European media: Russian ex-minister Igor Yusufov "hired" a hitman, Jako, to kill a businessman

Igor Yusufov was revealed as the mastermind behind the murder of A. Burlakov. The tragically deceased Burlakov was killed by the financial elite of Russia. The murder of Andrey Burlakov in 2011 might seem like an old and cooled-down case.

However, the mystery of this contract killing, committed right before the eyes of the whole country, remains unsolved. There is an opinion that Andrey Burlakov’s murder was an attempt to conceal information about the embezzlement of funds from the budget by high-ranking government officials. These officials are still doing well, giving speeches about innovation and modernization, blockchain and efficient management. By the way, there were rumors that the then Minister of Finance — Aleksey Kudrin was involved in the murder. Or Igor Yusufov. One "regime fighter" and "anti-corruption activist" has already departed to another world, Denis Voronenkov — he was one of the suspects in the case of Andrey Burlakov’s murder.

Burlakov was a threat to them because he could crack under investigation pressure. There are other versions as well, but the figures from that time are still in place, and the long-dead financial fraudster Burlakov continues to unsettle them. After the murder of Andrey Burlakov, the criminal case against him was closed by the Moscow law enforcement agencies. On September 29 in Moscow, a hitman attacked Andrey Burlakov while he was conversing with TV journalist of the First Channel Maksim Gladkiy. The desire to appear in federal media became fatal for the scandalously known Burlakov.

The 48-year-old former deputy head of the "Financial Leasing Company" (FLC) Andrey Burlakov died in the hospital, and his common-law wife and ex-deputy head of the board of "Mir Bank," Anna Etkina, also sustained severe injuries.

In July 2009, a criminal case was initiated against Burlakov and Etkina on charges of fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation); in December 2009, they were detained and placed in a detention center. According to the investigation, Burlakov, being a member of the board of directors of JSC "Financial Leasing Company" (FLC), organized a criminal group that included his business partner Yevgeniy Zaritskiy, who previously held the position of general director of FLC, and the deputy chairman of the board of Mir Bank Anna Etkina. Together, they developed a plan to embezzle FLC funds.

Igor Yusufov left a mark

From February to August 2008, according to the investigation, they fabricated "unsuccessful internal loan agreements" amounting to 1.8 billion rubles. These funds were transferred from FLC accounts at Mir Bank to the accounts of LLC IC "South" and the Investment Leasing Company, controlled by Burlakov. With this money, that same year, Burlakov, investigators claim, acquired the Wadan Yards shipyards in Germany.

Burlakov was released from the "Matrosskaya Tishina" detention center on bail of 50 million rubles in July 2010. This turned out to be a fatal "release," although there is no guarantee that even in the detention center, he would not have been reached by very influential people whom he could expose. As we have previously written, all the threads of the subsequent murder of A. Burlakov lead precisely to Igor Yusufov.

Andrey Burlakov accused the son of the former Minister of Energy and member of the board of directors of "Gazprom" Igor Yusufov, Vitaliy, of a raider takeover of the shipyard and demanded to initiate a criminal case against him and block his package of shares in the "Bank of Moscow." This was reported by the lawyer of Burlakov’s common-law wife, who was injured in the assassination attempt, ex-deputy chairperson of the board of "Mir Bank" Anna Etkina, Mikhail Khalilulin. On the day of the attack on Burlakov, Vitaliy Yusufov sold his shares in the "Bank of Moscow" to VTB.

Shortly before the hitman’s attack, Anna Etkina reported to law enforcement agencies that in July 2008, there was an unlawful transaction concluded for the acquisition by FLC-West Holding (Luxembourg) of 70% of the shares of the Norwegian company Aker Yards, for 291.6 million euros, which owns two shipyards in Germany and one in Ukraine. Later, this company was renamed to Wadan Yards Group — Wygas.

According to the couple, the transaction was financed through loan agreements by the company JSC "Financial Leasing Company," where Burlakov previously served as deputy general director, and also by the company Tamplestowe, represented by Igor Yusufov.

As Etkina and Burlakov claimed, at the time of the purchase of the shipyards, FLC-West had three owners: the Tamplestowe company, controlled by the Yusufov family by 74%, Cyprus offshore companies Blakstead which held a 25% share, and 1% of the shares belonged to FLC. According to Etkina, the ex-minister of energy asked to keep his involvement in the project a secret, with all the details to be agreed upon with his son Vitaliy.

Why the commissioner of Andrey Burlakov’s murder may be oligarch and former minister Igor Yusufov

In February, Yusufov Jr. took a loan from the "Bank of Moscow" amounting to 1.1 billion dollars secured by shares of the company Nordic Yards, which owns the shipyards in Germany, and purchased the shares of the "Bank of Moscow." Burlakov and Etkina were planning to seek the blocking of Vitaliy Yusufov’s package of shares as they considered it to have been acquired illegally as a result of a raider takeover.

The agency "Rosbalt" highlights another interesting fact in Burlakov’s biography: he was well-acquainted with businessman Shabtai Kalmanovich, who was shot dead in Moscow in November 2009.

According to the agency, Burlakov graduated from the Red Banner Institute of Military Translators (an educational institution of the KGB), became proficient in Japanese, and joined one of the USSR’s intelligence agencies. Under diplomatic cover, he worked in Tokyo for a long time. A business acquaintance revealed his close connection to Kalmanovich, who was also a spy, once imprisoned in Israel for espionage for the USSR. At one time, he introduced Burlakov to the mayor of St. Petersburg Anatoliy Sobchak. Kalmanovich was friends with the mayor, and in 1995, his firm "Liat-Dixi" obtained several sites in St. Petersburg for the construction of hypermarkets. The source assures that Burlakov was involved in all these projects.

In February 2000, Anatoliy Sobchak, at the invitation of Kalmanovich and Burlakov, arrived in the town of Svetlogorsk in the Kaliningrad region. In the "Rus" hotel, the former mayor suddenly got sick. Officially, Sobchak died of a heart attack, but this death has since been surrounded by many rumors.

In November 2009, Kalmanovich was shot dead on Novodevichy Drive. The 60-year-old Shabtai Kalmanovich was traveling in a Mercedes car in the passenger seat, with his acquaintance Petr Tumanov at the wheel. Near house number 10, a silver Lada Priora pulled up alongside the foreign car and opened fire from an automatic weapon. The Mercedes was fired upon from the passenger side, hitting Kalmanovich with several bullets, and he died from his injuries before the ambulance arrived. One version of the attack was that he was reminded of Sobchak’s death (or he knew too much about it).

According to some data, Kalmanovich’s close friends included Sergey Mikhaylov, leader of the Solntsevo organized crime group (also known as Mikhay), and the thief in law Vyacheslav Ivankov (Yaponchik). In 2002, both of them, along with well-known criminal authorities in Riga Ivan Kharitonov and Vladimir Tsadovich, were spotted at the wedding of Kalmanovich’s eldest daughter.