Sergei Anatolyevich Mikhailov

Sergei Anatoljewitsch Michailow ( Russian : Сергей Анатольевич Михайлов; born February 7, 1958 in Moscow , Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic , USSR ) is a Russian businessman and the most powerful godfather of the largest and most influential Russian criminal syndicate " .skaya " Solnavaya . He is better known by his nickname "Michas".

Mikhailov's lawyer Sergei Pogramkov denies his client's criminal affiliation. According to Pogramkow, this is a myth that organized crime only exists on newspaper pages.

Origin and youth

Michailow was born and raised in Moscow's Solnzewo district, where he lived in Novoperedelkinskaya Ulitsa (street name) until the 1990s. His father worked in the gas emergency service and in the company fire brigade in the Moscow research facility "Plastic", which dealt with issues of polymer processing. His sister is called Tatiana Samochina.

As a young man in the center of Moscow, Mikhailov trained as a head waiter with a knowledge of English at the “Sovetskaya” hotel, where he worked for six years. According to information from the Russian security authorities, he also worked in the restaurants "Khrustalnyj" and "Sevastopol". In his free time he devoted himself to Greco-Roman wrestling and was a candidate for the championship title in this martial and weight training during the Soviet era.

In 1984, at the age of 26, he was convicted of insurance fraud. He stole his own motorcycle and took compensation from his insurance company. Moscow City Court sentenced him to three years suspended prison sentence. He spent over six months in custody and was then released early as a first-time offender. As a convict, he could no longer be employed in the restaurant. For several years he did low-paid work in the research facility "Plastik" and in an unspecified cooperative.

In the late 1980s, Mikhailov tried, with little success, to organize a tour of the USSR for Chinese wushu fighters.

At the end of the 1980s, Mikhailov also took his first steps as an entrepreneur. At Moscow-Vnukovo Airport, his cooperative traded flowers and various necessities next to Semyon Yudkovich Mogilevich's stalls . It was then that the two future mafia bosses met and became friends.

Establishment of the Solnzewo Brotherhood

As a successful martial artist and former prison inmate, he succeeded in rallying the youth of Solnzewo around himself and his sports colleague Viktor Awerin. A loyal companion was Yevgeny Ljustarnow, who had been charged with murder in 1976, but was then declared insane and released. Mikhailov started creating sports clubs by recruiting unemployed, aggressive young men from the same district. Together with Awerin, he founded a new criminal group in the second half of the 1980s and named them "Solnzewskaja" after the Solnzewo district. Faced with the threat from a Chechen group, Mikhailov allied himself in 1989 with Sergei Timofejew (alias: Silvestr), the leader of the Orechovskaya group, which consisted mainly of athletes and wrestlers. By the end of the 1980s, the brigade, with its leaders Mikhailov, Aveverin and Timofejew, had already protected and controlled more than 20 commercial enterprises in the city and Moscow region, including the former employer Mikhailov's "Sovetskaya" hotel.

blackmail

When Mikhailov, along with his cronies Timofejew, Aveverin and Ljustarnow, was arrested in December 1989 for extorting money and Volvo cars, the testifying witnesses named 24 companies that enjoyed the "protection" of his brigade. These included numerous restaurants such as “Pokrowka”, “Olimp”, “Turist”, “Kometa”, “Aist”, “Nil”, “Jakor”. The brigade stored their weapons in some of these restaurants. The chairman of the “Fond” cooperative, Wadim Rosenbaum, was blackmailed by Solnzewskaya. First, Rosenbaum had asked his friend Arkadij Margolin to find people who could protect him from racketeers. Margolin introduced Rosenbaum to the "athletes" Michas, Awera and Silvestr. Rosenbaum later stated during the investigation that when they first met the "athletes" didn't want money, but a trip to West Germany and new cars such as Volvo or Mercedes-Benz . Rosenbaum's German business partner Armen Heck procured a Volvo each for Michailow and Awerin, who came to Germany especially, and Rosenbaum paid for them. However, two vehicles were insufficiently paid for the protection services provided. Rosenbaum gave Mikhailov, Aveverin and Ljustarnov various fictitious posts in his cooperative and paid them a monthly wage that was very high for the time (over 1,000 rubles): Mikhailov became head of the purchasing department, Aveverin deputy chairman for sports and health issues, and Ljustarnov authorized director. In reality, they did not practice these activities. Five members of the Solnzewo Brotherhood, including Awerin's youngest brother Aleksandr, took care of the actual protection of the cooperative and also received a high monthly salary from Rosenbaum. Timofejew also asked Rosenbaum for a car. According to witnesses, he gave him three days to think about it and after that time simply took a new Volvo. Mikhailov spent 1 year and 8 months in custody. The case was then closed for lack of evidence because the witnesses had been threatened and withdrew their testimony. They claimed that they made their statements on the instructions of the cooperative owner Rosenbaum. During this second arrest and the subsequent investigation, Mikhailov's criminal organization was first referred to by the authorities as "solnzewskaja gruppirowka".

