Vadim Blaustein: Dutch trust office sneaked Russian bankers and a Playboy model into the Netherlands

28/03/2024, 15:04 Dutch trust office sneaked Russian bankers and a Playboy model into the Netherlands - Follow the Money - Platform for investigative jour…
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© Itziar Barrios
Dutch trust office sneaked Russian bankers and a
Playboy model into the Netherlands
SIEM EIKELENBOOM HUGO RASCH
7 MAR 2023 · 11 MIN
According to the Dutch Public Prosecution Office, Vadim
Blaustein’s Amersfoort-based trust office set up offshore
companies for wealthy Russians. The firm also abused the Dutch
so-called skilled migrant regulation: it helped clients get fake jobs
in the Netherlands. The court case against Blaustein starts today.
Who were his clients? Follow the Money and the OCCRP uncovered
bankers, a controversial financial services firm, a Playboy model
and even a Russian spy.
T H I S A R T I C L E I N 1 M I N U T E

What is this series about?
Why is this relevant?
At first glance, Vadim Blaustein, who rose from Russian
would-be asylum seeker to owner of a trust office,
appeared to be a successful businessman. His office
had branches in numerous countries, and he
increasingly mingled with the jet set. He even had his
own brand of cognac.
But according to the Public Prosecution, Blaustein’s
empire hinged on trickery and deceit. He set up over a
hundred companies in a basement storage unit,
registered companies and credit cards in the names of
unsuspecting third parties, and the ‘highly skilled
migrants’ he brought to the Netherlands were wealthy
Russians who came here to work for fake companies
(and even paid their own salaries).
Blaustein Lawyers managed to maintain the
appearance of being an above-board trust office for a
long time. It even received the seal of approval from
the industry body, Holland Quaestor. The accreditation
was supposed to help clear the industry’s bad name.
Six months later, the fiscal police (FIOD) raided
numerous premises owned by Blaustein.
Today, a major trial starts against Blaustein, who is
believed to be residing in Dubai. The prosecution
suspects him of human trafficking, fraud, forgery and
money laundering, among other things.
However, the prosecution has barely investigated
which clients Blaustein catered to. But Follow the
Money did, together with the OCCRP: Blaustein’s
clients are featured in detail.

When Vadim Blaustein, the director of a trust office in Amersfoort,
received a call from Sergey Sukhich in the autumn of 2016, he was
unaware he was being tapped. Sukhich runs a coal and grain export
company in Russia.
‘I have run into a bit of trouble with certain people,’ Sukhich tells
Blaustein. ‘It’s possible that criminal cases are being filed against me. So
things are a bit tense. That is why I decided to stay here for a while and
monitor my business remotely.’
‘Here’ is in the Netherlands, where Sukhich resides on a tourist visa. He
wants to know from Blaustein whether there are ‘any legal grounds’ on
which he could stay in Amsterdam longer.
According to Vadim, setting up a holding company is the best approach:
‘If you take a look at the Dutch trade register, you will see that
practically all renowned Russian companies choose the Netherlands to
locate their holdings: from Gazprom to Rosneft, and from Vimpelcom to
Yandex.’
The grain and coal trader is pleased with this information. He has one
more question: can he use such a Dutch company to allow others to
How did FTM investigate this?
We used the case file compiled by the Public
Prosecution (which contains more than 14 thousand
pages), as well as hundreds of other documents
obtained from sources and public records. We also
drew from interviews with people who worked with or
for Vadim Blaustein.
In the research for this article, Follow the Money
collaborated with the Organized Crime and Corruption
Reporting Project ( ), which is very well-
versed in the ins and outs of Russian oligarchs.
OCCRP

work here? ‘Yes, you can arrange as many residence permits as you want
through this company,’ Blaustein assures him.
Their conversation is intercepted by the Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and
Investigation Service (FIOD). The latter launched a criminal
investigation in late 2015 after the tax authorities discovered that
Blaustein was concealing a large part of his income.
The FIOD also suspected that Blaustein was abusing the so-called
skilled migrant regulation, intended to aid Dutch companies in need of
highly skilled non-European workers, such as ICT professionals. To hire
them, a company must first apply to the Dutch Immigration and
Naturalisation Service (IND) for ‘preferential status’. Once a company
has obtained this, it can easily recruit workers from non-European
countries.
Confidential information shows that Blaustein flouts the rules. He
arranged fake jobs for wealthy Russians at one of his own companies for
which he had obtained preferential status.
The case file contains dozens of Blaustein’s clients interviewed as
witnesses. Their own background – what they were doing in Russia and
why they came to the Netherlands – is hardly ever discussed. Reason
enough for Follow the Money, in cooperation with the Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project ( ) research network, to find
out who Vadim Blaustein’s clients were.
“Blaustein was concealing a large part of his
income. The fiscal police also suspected that
he was abusing the so-called skilled migrant
regulation”
OCCRP

