An oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, and who is suspected by several European judges of being linked to the Russian mafia, paid money to the company of a key figure in the scandal involving President Emmanuel Macron's former security advisor Alexandre Benalla, according to an investigation by Mediapart.
A payment of almost 300,000 euros was made to the company run by reservist gendarme officer Vincent Crase in June 2018, at a time when the latter was still employed by the French president's party La République en Marche (LREM) as the deputy 'security and safety' manager. Crase was with Alexandre Benalla when Macron's security advisor was caught on video using violence against demonstrators on May 1st 2018 in a scandal that rocked the French presidency over the summer.
Half of the funds sent by Putin's friend Iskander Makhmudov later went to a second security company, called Velours, for which Alexandre Benalla had been an advisor between 2013 and 2015.
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Vincent Crase was introduced to the LREM party by Benalla, a “friend” he has known for ten years. Crase had been Benalla's instructor when he had undergone military training for the gendarmerie back in 2009.
Between November 2017 and May 2018 Crase also worked as a reservist in the military command at the Élysée, having been hired, once again, on Benalla's recommendation. Crase was tasked by the Élysée's military commander General Éric Bio-Farina with setting up a team of 14 reservists in the palace's security service.
Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase hit the headlines in July 2018 when Le Monde newspaper broke the news of their involvement in violence committed against protestors at the May 1st demonstrations in Paris. Both men have subsequent been placed under formal investigation - one step short of charges being brought – for offences including assault.
The shock wave produced by the revelations forced the Élysée to sack Benalla, who up to that point had simply been suspended for a fortnight without the matter being referred to the prosecution authorities. Crase was eventually sacked from his role at LREM on July 31st, by the then party boss Christophe Castaner, who is today minister of the interior.
The Russian contract awarded to Vincent Crase related to the protection of people close to Iskander Makhmudov and of his properties. The oligarch became one of the richest men in Russia following a series of privatisations in the industrial and mining sectors at the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s. Forbes magazine estimates his net worth at 7.1 billion dollars.
Born in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, in 1963, Makhmudov likes France and he owns several properties here; a château in Sologne in north-central France, an upmarket villa at Ramatuelle near Saint-Tropez on the French Mediterranean, and some hunting land near Blois in central France. The financial set-ups involving several tens of millions of euros that sit discreetly behind his French properties operate through a network of companies based in several tax havens such as Cyprus, Luxembourg and Monaco where he also has numerous interests.
Iskander Makhmudov is today at the head of an industrial empire that includes copper producer UMMC, Transmashholding, Russia's largest maker of locomotives and rail equipment, and coal company Kuzbassrazrezugol. But he is not just a very wealthy businessman. Makhmudov has for many years been suspected of being personally linked to the Moscow-based criminal group Izmaylovskaya - reputedly one of the most dangerous in the world – according to judicial documents obtained by Mediapart in Spain and Germany.
It was during the first half of 2018 that talks took place in Paris between a French businessman close to Makhmudov and reservist gendarme Vincent Crase.
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Mediapart has been able to find a trace of at least one payment of 294,000 euros made in June 2018, a month after Crase was sacked by LREM. The money, which came from an Iskander Makhmudov account in Monaco, went to a company called Mars – a reference to President Emmanuel Macron's ironic nickname of 'Jupiter' – of which Vincent Crase is the only shareholder.
This company was created in August 2017, just after Emmanuel Macron's election as president, and just before Crase was hired as a reservist at the presidency thanks to Alexandre Benalla.
Out of the 294,000 euros paid to the company Mars by Makhmudov, 147,000 euros ended up in the account of a company named Velours Close, 22,500 euros went to Velours Sécurité and 114,000 went to Vincent Crase.
“We were contracted service providers for Mr Crase's concierge service company Mars who called on our services for a regulated provision of services for one of his clients,” the company Velours said after the initial publication of this article.
Despite being asked many times, Vincent Crase did not want to make any comment.
As for Alexandre Benalla, he insists that he has not worked for the Velours group since 2015. However, Marc-Antoine Jamet, a former first secretary of the socialist federation of the Eure département or county in Normandy and mayor of Val-de-Reuil near Rouen in Normandy, told the Paris Normandie newspaper that in August 2017 Benalla had sought a meeting with him to recommend Velours's services. Benalla denies this interpretation of what happened.