In the course of several searches, various authorization certificates or ID cards were found near Mikhailov. At the end of 1989 an employee ID card from a fictitious company "Fond Armen Heck" was found on him, which gave the owner the right to use a Volvo vehicle. Mikhailov could be make to itself this card by an officer of the press service of the Interior Ministry license plates to be able to apply those special rights were connected. In November 1994, Mikhailov's home was searched again and two other IDs were found. One granted him full access to the Russian Presidential Administration (as an employee) and the other identified him as a CNN correspondent.

Arrest and emigration to Israel

Between 1991 and 1993, Mikhailov was not prosecuted. During this time he was able to expand the sphere of influence of his Solnzewo brotherhood and legalize his criminal business. With his direct participation various companies were founded: "Maksim", "SW-Holding" and "Arbat International" in Russia, "Magnex" in Hungary, "Arigon" in England and "Empirebond" in Israel.

In the autumn of 1993, Mikhailov was arrested in connection with the murder of Valery Vlasov, director of the "Valery" casino . It had been determined that all of Moscow's prestigious casinos were under the control of the Solntsevo Brotherhood. Mikhailov's lawyer Pogramkov called these suspicions absurd. Mikhailov was released from pretrial detention on the evening of his arrest, followed by the other 12 suspects of the Brotherhood the next day. Shortly after this incident, Mikhailov left Russia in December 1993. Pogramkov cited the unfounded persecution of his client by the Russian law enforcement authorities as the cause. Mikhailov settled in Israel and obtained Israeli citizenship, but at the same time remained a Russian citizen. At the time, Mikhailov was married to a Russian Jew, from whom he later divorced. Second, Mikhailov's mother was Jewish, which gave him the right to Israeli citizenship. During the judicial investigation into Mikhailov's arrest in Geneva in 1996, the Swiss authorities found that Mikhailov had entered into a marriage of convenience with Yelena Medvedovskaya in order to be naturalized in Israel. At the same time, however, Mikhailov remained married to his wife Ludmila. During the trial in Switzerland, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior informed Mikhailov in 1998 that his Israeli citizenship would be revoked.

In Israel, Mikhailov became chairman of the international non-governmental organization “House of Orphans”, a non-profit organization , and at the same time, according to the lawyer Pogramkow, ran his business in Austria, Belgium and the USA. In Belgium, Mikhailov was the managing director of MAB International , which consulted companies dealing in household goods. In the USA, KARTA Auto Brokers was based in Houston , where Mikhailov was a member of the Board of Directors. The company only existed between June 1995 and February 1998.

In 1993, Michailow and Aveverin came to Vienna with their families to find a place to stay. Their families lived in the Austrian capital until 1995. Awerin's children went to school there, while Mikhailov employed a governess for his children.

In November 1994, the General Prosecutor's Office and the FSB had Moscow law enforcement agencies ransacked Mikhailov's home in Solntsevo in connection with the corruption criminal case. In this corruption case, criminal authorities and their lawyers paid bribes to members of the militia, district attorneys' offices and district courts. The employee of a café Viktor Klestow, who was accused of paying bribes to civil servants, regularly used the landline number of Sergei Mikhailov, who had his telephone line connected to that of the café before he left for Israel. Thus, the public prosecutor could have the apartment searched. A pump gun, $ 70,000 and two forged ID cards - that of an employee of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation and that of a CNN correspondent - were seized. The Public Prosecutor's Office then brought proceedings against Mikhailov for illicit possession of weapons, which were dropped two years later for lack of a criminal offense.