Friends in high places
Olga Rodionova’s employment adventure makes it clear how the misuse
of the skilled migrant regulation has been orchestrated. In December
2012, she joined Completor, a Blaustein company, as a senior account
manager, with a gross monthly salary of over four thousand euros. In
April 2013, she was granted a residence permit based on her
employment contract.
But when the FIOD questioned Rodionova in December 2016, she could
hardly tell them anything about her colleagues or her work at
Completor. She had never had any performance reviews. Yet she insisted
she worked there.
Confiscated documents, including bank statements, show that her
wages were transferred in a circuitous manner: the Panamanian entity
Woodgate Enterprises SA paid a Hong Kong company owned by
Blaustein a total of about 300 thousand euros. Emails show that this
amount was made up of four annual salaries for Rodionova plus a 15
thousand euro annual ‘remuneration’ for Blaustein.
The name behind Woodgate Enterprises is Sergey Sergeevich Rodionov,
Olga’s partner.
Hence, the FIOD suspected Rodionova was abusing the skilled migrant
regulation. But as the investigation was focused on Vadim Blaustein and
his trust office, the investigators only questioned her as a witness. Nor
did they investigate the Rodionov couple. It was a missed opportunity:
the Rodionovs have friends in the highest places in Russia.
Sergey is a banker and publisher. He describes himself as ‘one of the
poorest oligarchs’. In 1991 – then employed at the Central Bank of
Sergey is a banker and publisher. He describes
himself as ‘one of the poorest oligarchs’

Russia – he joined the top holding company in oligarch Mikhail
Khodorkovsky’s emporium at the latter’s request. In 1992, he moved
again: this time to the Imperial bank. In 1996, in addition to his work as
a bank director, he established a . From 2000
to 2010, he owned Slavyanskiy bank, a subsidiary of Imperial.
Economist and erotic photo model
Sergey and Olga met in 1994: she is a Playboy model and graduated in
economics and banking from Moscow University. After working for the
Central Bank and a private bank, she opened up a clothing shop in
Moscow. About a decade later, she decided to move to the Netherlands.
In Russia, the couple is notorious for their hobby: Sergey hired famous
photographers to take naked pictures of his wife. In 2008, he published
The Book of Olga, a book of photographs that The Guardian described as
‘extraordinarily explicit and shockingly pornographic’. The photos were
taken by Bettina Rheims, well-known for her work for Chanel and
Lancôme and her portraits of famous women.
The article in The Guardian reveals that Sergey and Olga lead a
luxurious life: a grand apartment in Moscow, a house near Zagreb,
shopping trips to Paris and Milan, and a plane trip to Dubai to buy
furniture.
When the FIOD questioned her in December 2016, Olga had been living
in the Netherlands for four years. She rents an expensive apartment on
one of Amsterdam’s canals. When the FIOD asked her why she came to
the Netherlands, she replied: ‘I did not want to live in Russia anymore
and tried to find a job here in the Netherlands. My was
working in Luxembourg at the time. I wanted to change my life. I don’t
have any problems in Russia.’
‘Sufficient money’
She ended up with Vadim Blaustein through an acquaintance in the
Netherlands. He would arrange work so she could qualify for a residence
permit. She confessed to FIOD that she did not need the job for the
magazine publishing house
boyfriend

money: ‘I have sufficient money because I worked before and sold a
piece of land. Besides, my boyfriend supports me financially.’
That she is well-off is evident from her 2014 tax return. In Moscow, she
has an apartment worth more than 1 million euros. An account at HSBC
in Luxembourg has a balance of 235 thousand euros, and at HSBC in
Cyprus, another 447 thousand euros.
Olga Rodionova did not have to work in the Netherlands to earn a living.
Yet she does, or at least on paper. The residence permit seems to be very
important. After five years, she can qualify for a Dutch passport, a
document that allows you to easily travel across almost the entire world.
Her partner is also one of Blaustein’s clients. In the summer of 2013,
Vadim set up a foundation for Sergey and, in 2016, a private fund in
Curaçao. Such a legal entity is the perfect way to hide assets from prying
eyes. The couple refrained from answering questions by Follow the
Money and the OCCRP about the hows and whys of these entities.
In July 2017, Olga Rodionova opened the Vivienne Westwood Boutique,
named after the legendary British fashion designer, on PC Hooftstraat.
In 2018, her residence permit expired. The boutique has since closed,
and Olga now lives in Dubai.
“In the summer of 2013, Blaustein set up a
foundation for Sergey and, in 2016, a private
fund in Curaçao”

