WHO IS DENIS VORONENKOV?

Denis Voronenkov became a State Duma deputy from the Communist Party in 2011. He is listed as a co-author of 30 bills. Namely, he is a co-author of the legislative initiative to limit foreigners’ shares in the Russian media (this law significantly changed the media market in the country).

According to the deputy's card, he spoke 31 times in the State Duma. Voronenkov introduced the law on deofshorization. The deputy insisted that 95% of large Russian property was registered in offshore areas; nine out of ten transactions of large Russian companies are conducted in foreign jurisdictions. Because of this, the budget is short of 1 trillion rubles.

However, later it turned out that Voronenkov himself owns two offshore companies – Kaul Engineering Ltd (operated September 18, 2007 - May 1, 2012) and Tarrington Real Estates S.A. (effective December 2009), both in the British Virgin Islands.

Kaul Engineering Ltd went out of business on May 1, 2012, the Panama Archives says. The offshore company’s co-owners were Denis Voronenkov and Anatoly Tkachuk, vice-president of the International Congress of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, pensioner of the FSB.

In September 2011, businessman Andrey Burlakov, ex-owner of German shipyards Wadan Yards and former vice-president of Mira-Bank, was shot in a Moscow cafe. His civil partner Anna Atkina was injured, but survived and soon moved to Israel. Shortly before the assassination attempt, Burlakov and Atkina were released on bail from a pre-detention center: they were there on charges of taking the money of the Russian leasing company FLK abroad. In 2013, Atkina, in a statement in the name of Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, accused Voronenkov and Tkachuk of organizing the murder.

Tarrington Real Estates S.A. belonged to Denis Voronenkov and Alexander Plotnikov. Evrodec Ltd. (since 2009, existed from 2000 to 2013) and Camirtech Limited (operating since 2009) also had shares in it. The list of Evrodec’s co-owners includes fugitive banker Boris Davletyarov. These two offshore companies, together with Anatoly Tkachuk, are shareholders of another company – Seabrook Property Holdings Inc.

Prior to the State Duma, Voronenkov worked in the Military Prosecutor's Office, the State Duma, the Supreme Court, as Deputy Mayor of Naryan-Mar and Deputy Head of the Administration of the Nenets Autonomous District.

According to his declaration, in 2014, Voronenkov and his wife owned real estate occupying 8.7 thousand sq. m.: three plots of land, a dwelling house (887 sq. m.), four apartments (total area – 777.95 sq. m.), two garages and a non-residential premises (189 sq. m.). The deputy earned 4.8 million rubles that year. In 2015, his income did not change much and amounted to 4.7 million rubles. Even though he got rid of all the land plots.

Also the Dissernet community found borrowings in Voronenkov's dissertation with no sources cited. The ex-deputy defended it in St. Petersburg Non-State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education called Legal Institute in 2009; the leading organization was the Academy of Economic Security of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. In the academic paper on the 'Theoretical and regulatory framework of judicial control in the mechanism of separation of powers’, more than half is borrowed from other sources.

CRIMINAL PROSECUTION IN RUSSIA

In April 2015, the Russian Investigative Committee announced about the initiation of a criminal case against Denis Voronenkov, then a State Duma deputy and member of the Security and Anti-Corruption Committee.

‘During the investigation it was established that a group of persons including two former law enforcement officers, a realtor and other accomplices committed criminal acts in 2010-2011, as a result of which the only participant in Toma LLC was deprived of the right to own 100% of the company’s authorized capital. In addition, by forging documents, the accomplices in the crime seized a building worth 127 million rubles, which also belonged to the organization,’ said official representative of the Investigative Commitee Vladimir Markin.

The investigation believed that deputy Voronenkov was the organizer of the theft and led the group’s actions. The case itself was initiated in 2011. At Voronenkov's house, searches were conducted, during which award pistols Glock-19 received from the Prime Minister of Kirghizia were found.