Honorary Consul of Costa Rica

In addition, Mikhailov had big plans for developing economic relations between Russia and Costa Rica and he also planned to become Honorary Consul of Costa Rica. The Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Affairs awarded Mikhailov the title of Honorary Consul in February 1994 and accordingly sent a diplomatic card to the Russian Foreign Ministry, which, however, did not recognize Mikhailov's appointment. Mikhailov therefore never performed the duties of an honorary consul. In his diplomatic ID, Mikhailov used the misleading term "professor" as the job title. Moscow City Police investigators believed that Mikhailov's main interest in Costa Rica was cocaine, but they had no evidence.

Bratwa meeting in the Czech Republic

Little is known about the internal mechanism of the Solnzewo brotherhood, but the Bratwa is apparently controlled by a committee of twelve people, which meets regularly in different parts of the world on festive occasions. At Viktor Aveverin's birthday party in Prague in May 1995, the Czech police arrested Mikhailov along with others present. According to the police, more than thirty representatives of the Solnzewo Brotherhood gathered there. The arrested were released on the same day, but the Czech authorities forbade Mikhailov and Averin to re-enter.

Charity

In the mid-1990s, Mikhailov and Awerin set up the charity foundation “Utschastije”, which was supposed to support churches, prisons and orphanages. Among other things, the foundation partially paid for the construction of the church bell tower with 9 bells in the village of Fedosjino. The largest bell with a weight of 75 poods contains the inscription: “From church leaders, the charity foundation“ Utschastije ”, the company“ SW-Holding ”and the Solnzewskaya Bratwa”. Mikhailov was also the founder of SW Holding . In addition, the foundation donated food, electrical goods and 500 pairs of jeans to the Moscow Prison Service No. 1 (unofficial name: "Matrosskaja tischina" ).

Pretrial detention in Switzerland

In 1996 Michailow emigrated to Switzerland . On October 15, 1996, he was arrested in Geneva. His multi-million dollar Swiss accounts were immediately frozen. As early as 1994, the Swiss authorities had drawn up a list of 300 people born in the Soviet Union who were suspected of having close links with the Russian mafia. This case, about which the economically liberal Russian newspaper Kommersant reported very extensively , caused a sensation in Russia and Switzerland. While in custody, Mikhailov was in the Champ-Dollon prison in the canton of Geneva . The Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Yuri Ilyich Skuratov , confessed that his subordinates had leaked false information about Mikhailov's criminal activities to the Swiss authorities. It stated that Mikhailov was not known to the Russian law enforcement authorities. Skuratov explained this error by saying that the criminal files in question were removed from the computer system of the Russian law enforcement agencies.

Charges

The formal reason for Mikhailov's arrest at Geneva airport was charges of violating the so-called Lex Koller on the acquisition of land by foreigners (he forgot to state his previous convictions when applying for Israeli citizenship). A little later came the charges of belonging to organized crime and money laundering. In essence, however, the prosecution relied on the fact that Mikhailov was the leader of the Solnzewo Brotherhood, which was already well known in Western Europe. The Swiss legal protection authorities relied on a tape on which a conversation between Mikhailov and the Russian mafiosi Sergei Ivanets from Greece was recorded. The interview was carried out by the defendant on April 24, 1996 from his villa in the municipality of Borex . During this conversation, Mikhailov claimed that he was a member of Solntsevo and the one who made all the decisions. Taken together with the information already available from the security authorities of various countries, this resulted in a picture of the Solnzewo bandits who controlled the drug market and organized prostitution and were involved in numerous cases of contract killings and extortion. It is difficult to prove that Mikhailov was behind all these crimes. But his own admission, confirmed many times by police sources, that he was at the head of the criminal group, gave him the image of a “mafia godfather”.

While searching his home in Borex, the Geneva police found an agreement signed by Mikhailov which obliged him to pay Boris Birschtein $ 150 million. According to various intelligence services, Birschtein is said to have transferred KGB funds to the West in the 1980s. In 1982 he founded the Seabeco company in Zurich on behalf of the KGB . Then he got involved in several legal cases and left Zurich in early 1994. He first went to Antwerp and then later returned to his Latvian hometown Vilnius . As part of his investigations in Brussels and Antwerp, the Geneva examining magistrate, Georges Zecchin, who was commissioned with the Michailov case, found out in 1997 that Michailov had actually transferred tens of millions of dollars to Birschtein via the “Kredietbank Nederland”. However, Zecchin could not determine with certainty whether Birschtein was the money launderer of the Solnzewo brotherhood or one of the people who controlled the gang. According to a Belgian police officer who led an investigation into Seabeco Belgique , a subsidiary of Seabeco , in Antwerp in 1994 , there was evidence that members of the Russian mafia were in close contact with former KGB agents.

