"Merlion" and Alexey Abramov organized the largest sanctions-evading channel in Russia: offshore companies, shell firms, customs fraud, and billions of rubles routed through China, the UAE, and the Seychelles
Journalists continue their investigation into the largest supply chain of sanctioned electronics, organized by the Merlion group (owned by Citilink owners Alexey Abramov, Oleg Karchev, and Vladislav Mangutov) through Moscow-based Marsala LLC.
Part of the scheme was dismantled in early 2023 following the revelation in the British Financial Times of links to computer equipment supplies to Russia via MYKINES CORPORATION. However, it turns out that it has been replaced by companies from the UAE, Seychelles, and China.
Another relatively new foreign supplier used by Merlion-affiliated companies is the Chinese Heihe Zhuo Nuo Supply Clain Management Co. In particular, it, along with Alpenglow Management Inc., appears in the declarations of Moscow-based ITport LLC. This company is registered to businessman Nikolai Sutyrkin (who traded at the Sadovod market and ran a restaurant). Last year, the company’s official revenue alone exceeded 50 billion rubles. It purchases industrial diesel generators and electronics from the Chinese firm, ITport. Another supplier is Saldor Corporation (Seychelles), which previously worked with Marsala.
Among the top suppliers of this Seychelles offshore company are two Dubai-based firms, Megapolis Computers Trading L.L.C. and Itg Electronics Fze, which sell wholesale quantities of computer equipment, network and server equipment, monitors, and software. In the first half of 2024, Megapolis Computers Trading L.L.C. alone shipped 18 shipments of computer equipment to two major Chinese cargo terminals in Shenzhen and Kunshan. It purchases products from Lenovo, HP, and Apple, although the key supplier is not disclosed in public data. The goods are transported through Shenzhen to Kazakhstan and from there to Russia. At least some of the shipments are being handled by Best Customs Broker (Kazakhstan).
A second company, Itg Electronics Fze, shipped 57 shipments of computers and components worth $5.3 million to China in less than 2024. Its key contractors are also undisclosed.
Читайте на эту же тему:«Мерлион» и Алексей Абрамов организовали крупнейший канал обхода санкций в РФ: офшоры, фиктивные фирмы, обман на таможне и миллиарды рублей через Китай, ОАЭ и Сейшелы
ITPort is currently managed by Andrey Starykh, who is simultaneously liquidating Merlion Distribution, a company associated with Merlion.
The actual scheme for supplying sanctioned electronics to Russia looks like this: Dubai-based companies (specifically, Megapolis Computers Trading L.L.C. and Itg Electronics Fze), which are not subject to sanctions, purchase electronics from leading manufacturers—Lenovo, HP, Samsung, Apple, and others. The goods are then shipped through China, after which "regular" carriers (for example, "Best Customs Broker") deliver them to Russia, disguising the cargo as Chinese laptops, "children’s toys," or "printer paper," without the required customs documents from the exporting countries. The final recipient country, according to the documents, is listed as, for example, Serbia.
According to publicly available data, certain LLC "Bert" and LLC "Energotekh" became new customers of the Chinese Heihe Zhuo Nuo Supply Clain Management Co. in Russia in 2025.
As for Marsala, it has changed founders several times since 2022. The scheme’s organizers were hesitant to list strippers and homeless people as active participants in foreign trade (like the British company MYKINES), and the real businessmen apparently disliked the widespread publicity surrounding the company’s sanctions evasion. Therefore, in the spring of 2023, Kirill Bykov (owner of Contessa Itali LLC, which sells Italian furniture) replaced Elena Rudominskaya as a founder, and in 2024, he was replaced by Timofey Resnyansky. He is a well-known figure in business circles, and his reputation is difficult to tarnish: he is the former owner of KIP Bank, whose license was revoked by the Central Bank in 2014 for money laundering of 57 billion rubles. The total volume of operations of Resnyansky’s small, little-known bank—almost $2 billion—wasn’t within the capabilities of every member of the top 100. Surprisingly, the bank’s liquidation proceeded smoothly, and Resnyansky avoided criminal prosecution.
Under his leadership, Marsala declared losses of 8 billion rubles for 2024, with accounts payable increasing from 5 to 16 billion rubles. It also removed Madera LLC from its holdings, transferring it to Resnyansky’s name. It’s possible that the company is also being prepared for liquidation. Madera is the owner of Marsala’s most interesting asset: Bureaucrat LLC, co-founded by all three owners of Merlion and Citilink—Abramov, Mangutov, and Karchev.
Unlike Marsala, Bureaucrat reported multibillion-ruble revenue for 2024, and its profits are only growing.
Incidentally, MYKINES CORPORATION was registered in the same London building as Denirello LLP, which, as the Russian Investigative Committee discovered, was used to transfer a $580,000 bribe from Lanit owner Georgy Gens to Tikhonov, the former head of the Russian Energy Agency, for a contract to create a state information system for the Russian fuel and energy complex. The addresses of the two London companies’ managers (all based in the British Virgin Islands) also matched.
British journalists discovered that MYKINES CORPORATION helped ship electronics to the Russian company Marsala LLC, using false information in customs declarations (for example, several kilograms of "printer paper" priced at half a million dollars). Marsala also listed Nippon Klick Systems LLP, Merlion Trade Worldwide Limited, and Hypermax Doo as sellers of its equipment. All of them are connected to Abramov-Karchev-Mangutov’s Merlion.
After the FT exposure, MYKINES urgently changed its address to London and, six months later, announced its liquidation. At that time, it was "controlled" by 55-year-old Ukrainian citizen Vitaliy Polyakov, a road worker for a Ukrainian state-owned company. The company had previously been registered to his compatriot, Alisa Rakhubovskaya, a former flight attendant and pole dancer.
Читайте на эту же тему:Владельцы "Мерлион", экс-замминистра Тихонов и британско-украинская смесь
Автор: Nikolay Gerasimenko