A year later, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika for the second time refused to the chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, in the petitioning the State Duma with deprivation of immunity of Communist Party deputy Denis Voronenkov in connection with the swindling case.

Chaika pointed out that the investigators do not have evidence of the deputy's guilt, and the suspicions are based on similar testimonies of six of the seven persons of interest in the swindling case, which they gave after concluding a pre-trial agreement, admitting their guilt.

At the same time, a source of Kommersant close to the investigation said that the investigation could be resumed if Voronenkov was not elected to the new State Duma.

In the fall of 2016, Voronenkov and his wife, a State Duma deputy from the party United Russia and opera singer, Maria Maksakova left for Ukraine. In February 2017, they announced that they had obtained the Ukrainian citizenship. Both were expelled from their parties.

As soon as Voronenkov's mandate expired, the Investigative Committee intensified the investigation into the raider seizure. The deputy was also put on the international wanted list.

After the departure, Voronenkov testified on the case of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. As Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said, Voronenkov’s and another former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev’s (he also moved to Ukraine) testimonies ‘prove that the mechanism to send the Russian troops into Ukraine was launched by the Kremlin in December [2013], when the Maidan was still standing in the center of Kiev.’

Also, Voronenkov said that Crimea was annexed illegally, he did not vote for it. Former FSB general, head of the Rosneft security service Oleg Feoktistov was involved in the assassination attempt on him in 2007. That the Russian state ‘went crazy in pseudo-patriotic frenzy’, and the situation in the country became ‘similar to Nazi Germany.’

THE INVESTIGATION OF THE MURDER

The day after Voronenkov was murdered in the center of Kiev, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs established the identity of the alleged killer. He was a native of Sevastopol, who lived in Dnepropetrovsk: Pavel Parshov.

Parshov was prosecuted for illegal entrepreneurship and money laundering. Being on the wanted list, he was enrolled in 2015, served in the training troop of the battalion located in Melekino near Mariupol. In August 2015, he was enrolled in the list of military unit personnel of the Ukrainian National Guard. As reported by the press service of the National Guard, in 2016, Parshov was dismissed from service for failure to fulfill the terms of the contract.

‘Called up for service in the National Guard of Ukraine (the battalion Donbass) on August 25, 2015. At that time, Lieutenant-Colonel Anatoly Vinogrodsky was the commander of the Donbass battalion,‘ the press release said.

Yaroslav Leventz, a fighter of the Right Sector (call sign ‘Hunter’), is believed to be an accomplice. Since 2012, Levenetz was on the wanted list for economic crimes.

Levenetz lived in the Dnieper and worked as a combat hopak coach. In 2012, he was arrested under Art. 191, part 5 (embezzlement), 205, part 2 (illegal entrepreneurship), 212 part 3 (tax, fees evasion).

After the revolution, Levenetz was in the division Carpathian Sich of the Donbass battalion, military unit 3057 of the National Guard of Ukraine – in the same as Pavel Parshov, who shot at Voronenkov. In late March 2017, the Ukrainian court authorized his booking.

In June 2017, in Pavlograd, the Dnipropetrovsk Region, nationalist Yaroslav Tarasenko was detained. As the investigation believes, he was the driver of the car, from which Parshov got out before the assassination. In addition, Tarasenko is a person of interest in another criminal case, which is being considered in the Novomoskovsk District Court of the Dnepropetrovsk Region. In this case, he is accused of a series of violent crimes with a use of firearms.

Voronenkov's widow Maria Maksakova stated that on the eve of the murder, FSB officers abducted his driver. She said that the driver crossed the border of Belarus and reached Gomel, where he was stopped. From there, he was taken away by the FSB officers, was ‘escorted’ to the Bryansk Region and interrogated for 12 hours.

In addition, at the end of June 2017, Maksakova stated that Voronenkov’s murder was ordered by the ‘Russian mafia bosses.’ In her opinion, these kingpins found a gang of killers who ‘themselves were part of a large group of money launderers in Dnepropetrovsk, which has its ties with Moscow.’