The prosecution set out to prove that Mikhailov, on the one hand, belonged to a mafia group before his arrival in Switzerland and, on the other hand, that he continued his criminal activity in Switzerland. For active participation in an organized criminal group, a penalty of 7.5 years was imprisonment in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Canton of Geneva.

During his detention, Michailow sent the Brotherhood written instructions through his Geneva lawyer Ralph Oswald Isenegger. Isenegger was arrested on March 16, 1998 while trying to hand over the documents received from Mikhailov to his liaison man Andrei Kondow. Kondow, who was also arrested, admitted that Mikhailov had served as a liaison officer and received and forwarded various documents. The examining magistrate Georges Zecchin planned to bring a further charge against Mikhailov: Mikhailov is said to have continued his criminal "operations" from prison with the support of his lawyer Isenegger. Isenegger was charged with aiding and abetting a criminal organization.

Prosecution witnesses

When examining magistrate Zecchin in Miami about the structure of the Solntsevo Brotherhood and its role in the criminal world, FBI agent Robert Levinson testified that Solntsevskaya was headed by Sergei Mikhailov and should be marked as a classified criminal organization. Number two and "right hand" Mikhailov is Viktor Averin and the third man is the " thief in the law " Jemal Hashidze. So-called coordinators are subordinate to these three, who distribute tasks among the fraternity members and monitor the execution of orders. The coordinators include Arnold Tamm (code name: Arnold Solnzewski), Anatoli Anisimow (code name: Bulylolija) and Aleksandr Awerin (brother of Viktor Awerin, code name: Awera Malenki). They are subordinate to between 5 and 50 fighters ( bojewiki ). The “Obschtschjak” joint fund is part of the organizational structure. Levinson named three treasurers of the brotherhood: Leonid Orlov, Yevgeny Novitsky and Sergei Ferronsky. In addition, there are two departments responsible for maintaining discipline, murders and resolving conflicts with other groups. These departments are headed by Yuri Drozhzhin and Aleksandr Sedov. Levinson cited two examples of disciplinary abuse penalties. Mikhailov suspected Leonid Orlov, who ran the Moscow company SV Holding Inc. , of stealing funds from the Brotherhood and approved his murder. Later, however, thanks to the intercession of Sergei Pogramkov, Mikhailov's lawyer, Orlov was allowed to live. But he was punished anyway: After a heavy beating, his car and apartment were taken from him. The second victim of the "internal cleansing" was Yuri Denisov, who during Viktor Aveverin's birthday party on May 31, 1995 in Prague, allowed himself to ask Mikhailov for an accountability report on the use of the Obshchjak funds. Mikhailov replied that it was not the time to discuss this. Denisov was shot dead a month later.

A far more valuable witness for the Swiss investigative authorities was Major Nikolai Uporov of the Moscow Regional Directorate for the Fight against Organized Crime. At the request of the Geneva court, Uporov came to Switzerland, testified for 17 hours and talked to Mikhailov over a video camera so that he could not see the witness. Uporov had worked in Moscow's Gagarinsky district since 1987, where the Solntsevo Brotherhood began its criminal machinations and had the greatest influence. The Russian officer gave the Swiss authorities some completely unknown information for the record. In the course of the proceedings, Mikhailov asked the Russian policeman whether he was actually a major. After Uporow had confirmed this, the defendant threatened him that he would no longer be a major after his return, but would be fired for testifying against him. When Uporov asked for the defendant's words to be recorded, Mikhailov shouted that it was just a joke. Then he wrote in his notebook "Death is stronger than death" (Russian: "смерть сильнее смерти") and held it for Uporow in the video camera. According to his testimony against Mikhailov, the Solnzewo Brotherhood passed a death sentence on Uporov. Due to massive pressure from his corrupt colleagues from the Ministry of the Interior and the FSB, his health deteriorated rapidly. Uporow asked Switzerland for political asylum , which he was granted. He got a job as an advisor to the Geneva police on matters relating to the Russian mafia and the opportunity to have his heart disease treated.

