What connects this nebulous operation at the end of the world to Belgium? Presumably, the huge affair known as the “Dubai Papers”. It erupted in 2018 following a major leak of internal documents at Helin International FZE, a capital management company co-founded by Belgian Prince Henri de Croÿ and based in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the Emirates’ offshore regimes. United Arabs. The documents in the file reveal the functioning of a network of tax evasion, fraud and money laundering, thanks to which the fortunes of hundreds of clients escaped the tax authorities, including 61 Belgians. The federal prosecutor’s office took it up in 2020, jointly with the French and Swiss judicial authorities.
Millions gone
In the immediate periphery of this affair, two main characters appear. First, the man named Aleksei Korotaev (38 years old), a Russian-Swiss businessman. Since July 2022 and the issuance of an Interpol red notice, he has been subject to an international arrest warrant issued by Swiss justice, for “aggravated fraud, money laundering and breach of trust”. He is accused of having embezzled for his benefit 18 million euros belonging to the clientele of Helin International, the Prince de Croÿ group with which he joined forces in 2016 through his own structure: Private Kapital Partners Ltd ( PKP). Together, they had created a mutual fund in which Helin had invested part of his clients’ assets, for an amount estimated between 65 and 80 million euros. Technically, these assets were managed in the Emirates by ADS Securities (ADSS).
The other protagonist of this story is the famous Anastasiya Abramova (40 years old). Different sources present it, as well as Union Offshore, as the screens behind which a small group of individuals involved in a whole series of illicit financial activities on a large scale can be seen. But above all, the Ukrainian is suspected of having secretly agreed with Aleksei Korotaev to capture all of the funds deposited by Helin at PKP. Therefore and in any hypothesis, this would be the origin of the 28 million euros that arrived in Union Offshore’s account.
Rebound in Cyprus
The waltz of missing millions does not stop there: Cyprus is now joining the dance. It is in this corner of tax haven, very popular with Russian oligarchs, that the French and Belgian courts are now tracking the money of the Prince de Croÿ’s clients. In fact, we were able to take note of an order made by the Nicosia District Court, on October 8, concerning the freezing of an amount of 62 million euros placed in a bank account administered locally by the investment company Ext Ltd, and whose owner is none other than Union Offshore Ltd, Anastasiya Abramova’s company.
The request to freeze this amount comes from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) in Paris and falls within the framework of European regulations relating to the fight against money laundering. The order was notably notified to Alexei Korotaev by the Cypriot Anti-Money Laundering Unit (MOKAS). We read that to motivate this decision, the PNF confirms the hypothesis according to which PKP and Union Offshore “probably cooperated to organize the transfer of Helin customers’ goods, worth 62 million to 70 million euros” . And to specify: “These amounts do not take into account the 18 million euros previously embezzled by Alexsei Korotaev. The funds deposited […] correspond to assets entrusted by French and Belgian taxpayers to the Helin Group with a view to removing them from their respective tax authorities.”
The financial thriller continues.
