rubles, which is a relatively modest level of activity. Despite this, the firm was able to secure loans and credits amounting to 4.7 million rubles (approximately $1.5 million).

In December 2023, Metrazh received a declaration of conformity for the reconstruction of a permanent structure for a multifunctional building, which included the demolition of permanent structures at 8 Autamabilistau Street. A half-hectare land plot is attached to the building, according to the public cadastral map. However, in April of this year, the company was dissolved and merged with another Aleksins’ firm, Alex Cargo, which Hubanava also inherited from her husband.

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Alex Cargo imports and sells spices, meat products and nicotine pouches from CIS, Europe and Asia. The company’s trade with some of these regions would certainly be jeopardized if its owner were on the sanctions list.

The company also owns the Hooper meat restaurant chain in Minsk. The first location opened in late October 2022 at the Konkors food court in Galileo Mall. This spring Alex Cargo registered two more catering facilities in the Belarusian capital: in the Frunzenski district on Akademika Vyshelesskogo Street and at 8/6 Kirova Street. In 2023, Alex Cargo contributed an additional 826,000 Belarusian rubles to the already substantial financial resources of the Aleksin family.

Apparently, Hooper Meateries helps develop Aleksin’s other meat business. The restaurant outlet in the Galileo shopping mall features a neon sign reading “MeatHouse”. This chain of stores is owned by another family asset, Veles-Meat.

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Hooper Corner in Galileo Mall. Source: konkors.by

Buro has uncovered indirect evidence indicating that Veles-Meat supplies meat products to restaurants owned by Alex Cargo. The Instagram accounts of Hooper and MeatHouse frequently publish shared posts, and the Maladzechna Meat Processing Plant website announced the opening of the first Hooper location.

Veles-Meat was previously known as Triple-Veles and was part of the Triple group of companies, which was associated with the now-disgraced businessman Yury Chyzh. Veles-Meat was established in 2008 as a result of the privatization of the Maladzechna Meat Processing Plant. In 2015, Lukashenko approved a decree authorizing the implementation of investment projects for the construction of two pig farms with a total capacity of 200,000 cattle. It was reported that the land was granted to Aleksin without auction and without payment for the right to conclude lease agreements. In addition, the company itself was allowed to hire design and contracting organizations without holding a tender. Furthermore, Veles-Meat was granted benefits in the form of a full VAT deduction until the end of 2018 according to the Decree. Lukashenko also exempted Aleksin from import duties and VAT on imported equipment.

Until June 2022, Veles-Meat was the property of another company of Aleksin’s sons, Grantlo. In July 2022, after Vital and Dzmitry were blacklisted by the EU, Veles-Meat was transferred to a new legal entity, OOO Sondao.

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Veles-Meat ended the year 2023 with a net profit of almost 25 million rubles (more than 8.3 million dollars) – an increase of 28% compared to the same period in 2022.

Sondao belongs to Andrei Hubanau, father of Viktoria Hubanava, Dzmitry Aleksin’s wife.

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Sondao not only “houses” Aleksin’s meat assets, but also imports pneumatic tyres for cars from France and Germany.

The company’s director position is held by Raman Paulovich. Thanks to CyberPartisans, we found out that in 2020, Paulovich was working as a company director and deputy sales manager at Veles-Meat.

Andrei Hubanau’s CV includes another curious workplace. In 2012, he was a deputy director at Atenais, according to data provided by CyberPartisans. This company is the registered owner of the Shangri La Casino in the capital.

Investigators had previously reported that Atenais was owned by a Cypriot company, Roslaton Holdings Limited, from 2011 to 2019. In 2019, this offshore company declassified its subsidiary in the reports – an Emirati company Petrotrade FZE, owned and managed by Dzmitry Aleksin. But in the very year that Aleksin’s Petrotrade FZE got exposed in the accounts of Roslaton Holdings Limited, the latter withdrew as the management company of the Belarusian Shangri La. The share was transferred to another Cypriot company, Demistat Company Limited. The ultimate beneficiary of Demistat Company Limited is the Russian Mekhti Mekhtiev. Together with Dzmitry Aleksin, they act as directors of the Turkish company MSDF, which owns a shopping center in Istanbul.

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The involvement of Andrei Hubanau, Aliaksei Aleksin’s co-father-in-law, in the activities of Atenais serves to confirm the participation of a prominent Belarusian businessman in the Shangri La Casino.