Wadim Rosenbaum, the former chairman of the “Fond” cooperative, should also appear as an important witness in the Mikhailov case. Rosenbaum had been forced to add the Solnzewo bandits to his company's workforce, whereupon three of his security guards and then his business partner Wiktor Titow, chairman of the company “Tirol”, perished. In 1993 Rosenbaum finally fled to the Netherlands . In 1996 he received a final warning from the Brotherhood when they killed his father with two knife stabs in the head in the town of Lobnya . The examining magistrate, Georges Zecchin, learned about Rosenbaum through Major Uporow, who assured that Rosenbaum had truthfully testified in 1989 about the extortion of his cooperative by Mikhailov and his gang and only retracted his testimony on the basis of threats. But even before Zecchin could make an appointment with Rosenbaum for questioning, Rosenbaum was killed in his villa in Amsterdam by several headshots in the summer of 1997, during the hottest phase of the judicial investigation . Shortly before his death, Rosenbaum promised by telephone to share his experiences with Mikhailov with a Kommersant correspondent, but foreboding of danger he refrained from doing so.

There were two other witnesses who worked with the FBI. Aleksandr Abramovich, who ran a jewelry store in Moscow, told the court how the Solnzewo Brotherhood and Mikhailov personally destroyed his life. Abramowitsch was forced to flee to the USA after the Solnzewo Brotherhood extorted 40% of his income from him as protection money through the use of force. The witness testified that between 1993 and October 1995 he paid $ 1 million in cash, $ 600,000 in bank transfer and $ 400,000 in loan to Mikhailov and his gang.

The second witness was a former bodyguard who was on the FBI's witness protection program and appeared in court under his new name, Michael Schranz. Schranz was born in Yugoslavia, came to Austria as a child and trained as a bodyguard. He was therefore hired by Tofik Azimov and David Sanikidze, governors of a Georgian mafia group in Moscow and friend of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze , in the Vienna company Atkom . He was one of seven bodyguards from Sanikidze. Schranz testified that even back then, Mikhailov was known as the head of the Solnzewskaya Group and Viktor Aveverin as his "right hand man". About Atkom the illegally obtained money has been washed, which arrived via trunk or bank transfer from Russia, while Azimow contained diplomatic mail from Moscow that money at Vienna airport, picked up. A certain professor Vladimir Volodin dealt with the money laundering at Atkom , who introduced himself as Boris Yeltsin's doctor and who owned a photograph of him with the president. Volodin bought medical equipment in Austria and Israel and sent it to Russia. Schranz also stated in court that the Russian consul in Austria, Vladimir Koschel, had good relations with Mikhailov and the heads of Atkom . In April 1994 Schranz was appointed to the company's management office, where he met Michailow, Azimow, Sanikidze and Eduard Ivankov (the son of Vyacheslav Kirillowitsch Ivankow ). Mikhailov told him that they had been betrayed by the American Leonid Ventschik (or Venzhik) and commissioned Schranz to kill him for a payment of 20 million schillings, which Schranz refused. A little later, Azimov asked Schranz to kill his business partner Sanikidze, which the bodyguard again refused. In February 1996, Sanikidze finally asked von Schranz to kill a Jew who had traveled from Russia, which Schranz refused to do. Schranz came specially from the USA to testify against Mikhailov in court. Because Schranz refused to reveal his real name before the Geneva court, his own testimony was not confirmed by the court and was therefore irrelevant.

defense

The defendant was represented in court by the Swiss lawyers Alec Reymond and Pascal Maurer and the Belgian lawyer Xavier Magnée. The defense portrayed Mikhailov as an honest entrepreneur and a victim of his competitors. In Switzerland he was merely looking for companies that could take on the contract to renovate the Moscow sewer system and to build a gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Ukraine . Both projects together would be worth $ 350 million. Various testimonials about Mikhailov's charity were also presented to the court, including a letter of thanks from Nikolai Barinov, head of the Moscow Correctional Service No. 1, for the purchase of 10 tons of salt worth 5 million rubles, as well as food (powdered milk, sugar, crackers, tea ) and cigarettes from Mikhailov's "Utschastije" foundation. Mikhailov also donated additional charity to the 176th Militia Department , the Patriarchal Church of the Transfiguration of Christ and the orphanage No. 2 in Moscow.

