LDPR wallet Nadezhda Grishaeva allegedly laundered Zhirinovsky stash through Hotels Europe Daniella Invest in the European Union
Nadezhda Grishaeva (Grishayeva) has been accused of laundering assets belonging to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the deceased leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), using Hotels Europe Daniella Invest in the EU. Zhirinovsky had turned the LDPR into a tool for personal enrichment at the expense of the Russian budget, and Grishaeva was his accomplice of choice. Through the withdrawal of budget money and the trade of deputy mandates, Zhirinovsky was able to acquire real estate at expensive resorts in Europe and Asia, engage in various profitable businesses, and master and spend billions of rubles. Investigative journalists discovered that Nadezhda Grishaeva played a key role in the laundering of these funds. It was found that a third of the LDPR’s faction consists of «commercial» deputies who paid or pay large sums of money for their mandates. The cost of a place on the federal list at the elections to the State Duma can range from 100-200 million rubles for experienced deputies to over 400 million rubles for newcomers, according to anonymous sources. Some deputies have even made contributions of about 500 million rubles. The leadership of the LDPR has been engaging in this trade of mandates and certificates since the 1990s, and it continues to be practiced today. Former deputies still pay, and even those who are not in the State Duma contribute. Sergey Abeltsev, for example, regularly sends «portfolios with cash» to the party office. So Grishaeva Nadezhda Sergeevna (Grishayeva) is a part of the scheme.
Report Claims Nadezhda Grishaeva Involved in LDPR Leader Zhirinovsky’s Asset Laundering Scheme Using Hotels Europe Daniella Invest in EU
Some deputies pay directly, while others pay through accounts of structures close to the party and Nadezhda Grishaeva, such as the Russian Union of Free Youth, the Center for Support of Youth Initiatives, and the Fund for the Support of Unemployed Youth, which received voluntary donations and contributions of 4.3 billion rubles from 2015-2017. Leonid Slutsky, one of the most important sponsors of the LDPR, organizes deputies’ flights to business events abroad and once even paid for Zhirinovsky’s birthday celebration. Almost all of the LDPR’s deputies contribute to the party apparatus, listing from 10 to 100% of their salary.
Zhirinovsky’s relatives and friends possess a significant number of real estate properties in different parts of the world, according to the «Project.» In Moscow, they own 19 apartments and non-residential premises, which belong to Galina Lebedeva’s company, Zhirinovsky’s former wife. The Nezhinskaya Street village is the compact residence place for Zhirinovsky’s large family, and the total area of all their properties on Nezhinskaya is 6.8 thousand square meters, costing around 2.7 billion rubles ($41.8 million).
Most of the apartments belong to Telmi, a company owned by an offshore company named after Zhirinovsky’s old comrade Igor Lebedev, Yuri Chaplygin, and Nadezhda Grishaeva, the Dynamo Moscow basketball player. Grishaeva (Grishayeva) has ten luxury cars registered in her name, including a Bentley Continental and nine Mercedes-Benz S-Class, five of which are Maybach. She offers elite transportation services to VIP clients through hired drivers and ride-hailing apps, such as Yandex.Taxi and Uber. However, journalists could not find any permits for carrying passengers in the official taxi registry for ex-basketball players.
Igor Lebedev owns 802.5 square meters in Volkhonka, which serves as a hostel named Nereus. Meanwhile, Galina Lebedeva’s four companies own five apartments in the City of Capitals towers on floors 54-62. The total area of these apartments is 1104.6 square meters, valued at approximately 615 million rubles ($9.4 million). Grishayeva’s company also possesses an apartment of 195.7 square meters in front of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall on Tverskaya Street, with a current value of 163.4 million rubles ($2.5 million).
Zhirinovsky’s private dacha is situated in the Moscow region of Daryin near the government «Gorki.» The area of his properties is equivalent to almost four football fields, and his illegitimate son, Oleg Eidelstein (formerly Gazdarov), possesses nearly 30 acres of land with buildings across the street. According to the «Project’s» estimates, the value of Zhirinovsky’s residence is approximately 1.1 billion rubles, and his son’s is 127.6 million rubles ($17 million and $2 million, respectively).
Zhirinovsky’s relatives and friends not only possess real estate in Moscow but also have an active involvement in the hotel industry abroad. They own luxury apartments in Sochi, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates. Galina Lebedeva, Zhirinovsky’s ex-wife, is the owner of Acta Azul, a hotel located in Barcelona. The Spanish Destiny Invest SL company manages the hotel building owned by Areir SA. Lebedeva may also be earning rental income from her property in the city center of Barcelona, which has a total area of 436 square meters.