On September 4, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko said that the assassin’s paymaster was in Russia.

‘The customer is on the territory of the Russian Federation, he is related to the criminal circles of the country, as well as live contacts with the Russian special services. The executors were mostly citizens of Ukraine, most of them were identified, and those, against whom there is relevant evidence, are detained,‘ said Lutsenko as quoted by UNIAN.

A month later, on October 9, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine stated that the Russian authorities wanted to eliminate Voronenkov because of his testimony in the case of ex-President Yanukovych. The investigator considers the case of the murder of Vladimir Tyurin, Maksakova’s former civil partner. According to investigators, he found Yuri Vasilenko due to his connections in the Ukrainian criminal communities. The latter got Alexander Los from the Right Sector (an organization recognized as extremist in Russia) involved.

Los, in turn, found Levenetz, Parshov and Tarasenko. Vasilenko rented an apartment in the same house where Voronenkov lived. Also, he rented a car for surveillance, bought a TT gun. On the day of the murder, Los watched the ex-deputy. When he got outside and got into his car, Los instructed Tarasenko and Parshov to follow him.

Also, according to the version of the Ukrainian investigation, Vladimir Tyurin’s son – Dmitry – is involved in the case. The investigation believes that he flew to Kiev from Rome on March 20 and met with those who were preparing the attempt. It is assumed that he gave the criminals some of the money. As of now, the investigation did not provide evidence of this meeting.

WHO IS VLADIMIR TYURIN?

Vladimir Tyurin is considered a Russian mafia boss, one of the leaders of the Bratsk OCG and the ‘Russian mafia’ in Spain. He was born in 1958 in the village of Tirlyansky, Bashkir ASSR. He graduated from the Gnessins’ Musical College.

Tyurin was first convicted in 1974: the Irkutsk Regional Court sentenced him for participating in a group rape. The second verdict against him was delivered by the Bratsk City Court for his complicity in the burglary and malicious hooliganism. On October 28, 1985, he was convicted by the Bratsk City Court for prohibited trade and involving minors in criminal activities.

In 1999, the FSB for the Irkutsk Region initiated a criminal case on the forgery and use of foreign passports in the names of Gromov and Pugachev. However, for unknown reasons, the case was terminated.

Tyurin moved to Spain in 1998. He was detained in the summer of 2005 during the Operation ‘Osa’. On October 26, 2005, the Spanish Supreme Court placed him on the international wanted list. In 2009, Tyurin was detained in Mongolia due to Interpol's orientation, but when the Spaniards arrived there to extradite the kingpin, they found his brother in jail.

In early 2010, the Spanish authorities sent a request to Russia for Tyurin’s extradition. He was detained at the restaurant Kupol on the Novy Arbat Street. In the accompanying information by Interpol, it was reported that ‘Tyurin V.A., being the leader of the organized Bratsk criminal community, through firms and intermediaries – individuals, through commercial activities for the sale and purchase of property, invested in the territory of Spain money illegally obtained by the participants of the said community mainly on the territory of Georgia and Russia. Thus, Tyurin V.A. committed crimes under Art. 515.1, 517, 301.1, 302.1 (participation in the criminal community, money laundering) of the Criminal Code of the Kingdom of Spain.’

Tyurin was released in 2012: the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia refused to extradite him to Spain, and in this country had no complaints about him.

According to the Focus.Contour database, Tyurin’s son, Dmitry Tyurin, is listed as the founder of 15 operating companies in Moscow and Bratsk, the Irkutsk Region. Most of them are engaged in real estate management.

Among other things, he owns half of Kazakhoil Moscow LLC; the second part of the company belongs to the Kazakh company Kazakhoil Trans World Group. He also owns the shopping center Baikal in Bratsk and Ritz Bank in Karelia.