As a defense witness, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark called on the court not to believe FBI agent Robert Levinson's testimony. The Russian entrepreneur Leonid Orlov, who had been identified by Levinson as the treasurer of the Bratwa and subjected to punitive action by his cronies, testified under oath that he had never been beaten and that he had never given his car or apartment to anyone. It turned out that Levinson had made a mistake in his testimony. His informant mistook Leonid Orlov for Aleksei Kaschajew, another leader of the Solnzewo brotherhood, who had actually been punished by the Bratwa.

Important witnesses of the defense were also Swiss businessmen who were involved in the realization of Mikhailov's projects (Moscow sewerage, gas pipeline). To support the cooperation between the Moscow Holding Sistema (chairman: Yevgeny Novizki, named by Levinson as one of the three Bratva treasurers) and the Ukrainian energy company Itera , four companies were founded in the canton of Vaud : the management consultancy Plamosa Management & Finance (founded in 1992), Eastline SA , where Mikhailov was administrative director, Cougar Distribution SA (founded in 1991) and SCFI (with an initial capital of CHF 100,000). During the course of the lawsuit, it emerged that all four companies had the same accountant. In 1997 a contract was signed with Swiss companies to create an investment fund to finance the rehabilitation of the Moscow sewer system. But the Swiss did not succeed in raising the necessary funds. With regard to the gas pipeline project, it was mentioned in court that Mikhailov met personally with representatives from Itera in Belgium in 1996 . At this meeting, mediated by the head of the Seabeco Group Boris Birnstein, no agreement could be reached, because the Itera representatives did not agree with the terms of the Solnzewskaja Bratwa. Mikhailov's Swiss business partners described in a letter that the defendant was held in high regard in Moscow. When they arrived in Moscow, they were escorted through the city in police vehicles with flashing lights and sirens and were received by the Moscow Vice Minister. Mikhailov is known to Gorbachev and his wife and is closely connected to the ruling political milieu under President Yeltsin .

Court ruling

Despite great efforts by examining magistrate Georges Zecchin, it was not possible to prove that Mikhailov's investments of 3 million francs in various Swiss companies had a criminal background. The Geneva court ruled in December 1998 that Mikhailov was not the leader of a criminal organization. The testimony of former Russian citizens against Mikhailov did not have much effect in court, as the Swiss penal code only provides for punishment for offenses against Switzerland or its citizens. In the process, Mikhailov was exonerated from allegations of money laundering and was acquitted for lack of evidence. The Swiss authorities alleged that the Russian law enforcement authorities had refused to cooperate in the investigation of the Mikhailov case, which the Russian side partially admitted in 1999. In July 2000, a Swiss court upheld Mikhailov's complaint about missing income during two years of pre-trial detention, so that the Geneva authorities had to pay Mikhailov $ 530,000 in compensation.

Major Nikolai Uporov was convinced that the Russian Attorney General Yuri Skuratov had not done enough to put the Solntsevo leader behind bars. Skuratov was the first of the high-ranking Russian officials to openly declare that Mikhailov was the leader of a criminal organization, initiated numerous investigations within his authority and volunteered to witness against Mikhailov. In Uporov's opinion, his testimony before the Geneva court could have had a decisive influence on the entire course of the trial. But Skuratov did not appear in court, which Uporov saw as a significant sign.

Further developments

After the acquittal, Mikhailov had to leave Switzerland. Since he no longer had Israeli citizenship either, he had no choice but to return to Moscow. In 1997, while he was still in custody, Mikhailov controlled major oil, advertising, telecommunications and tourism companies inside and outside Russia. He also controlled practically all electronic payments in the Ural region .

At the beginning of 1999, Mikhailov was summoned to the General Prosecutor's Office in connection with the investigation into the organization of the Solntsevskaya group. In October 1999 he was a candidate for the Conservative Party of Russia in the Taganrog district in southern Russia for just two days , until it was discovered that he had failed to indicate his Greek citizenship when registering for the candidate. Between 2000 and 2001, the Schengen states , the USA, Hungary , Latvia and Tunisia refused to issue entry visas to Mikhailov and the French authorities refused entry into France for security reasons. Mikhailov's name also appeared in connection with the "Spider Web" operation carried out by the Italian police in connection with the money laundering of Russian mafia funds. One of the witnesses stated that Mikhailov had legalized large sums of money in Italy.