Contacted by Mediapart on December 16th, Benalla also said that he had played no part in the Russian contract obtained by his “friend” and former colleague Vincent Crase. “I have never taken part in the slightest negotiation, neither directly or indirectly, with Mr Makhmudov or his representatives concerning the contract with the company Mars and Mr Vincent Crase,” he said. Then, referring to himself in the third person, he insisted: “There is no link between Makhmudov and Benalla.”
However, President Macron's former security advisor was rather more confused when it came to his relationship with the French businessman – who is not being named here - who was the intermediary between Makhmudov and Crase.
Benalla insisted that he had only met this intermediary twice in his life, the first time in Morocco in 2016, then on a second occasion in Paris before the last presidential election campaign in 2017. In fact, however, the two men met several times in 2018 and were seen together by several witnesses on 25th and 26th August this year at the château in Dordogne in south-west France owned by businessman Vincent Miclet, who has extensive business interests in Africa.
Iskander Makhmudov also declined to talk to Mediapart. The Uzbek businessman's name has cropped up in several criminal investigations in Europe, particularly in Spain where he was placed under formal investigation in the context of a large-scale investigation launched in 2005 into the activities of the leaders of Russian organised crime groups in that country.
The investigators suspect some Russian mafia groups based on the Spanish coast of having laundered several tens of millions of euros produced from drugs trafficking and other illegal activities, using companies registered in Spain and in tax havens. The investigators discovered that Makhmudov controlled the parent company of Vera Metallurgica S.A. a company at the heart of the network (see Mediapart's article in French here).
Registered in Alicante in Spain, this metal company is said to have enabled at least four million euros from the proceeds of crime to be laundered between 2001 and 2004. Detectives also discovered a loan – never paid back – for 500,000 dollars. It was given to Vera Metallurgica by Pelir Investment & Trade S.A., a company registered in the tax haven of Belize and which was owned until it was closed down in 2004 by Iskander Makhmudov.
According to the Spanish prosecutors' indictment, dated March 13th, 2009, and of which Mediapart has obtained a copy, the Russian-Uzbek oligarch was suspected of “unlawful association” (with the criminal group Izmaylovskaya) and of “laundering funds”. Another accusation, dated May 29th 2015, stated that he was in “direct link” with Gennady Petrov, the suspected head of Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya, Russia's biggest criminal gang.
Telephone taps carried out between 2007 and 2008, copies of which have been obtained by Mediapart, support the idea of such a link. In them Iskander Makhmudov is referred to on numerous occasions by the nickname “Chinese” - because of his Uzbek origins – and sometimes by his relatively uncommon first name Iskander.
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For example, on June 23rd 2007 Gennady Petrov told the person he was speaking to that “the Chinese” was going to “start to pay, there's no other solution”. Two days later he told the same person: “The Chinese doesn't want us to call him on the telephone … they still haven't resolved their problems in Spain themselves … But they're going to pay back, most likely in cash I think.” On July 16th 2007 Gennady Petrov's son Anton Petrov also talks of a forthcoming meeting “with the Chinese and Andrey [editor's note, probably Makhmudov's business partner Andrey Bokarev]. I haven't seen the Chinese in person but Andrey approached me and I told him, all four of us will see each other.”
When questioned by Mediapart, the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor José Grinda was quite blunt, stating that “there was enough evidence to charge Iskander Makhmudov in Spain”. This was “based on the reports from Spanish police.” He added: “But the judge Fernando Andreu took the decision [editor's note, in 2011] to send his case number 101/2007-D to the the Russian prosecution authorities under the European Convention on the Transfer of Proceedings in Criminal Matters [editor's note, which says a state can judge its own citizens]. That happened while I was away.” Since the case was transferred the investigation has been buried and Grinda, who has close knowledge of the mafia groups operating out of the former Soviet Union, is fighting to get back the part of the case involving Makhmudov.
In January 2018 Iskander Makhmudov transferred most of the ownership of his companies in France to a company registered in Monaco, VKA Holding. Before then the funding for his properties in France came via a company based in Cyprus, Roundlake Enterprises Limited, which agreed to loans of several tens of millions of euros - up to a total of 83 million – in exchange for collateral in the form of shares in those property-owning companies. Iskander Makhmudov also used a company in Luxembourg, Qualitas Services Company, to oversee the security and reception of people at his properties in France.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter
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