SHADY LEGACY

Aliaksei Aleksin seems to persist in utilising the established yet flawed strategy of “whitewashing” assets through their transfer to relatives and trusted individuals.

One of the key “keepers” of the Aleksin business, both before and after the imposition of sanctions, has been Dzmitry, the eldest son. He has a financial interest in the aforementioned Belneftegaz, Energo-Oil, Grantlo and IT company Kotvek. Some of the firms that could and should have been saved from the sanctions blockade were transferred to the custody of Viktoria Hubanava, his undisclosed wife, and Andrei Hubanau, Dzmitry’s father-in-law.

Buro has reason to believe that Dzmitry Aleksin and Viktoria Hubanava are not merely nominal participants in the business processes of Lukashenko’s “moneybag”, but may be full-fledged owners.

On 19 January 2020, a business jet Embraer Legacy 650 with the side number OE-ITA flew from Minsk to Basel. The company on board was pretty interesting: Dzmitry Aleksin, his wife Viktoria Hubanava and their one-month-old daughter Michelle. The family was accompanied by Yana Levaneuskaya, who used to work for Aleksin at Gaz Venture, Aliaksandr Maroz, who’s a member of Lukashenko’s Security Service, Siarhei Zeliankevich, an ex-employee of Lukashenko’s administration and second secretary of the Foreign Ministry, and Lukashenko’s eldest son Viktor.

However, there is more to the story, as the tobacco king has another son, Vital. Buro discovered that he had a secret spouse, too.

DANCING ON BONES

The month of August 2020 saw a significant increase in violent incidents in Belarus, representing some of the most turbulent days in the country’s recent history. The government’s violent dispersal of peaceful protesters, inhuman torture in detention, and the flooding of streets and avenues with crowds protesting the political crisis, which was provoked by the stolen presidential election, has been met with international condemnation. Aliaksandr Taraikouski was shot dead by security forces, which is remembered as one of the most tragic days in recent history. On 15 August 2020, thousands of people gathered in public spaces to lay flowers at a spontaneous memorial and observe a moment of silence in memory of the police victim.

At that precise moment, 7 km from the memorial, at the Lebyazhiy restaurant, there was no sign of grief or mourning for the deceased. In contrast, the guests gathered in a different, more celebratory setting to congratulate newlyweds Nadzeya Zaitsava and Vital Aleksin.

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The wedding party of Nadzeya Zaitsava and Vital Aleksin. Source: Wedding photographer website

The banquet hall was tastefully decorated in a truly magnificent style. The bridal couple’s praesidium was a four-metre-high structure adorned with live peonies and regular roses. The panel was enhanced by one-and-a-half-metre compositions of live hydrangeas and roses of pastel colours, complemented by the addition of artificial candles on the tables, which contributed to the overall ambience. The groom maintained a low profile and was not exposed on socials by the guests or organisers.

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Banquet hall décor at Nadzeya Zaitsava’s wedding party. Source: Wedding planner’s Instagram account

The calories consumed from the exquisite cuisine could be offset with the help of esteemed celebrity guests, Verka Serdyuchka and rap duo HammAli & Navai.

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Celebrities perform at Nadzeya Zaitsava’s wedding. Source: Wedding photographer website

The evening’s finale was a substantial four-tiered cake, adorned with a floral “cap”.

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Wedding cake at Nadzeya Zaitsava’s wedding. Source: Wedding planner’s Instagram account

The fact that Aliaksei Aleksin’s youngest son had also found personal happiness and tied the knot would probably go unnoticed by the public and journalists. Vital, just like his brother Dzmitry, was trying to keep their wedding and themselves out of the public eye. Buro was able to confirm this event thanks to the same car belonging to Aliaksei Aleksin – a rare 1949 Mercury Monterey. The wedding photos of Nadeya Zaitsava in this convertible were discovered in the portfolio of the same photographer who captured the celebration of Dzmitry Aleksin and Viktoria Hubanava.

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Nadeya Zaitsava’s wedding shoot. Source: Wedding photographer website

Buro has also determined that Nadzeya Aleksina, maiden name Zaitsava, is not currently an owner or manager in any company within the Aleksin business empire. Nevertheless, we felt it necessary to disclose the fact of her marriage to Vital Aleksin in order to prevent attempts by Lukashenko’s moneybag to transfer assets to his second daughter-in-law.

Source: buromedia.io

Sophia Martinez

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