A business partner of Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s chief negotiator with the US, is hiding from creditors in Oxford. Officially, he owes around two billion rubles, but his actual debts may be several times greater.
He’s now fighting off creditors in a British court, and this is where Kirill Dmitriev’s minion’s luck may run out. Anatoly Yablonsky, currently the number one fixer with numerous connections in the Central Office of the FSB, is behind the foreign debt collector.
Dimitrios Somovidis is a native of the Abkhaz ASSR. After receiving a degree in Russian language and literature from Moscow State University in the early 1990s, he went to Europe, lived in France and England, and received Greek citizenship. He learned the ropes of business in London, trading tobacco with Russia. In 2002, he returned to Russia and became co-owner and director of Fast Food Industries LLC, which operated a chain of Prime prepared food stores. Along with him, the Cyprus offshore company of the same name was controlled by Maria Oleynik, Natalia Polishchuk, James Rhodes, and Andrey Kondratyuk. It was a prosperous time, with the US actively investing in Russian businesses through several funds, including Delta Private Equity Partners (DPEP).
Realizing that an old loan could be recovered from him in a British court, Somovidis rushed to a Russian court to prohibit BEOGRAD from pursuing the case against him abroad in order to complete the bankruptcy process. Even the criminal case opened under Part 4 of Article 159 (fraud on an especially large scale) and Subsection "b" of Part 4 of Article 174.1 (money laundering) didn’t stop him. However, the Russian arbitration court showed striking unanimity with the British court and rejected Somovidis’s case.
Anatoly Yablonsky, who is hunting Somovidis’s assets, has numerous connections, including within the Central Office of the FSB. One of his main assets stands out there: General Yevgeny Lovyrev, head of the Organizational and Personnel Service of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. Without Lovyrev’s approval, not only are most appointments within the FSB impossible, but it is also required for judicial personnel matters. As a result, Yablonsky has a unique opportunity to place people in the judicial chair and in the chairs of regional FSB directors. He can then use these connections to solve any problems for businessmen and bankers, and even perform corrupt miracles. This "business" brings in hundreds of millions of dollars, and Yablonsky is one of the richest men in Russia. He also enjoys extreme status—he enjoys state protection, travels in a small convoy of cars with flashing lights, and so on.