As in the late 1980s, Mikhailov continued to go about his business at Moscow Vnukovo Airport in 2010, but no longer in small stalls, but in the airport's cargo buildings. Through the Aerotoria company, Mikhailov and his business partners controlled 75% of the Vnukovo terminal company , which in 2009 brought in 243.7 million rubles in profit.

Michailow and Awerin founded YBM Magnex International together with Semjon Mogilewitsch in Budapest in 1992 . The company headquarters were soon relocated to Pennsylvania . In 1994, they listed YBM shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange because Canada's stock exchange was poorly regulated. The main shareholders were the wives of Michas and Avevera - Lyudmila Michailowa and Lyudmila Awerina. The company officially manufactured industrial magnets, but was primarily used to smuggle mafia money into the North American markets.

For a time, Mikhailov was a business partner of Dmitri Amunz, who later became Deputy Minister of Education. Until 2003, Mikhailov owned 3.9% of the Merkator Holding company , which supplied the state with road construction technology and urban utility vehicles (street sweepers, garbage trucks, etc.), while Amunz owned 46.16%. Between 1998 and 2007, Merkator earned 3.5 billion rubles. According to the testimony of the chairman and co-owner of Merkator Stanislav Nikolayev, Mikhailov had financially supported the company in the initial phase when the factory was heavily indebted and the workers could not pay their salaries.

In 2002 Michailow, Aveverin and the Swiss company Tonalito AG , based in Glarus, founded MTK-international in Moscow. In 2007, through MTK-international , Mikhailov and Awerin acquired the hotel "Zentralnyj dom turista" (Central Tourist House) - 33 floors with 65,000 m², 495 rooms, 3 restaurants and 3 conference halls - which they had renovated and which they had renovated in 2009 under the new name " Astrus “reopened. Mikhailov's offices are also located in the building.

Since January 2010, Mikhailov and Awerin have owned the Moscow commercial company Dom mebeli (furniture store), which was converted to trading in food.

Lawsuit against Navalny

In August 2017, Mikhailov filed a lawsuit against Alexei Navalny in a Moscow court . The reason for this was that the anti-corruption foundation led by Navalny (Фонд борьбы с коррупцией) had put an investigative documentary on the dubious family business of Yuri Chaika on the Internet, in which Mikhailov is allegedly mentioned as the head of the criminal syndicate "Bratntzewskaja" should. Because of "insulting honor and dignity", the plaintiff demanded from Navalny, albeit unsuccessfully, a compensation for pain and suffering in the amount of 250,000 rubles.

Private life

Mikhailov has at least two daughters: Aleksandra and Vera. On October 7, 2002, Aleksandra Alan married Sergejewitsch Azizjan (or Dawydow). Around 500 guests attended the wedding celebration in a Moscow restaurant, including numerous celebrities: singer Irina Alexandrovna Allegrowa , writer Lion Izmailov, chanson singer Alexander Jakowlewitsch Rosenbaum , singer Iossif Davydowitsch Kobson , musician Yuri Mikhailovich Antonov, actor Leonid Arkadyevich Yakubovich, poet Mikhailovich Yakubovich, poet , Singer Irina Adolfowna Otijewa, poet Larisa Aleksejewna Rubalskaja and President of the Russian Olympic Committee Leonid Wassiljewitsch Tjagachev.