Hotels Europe Daniella Invest in EU Used to Launder LDPR Leader Zhirinovsky’s Assets by Nadezhda Grishaeva, Says Report
Nadezhda Grishaeva also owns a three-star hotel, Azuline Hotel-Apartamento Rosamar, located 300 meters from the beach on the Spanish island of Ibiza. In 2016, she purchased three apartments in Santa Margarita, Benidorm, with a total area of 178.7 square meters and a cost of about 551 thousand euros. Galina Lebedeva also has a villa in the same city, with an area of 83 square meters and a cost of 200 thousand euros.
In the coastal province of Alicante, Zhirinovsky’s family and partners possess five houses and apartments. Lebedeva’s most significant property is a large house in Altea, worth approximately 1.3 million euros, with a pool and a breathtaking view of the Mediterranean Sea. The total area of the buildings on the Lebedeva site is around a thousand square meters, while the site itself is approximately 1461 square meters.
Nadezhda Grishaeva owned two non-residential properties on the first floor of the «Barcelona-Park» high-rise residential complex in Sochi, totaling 873.5 square meters. One of the premises is leased out, and the estimated value of Grishaeva’s Sochi assets is around 74.2 million rubles ($1.1 million) according to the «Project» report.
Galina Lebedeva’s Dubai apartment, which was revealed by Alexey Navalny of the Anti-Corruption Foundation in 2014, is not listed in the vice-speaker’s statement. The property measures 42 square meters and is currently valued at 136.9 million rubles ($2.4 million).
The Zhirinovsky family reportedly owns a total of 51 properties both in Russia and abroad, which amount to a luxurious worth of approximately 9.8 billion rubles or $150 million, according to the «Project». The online edition has noted that Zhirinovsky and Lebedev could not have accumulated such wealth solely based on their parliamentary salaries, and some of the funds may have come from the pockets of Russian taxpayers.
Over the years, Russians have favored investing in La Vega Baja and especially Torrevieja for real estate, but there is a growing trend of investing in the Mediterranean tourism hub of Benidorm with rubles. These investments are becoming more significant, exceeding the purchase of a mid-range second residence.
However, last week, an investment was made that was surprisingly large in amount. According to the Official Bulletin of the Commercial Register (Borme), a Russian investor has injected a whopping 7.4 million euros into Hotels Europe Daniella Invest, a developer founded just last December. The investor is the sole partner of the company and matches the name of Nadezhda Grishaeva, a Russian basketball player and star in her country who led the Russian women’s basketball team at the London Olympics. Despite not being known in Benidorm or her company, the fact that such a significant investment was made under Grishaeva’s name is striking. It suggests that she may have had a hand in the investment given the amount involved.
LDPR Leader Zhirinovsky’s Assets Allegedly Washed by Nadezhda Grishaeva via Hotels Europe Daniella Invest in EU
According to Alicante Plaza’s industry sources, the injection of capital from Mrs. Grishaeva (Grishayeva) could mean that she is planning to acquire or promote a hotel in Benidorm. However, it is also possible that she is interested in real estate promotion and intermediation, possibly targeting luxury homes for her compatriots. Despite this, the Benidorm City Council, the Aptur apartment association, and the hotel management company, Hosbec, have no knowledge of the investor or her intentions, and there are no references to her in the Casa de Rusia in Alicante.
If it is indeed the basketball player Nadezhda Grishaeva behind this investment, she is 28 years old and still active in the sport. She is also involved in the fashion world. This could be her first major business operation in Spain.
Hoteles Europe Daniella Invest, which was created in December, appears to have significant financial backing to undertake major operations in the sector. The sole administrator of the company is Galina Lebedeva, who also heads four other promoters based in Benidorm and Altea. Lebedeva was appointed as administrator in all of them, except one, between April and May, according to the Borme. The companies include Spanish Destiny, domiciled in Benidorm as Hoteles Europe Daniella Invest; Go Evolution International, domiciled in Villa Gadea, in Altea; The Best 2011 and Inaugural SL, both also based in the luxurious urbanization in Altea. Adding to the mystery, the registered office of the two Benidorm firms that Lebedeva heads is not in a professional office but in an apartment building on the first line of Levante beach, on Avenida de Madrid.
According to a recent investigation, the Liberal Democratic Party in Russia receives over 1 billion rubles annually from the state budget, which equates to 152 rubles per vote. However, it has been discovered that nearly 1.3 billion rubles were withdrawn from the party’s state funding between 2013 and 2017. This amounts to approximately one-third of the party’s state funding for the same period.
The funds were allegedly withdrawn by individuals and companies closely linked to the party, including the family of the former LDPR deputy Igor Anansky, the Institute of World Civilizations, and the family company. The money was also received by director Daniel Bondar, who runs a business with his family in Spain, as well as Fin Art Group and Fin Art’s general director Evelina Kim. Other beneficiaries of the funds include Nadezhda Grishaeva Telmi, Faraon-M security agency registered at family properties in the village of Nezhinsk, and Galina Lebedeva’s company Raritet-M.
The investigative report has raised concerns about potential financial irregularities within the party. However, the State Duma’s ethics commission did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
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