From bad to worse
The file on the Blaustein case features more Russian bankers.
In 2013, Elena Volkova and Igor Kravchenko, a Russian couple living in
the Netherlands, knocked on Vadim Blaustein’s door. They were looking
for a Russian-speaking lawyer: they had been defrauded by a business
friend. Blaustein promised to help them.
The couple’s troubles went from bad to worse. Not only did Blaustein’s
legal advice and services prove , but he also failed to honour
his promise to set up an offshore firm for them. In the course of two
years, they paid Blaustein over 635 thousand euros. That money was
gone. In November 2015, they filed charges of fraud, embezzlement and
forgery. They also launched a series of civil cases against Blaustein.
These court cases and the FIOD investigation do not address who
Volkova and Kravchenko are. The answer to that unasked question lies
in Russia, more precisely: in Moscow.
Bankers at a scandalous bank
In 2010 and 2011, emerged about fraudulent loans within
the Bank of Moscow, the country’s fifth-largest bank at that time.
‘There were two banks,’ a regulator later said. ‘Downstairs, there was a
normal and successful commercial bank, but upstairs in some small
offices, we found a loan factory.’ Hundreds of millions were lent to
companies that existed only on paper. In the end, the bank’s balance
sheet showed a nine-billion-dollar deficit.
In the course of two years, the couple paid
Blaustein over 635 thousand euros. That money was
gone
worthless
media reports

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov used the Bank of Moscow for years to
finance all sorts of large real estate projects in and around the city. For
instance, the bank paid five times the market value for a plot belonging
to a company heavily in debt. The owner of that company: Luzhkov’s
wife. It is suspected that the Bank of Moscow used this land transaction
to bail out the mayor’s wife’s company.
The vice president of the Bank of Moscow was Elena Volkova, who later
became Blaustein’s client. She was responsible for all dealings with the
authorities. In 2005, Luzhkov awarded her the honorary title ‘Honorable
Economist of Moscow’. In February 2011, Volkova resigned
unexpectedly; no reason was given for her sudden departure.
Her former boss, Andrey Borodin, fled to London two months later; he
did not want to stick around for the criminal investigation into the Bank
of Moscow. Other former directors also fled the country or later ended
up in a Russian prison.
Volkova had found refuge in the Netherlands almost a year and a half
before that. In November 2009, she concluded a purchase agreement for
the Nijenberg country estate in Aerdenhout. The purchase was
completed in early 2010. A mortgage was not required; the purchase
price, over 5.3 million euros, was paid in one lump sum. In August 2010,
almost half a year before she suddenly left the Bank of Moscow, Volkova
officially moved into the country estate with her husband and daughter.
“In November 2009, Volkova bought a
country estate in Aerdenhout for 5.3 million
euros. The purchase price was paid in one
lump sum”

Igor Kravchenko, her husband, is also a banker. In the summer of 2004,
he was president of the Russian National Commercial Bank
(RNCB), a subsidiary of the Bank of Moscow.
While the money at the Bank of Moscow disappeared by the tens of
millions, Volkova set up two offshore companies in the British Virgin
Islands and Panama in the summer of 2009. Documents in possession of
Follow the Money and the OCCRP show that the
has a portfolio of at least five million dollars plus 900 thousand euros. In
late 2009, Volkova also became the owner of an offshore company in
New Zealand.
Colleagues are on Interpol’s most-wanted list
Shortly after they arrived in the Netherlands, the couple loaned 4.5
million euros to their business friend . Six months later, in
August 2010, the couple began working for Kimnet Holding, Kim’s
cosmetics import company, and they continued working there until the
end of 2012.
The acquisition of their villa and their loan to Kim had already cost the
couple almost 10 million. Where did they get that money? As vice
president of the Bank of Moscow, Volkova earned around 500 thousand
euros annually. A decent amount, but that doesn’t explain their wealth.
The money came from their Panamanian company. Kim was supposed to
use the loan to invest in bonds, but he failed to do so. He then refused to
repay the loan.
appointed
Panamanian company
Jossiv Kim
The Russian Central Bank stated that via
Kravchenko’s bank over 10 billion roubles had been
siphoned off from the Bank of Moscow