Web links

• Homepage of Sergei Mikhailov

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Jekaterina Zapodinskaja: Жизнь солнцевского авторитета. Professor Михась покоряет мир , Kommersant, December 7, 1995, No. 227, p. 14, accessed on May 22, 2020.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Jekaterina Zapodinskaja: Из зала сюда , Kommersant Vlast, December 22, 1998, No. 49, p. 39, accessed on May 24, 2020.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Roman Schlejnow: Ничего лишнего - только бизнес. Как живут авторитетные предприниматели - герои лихих 1990-х гг. , Vedomosti, November 7, 2010, accessed May 27, 2020.
4. ^ Federico Varese: Mafias on the Move. How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2013, pp. 65 ff, ISBN 978-0-691-15801-3 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Kirill Beljaninow: ПОСЛЕДНЯЯ ЛЕКЦИЯ ПРОФЕССОРА МИХАСЯ , Ogonyok , November 11, 1996, No. 46, p. 4, accessed on May 23, 2020.
6. ↑ Ekaterina Zapodinskaja: В Швейцарии рассекретили уголовное дело Михася. Михась оказался евреем , Kommersant, August 8, 1997, No. 128, p. 6, accessed on May 24, 2020.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Kommersant: Прокурор дал Михасю совет стать мусульманином , December 2, 1998, No. 225, p. 1, accessed May 27, 2005.
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Jekaterina Zapodinskaja: От Михася до наших дней , Kommersant, June 25, 2002, No. 107, p. 6, accessed on May 24, 2020.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Kommersant: "Это самые безумные показания, которые я слышал" Только и сказал Михась , from December 4, 1998, accessed on May 27, 2020.
10. ^ Federico Varese: Mafias on the Move. How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2013, pp. 66 ff, ISBN 978-0-691-15801-3 .
11. ↑ ^{a b} Vladimir Ivanidze: Проверку швейцарских счетов могут начать с Михася , Kommersant, January 31, 1997, No. 1, p. 2, accessed May 23, 2020.
12. ↑ ^{a b c} Jekaterina Zapodinskaja: Главному свидетелю по делу Михася угрожают убийством , Kommersant, from July 22, 1997, No. 115, p. 1, accessed on May 23, 2020.
13. ↑ ^{a b} Dmitrij Pawlow: Суд отказал Михасю в освобождении , Kommersant, July 3, 1997, No. 102, p. 5, accessed on May 23, 2020.
14. ↑ Stephen Handleman: Comrade Criminal. Russia's New Mafiya, Yale University Press, New Haven 1995, p. 372, ISBN 0-300-06352-0 .
15. ↑ intelligenceonline.com: MICHALOV BETWEEN MAFIA AND KGB , March 27, 1997, archived under: [1] , accessed May 25, 2020.
16. ↑ ^{a b c d} Igor Sedych, Jekaterina Zapodinskaja: Швейцарский суд над русской мафией , Kommersant, October 28, 1998, No. 201, p. 1, accessed on May 24, 2020.
17. ↑ Kommersant: Михась встретится со своим адвокатом на очной ставке , May 26, 1998, No. 92, p. 7, accessed on May 24, 2020.
18. ↑ Parliament of the Republic of Austria: Stenographic Protocol. 121st meeting of the National Council of the Republic of Austria , on May 14, 1998, accessed on May 26, 2020.
19. ↑ ^{a b} Igor Sedych, Pawel Kuibyshev: Михась: я не знаю, кто такие "солнцевские" , Kommersant, December 9, 1998, No. 230, p. 1, accessed on May 24, 2020.
20. ↑ ^{a b} Interview by Nikolai Uporow with the magazine “Wasch tajnyj sovjetnik” (Ваш тайный советник), No. 9, 2000, archived at: compromat.ru , accessed on May 25, 2020.
21. ↑ moneyhouse.ch: Plamosa Management & Finance, A. Milowanow , accessed on May 24, 2020.
22. ↑ easymonitoring.ch: Eastline SA en liquidation , accessed on May 24, 2020.
23. ↑ monetas.ch: Cougar distribution SA en liquidation , accessed on May 24, 2020.
24. ↑ Jürgen Roth: Mafialand Germany, Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 148, ISBN 978-3-8218-5632-2 .
25. ↑ Михась похвастался президентскими часами. Retrieved September 30, 2018 (Russian). 
26. ^ Roberto Saviano: ZeroZeroZero. How cocaine rules the world, Hanser Verlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-446-24497-9 , cf. Chapter 12: the tsars conquer the world.
27. ↑ list-org.com: Организация ОАО "МТК-ИНТЕРНЕЙШНЛ" ; easymonitoring.ch: Tonalito AG in Liquidation , accessed on May 27, 2020.
28. ↑ Навальный выиграл суд против Сергея " Михася " Михайлова по поводу расследования " Чайка " . In: Meduza . ( meduza.io [accessed September 30, 2018]).
29. ↑ "Mir Novostei" magazine: "А свадьба пела и плясала…", from October 15, 2002, archived under: Солнцевский авторитет Михась выдал дочку Сашеньж. Фоторепортаж , accessed May 28, 2020.