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With no end in sight to Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine, the world’s attention will continue to be focused on Moscow. They found a number of complex strategies, coordinated by Viktorov and his team and executed by a range of Western enablers - including lawyers, business consultants, bankers, and corporate service providers - that helped the Rotenbergs disguise their ownership of assets, move money, and relocate businesses to friendly jurisdictions. Over 60 journalists from 17 outlets spent three months analyzing the documents and conducting further reporting. Viktorov turns out to be a key figure in the Rotenbergs’ maintenance of their assets and businesses around the world after they were sanctioned. The emails, which cover the period between 20, come from Moscow-based Evocorp, an asset management company belonging to Maxim Viktorov, a Russian businessman. The question of how much those sanctions affected them, and what they and their families did to minimize their impact, is a difficult one - but the leaked emails, provided to IStories and OCCRP by a source who asked not to be named to protect their safety, provide unprecedented insights. So it was little surprise that they were sanctioned by the United States in 2014, and later by the European Union, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea.

And Karina Rotenberg herself was closely involved with the design, even calling the contractors “fools” for using cheap materials, writing: “You installed IKEA quality in the main dressing rooms!”īoris and Arkady Rotenberg were childhood friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, became billionaires under his rule, and are widely considered to be among his closest allies.

Viktorov, a lawyer who did his military service with Russia’s KGB in the early 1990s, is seen in the emails personally monitoring its construction. The emails suggest the Spanish villa was among Boris and his wife’s most prized assets. Dubbed the Rotenberg Files, it reveals how a Russian businessman named Maxim Viktorov helped the blacklisted billionaires get around some of the financial, legal, and reputational problems caused by sanctions. The leak of more than 50,000 emails and documents, obtained by IStories and OCCRP, sheds unprecedented light on the schemes used by associates of Boris and his brother Arkady to protect the oligarchs’ assets and companies. It didn’t name the person, but a new leak of emails indicates it was either Boris or Karina Rotenberg. The document said the villa was connected to an individual sanctioned by the EU over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In October 2022, Spanish authorities quietly froze the property, according to a Spanish land registry document obtained by reporters.

Over many years under his rule, the brothers’ companies benefited from lucrative state contracts, including for some of the president’s pet projects, like the 2014 Winter Olympic games in Sochi.īoris and Karina Rotenberg at the 2017 Formula 1 in Sochi.īut recently the coat of arms disappeared.

Boris and his brother Arkady are Russian billionaires and childhood friends of President Vladimir Putin. This extravagant acquisition, which has never before been reported, was nothing unusual for the Rotenbergs. The couple spent the equivalent of $10.8 million on the property. The villa features a lush garden and swimming pool that overlook the 15th hole of the Oliva Nova golf course. Reporters obtained documents showing for the first time that the villa has been frozen by Spanish authorities.įor years, Boris and Karina Rotenberg’s ostentatious coat of arms presided over an imposing mansion in Oliva, Spain, on the sundrenched Mediterranean coast.

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The leaked emails reveal years of back and forth discussions on how to arrange the payments for its construction and show apparent attempts to cover up the fact that the funds came from a Cypriot company owned by Boris, who was under U.S.

Boris Rotenberg’s wife Karina commissioned the previously unreported villa in December 2013, and the couple restructured its ownership to avoid paying a three percent annual tax on real estate held by offshore companies.