Shortly after Volkova left the Bank of Moscow, the Central Bank of
Russia concluded that the bank’s management committed a series of
violations between 2008 and 2011. In September, the Central Bank also
stated that over 10 billion roubles had been siphoned off from the Bank
of Moscow through RNCB, Kravchenko’s bank. In November 2011, two of
his co-directors were put on Interpol’s most-wanted list.
As far as Follow the Money and the OCCRP were able to ascertain, there
are no investigations or criminal cases pending against the Volkova-
Kravchenko couple. They refrained from answering questions about the
origin of their assets.
In late 2012, it became clear to the couple that the more than 4.5 million
euros they lent to their business friend Kim had vanished into thin air.
They enlisted Blaustein’s help, but when he too failed to keep his
promises and withheld money, Volkova and Kravchenko filed fraud and
embezzlement charges in September 2015. The couple also launched
civil cases against Kim and Blaustein. They won all of them.
In November 2019, the couple sold their country estate
. At the notary, the couple identified themselves with a Dutch
passport. Information from the IND contained in Blaustein’s case file
indicates they have a residence permit. Like Olga Rodionova, Elena
Volkova Completor, which again turned out to be a fake job.
According to Volkova, Blaustein had put her on the payroll for ‘tax
purposes’ and not to obtain a residence permit.
Red flags and a spy
Blaustein also has business dealings with Sergey Mayzus, who owned a
financial services company. His criminal record is a mile long, ranging
from a ‘high-tech money laundering machine’ that caused hundreds of
thousands of users , to fines and sanctions in
and . US regulators had already raised red flags in 2010
regarding bitcoin transactions by MoneyPolo, likewise owned by
Mayzus.
to their
daughter
joined
to lose their money Cyprus
Azerbaijan

Blaustein’s case file shows that his Hong Kong branch sent Mayzus hefty
bills for ‘tax & legal services’ rendered during 2009-2011. That included
Blaustein setting up a for him, with an address
in Gurievsk, Russia.
The vice president of this foundation is Arne Treholt. This
Norwegian was exposed as a Russian spy in 1984 and received a 20-year
prison sentence. After his release, he moved to Russia, where he started
a company together with a former KGB spy.
Tip of the iceberg
It is unclear exactly how many clients Blaustein had and who all of them
were. The FIOD did not conduct an in-depth investigation into this.
After conducting an inventory, Follow the Money and the OCCRP
counted at least five hundred companies and foundations linked to
Blaustein’s global letterbox firm empire. So far, we found about two
hundred people, mostly Russians, who were (co-) directors of an LLC or
foundation set up by Blaustein. An overview in the case file shows that
the IND has found a total of 52 so-called highly skilled migrants who
can be linked to a Blaustein company. Eight of them have since acquired
Dutch nationality.
Investigations by the research platform Investico already revealed in
February 2021 that the highly skilled migrant regulation is susceptible
to fraud. Every year, this construction enables around 14 thousand non-
European migrants to obtain a Dutch residence permit in less than two
weeks.
Dutch charity foundation
80-year-old
The Blaustein case shows that the status of a ‘highly
skilled migrant’ is for sale to those who come
bearing a bag of money

Author: Siem Eikelenboom
Experienced investigative journalist. Was part of the international team
that investigated the Panama Papers.
Author: Hugo Rasch
The Dutch Inspectorate of Justice and Security had already concluded in
2017 that the IND does not run checks on whether someone has a
criminal past. Experts told Investico that this makes the Netherlands
vulnerable to espionage and unwanted political influence. The Blaustein
case shows that the scant test also encourages fraud: the status of a
‘highly skilled migrant’ is for sale to those who come bearing a bag of
money.
In July 2020, the IND filed charges against Blaustein. The IND names
five highly skilled migrants, including Olga Rodionova, who blatantly
abused the scheme. It furthermore names seven people who wrongfully
received residence permits: they were on the payroll of a company of
which they actually were directors or major shareholders.
Whether the IND will revoke the residence permits of those mentioned
in the report is unknown. Last week, the department could not answer
questions about the matter.

Vadim Blaustein: Dutch trust office sneaked Russian bankers and a Playboy model into the Netherlands

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Vadim Blaustein: Dutch trust office sneaked Russian bankers and a Playboy model into the Netherlands