The trial of journalist Boris Demash continues in Cyprus following a complaint by Russian Cypriot Alexei Gubarev. Let us remind our readers of the essence of the case.
The lawsuit was filed after the publication of an article on the Cyprus Daily News website, which discussed Gubarev’s influence on Cypriot politics, his ties to Russian special services, and his participation in projects that raise serious questions in the context of sanctions, EU security, and cross-border corruption. Instead of publicly refuting the allegations or providing evidence of his innocence, Gubarev filed a lawsuit demanding that the publications be declared defamatory, that our website be shut down, and that any future references to him be prohibited. Surprisingly, the court in Limassol, without verifying the facts set out in the article, fully satisfied his demands.
This was followed by a second lawsuit, this time on charges of failure to comply with the court’s decision. The plaintiff claims that Boris Demash allegedly continued to disseminate information despite the court injunction, even though it is well known that he left the Cyprus Daily News editorial office in 2021 and has no connection with the publication of the article that is the subject of the lawsuit.
Alexei Gubarev and his lawyers continue to lie to the court, claiming that the information we published is false and defamatory. That is why we are publishing the first part of the supporting materials so that readers can see for themselves the accuracy of the facts presented.
Let’s start with Alexei Gubarev’s claim that he never owned property in the Federation Tower in Moscow City. The statement of claim filed with the court by his lawyer states the following: «[Paragraph] 15.10. Cyprus Daily News also refers to the Applicant’s personal files. In particular, it mentions the Applicant’s trips to Russia and the purchase of real estate in Moscow:
«According to our information, he visited Moscow in October 2023, as well as in February and September 2024, staying in a luxury apartment he purchased in the Federation Tower in Moscow, registered in the name of his mother, Lyudmila Gubareva. In addition, in September 2024, he traveled with her to his hometown of Ust-Ilimsk.»
The applicant has never traveled to Russia since 2021 and, in any case, did not travel there for the purpose of purchasing any real estate. The property in question was originally purchased in his wife’s name long before the war in Ukraine began. The property in question was sold on 12/25/2023.»
Let’s leave aside for now Gubarev’s trips to Russia, of which there have been about 50 since 2015, and focus on the property in the Federation Tower.
We checked the documents and found that on February 25, 2020, an apartment with an area of 188 square meters, as well as a number of other premises on the 71st floor of the Federation Tower with a total area of 213.1 square meters, were indeed registered in the name of Alexei Gubarev’s wife, Anna Alexandrovna Gubareva. At the time of purchase, the cost per square meter in this complex was about $20,000. Thus, the total value of the property purchased in the name of Anna Gubareva is estimated at approximately $4,260,000.
Gubarev’s lawyer’s statement that this apartment was sold on December 25, 2023, is true. According to documents from the Russian Federation’s real estate registry available to CDN, on that date, the 188-square-meter apartment, with cadastral number 77:01:0004042:10563, together with other premises on the same floor of the same building with cadastral numbers 77:01:0004042:12759 (7.3 square meters), 77:01:0004042:12760 (4 square meters), 77:01:0004042:10562 (10.4 sq. m.), with a total area of 213.1 square meters, were sold by Anna Gubareva to a Russian citizen named Alexander Alexandrovich Gubar, born in 1950.
A study of the buyer’s biography revealed a remarkable detail: Alexander Alexandrovich Gubar is the biological father of Anna Alexandrovna Gubareva. For some reason, Gubarev and his lawyers remained silent about this important circumstance in the lawsuit.
Here we see a classic scheme of concealing assets through nominal owners, widely used by Russian businessmen living in EU countries. In this case, Alexei Gubarev initially registered the property in his wife’s name and then fictitiously transferred the ownership rights to her father, his father-in-law.
In addition to the properties in the Federation Tower, on the same day, December 25, 2023, according to the Russian Federation’s real estate registry, Anna Gubareva «sold» her father two more parking spaces at 19 1st Krasnogvardeysky Proezd, under cadastral numbers 77:01:0004042:11311 (16.8 sq. m.) and 77:01:0004042:11312 (16.8 sq. m.).
Less than two months later, on February 17, 2024, Alexander Gubar «sold» all the real estate he had previously «purchased» from his daughter.
The new nominal owner of the apartment in the Federation Tower and other real estate properties became the company KVARTAL LTD.
The director of this company is listed as Irina Vladimirovna Chuprun.
Prior to this, Irina Chuprun worked for a company called Bashnya57 LLC, a subsidiary of the Cypriot company ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED, which, according to our information, is owned by Alexei Gubarev, a citizen of Cyprus and Lithuania.
The founder of KVARTAL LLC is Russian citizen Evgeny Nikolaevich Pozdnyakov.
Little is known about him: he was born in Bryansk, lives in Cyprus, and is associated with the bookmaker 1xBet, which is affiliated with the Russian special services. In addition, he is the founder of the bookmaker Olimpbet in Kyrgyzstan.
This fact deserves special attention, given that Kyrgyzstan has become a magnet for many Russian businessmen with Cypriot passports in recent years. This includes Alexei Gubarev, who actively invests in corrupt projects in Bishkek.
It is noteworthy that the business activities of Russian Cypriots in projects related to Kyrgyzstan and implemented by the Kremlin through Russian businesses in Cyprus are supervised by Colonel Erkin Topoev of the 5th FSB Service, an ethnic Kyrgyz acting under diplomatic cover as an counsellor to the Russian Embassy in Nicosia. His coordination activities also include the activities of Gubarev and Pozdnyakov. And given their confirmed connection through Gubarev’s Moscow real estate, their possible participation in joint corruption projects in Kyrgyzstan cannot be ruled out.
All the circumstances indicate that Alexei Gubarev manipulated the ownership rights to the apartment in the Federation Tower in order to hide his assets in Russia behind a chain of nominal owners.
But that’s not all.
In the immediate vicinity of the Federation Tower, in the Moscow City district, another apartment is registered in the name of Anna Gubareva at the address Krasnogvardeisky Boulevard, building 1, apartment 26 (cadastral number 77:01:0004039:1240), purchased by Alexei Gubarev in December 2016.
According to neighbors, the owner of the apartment was last seen in February of this year.
But that’s not all.
According to documents from the Russian real estate registry at our disposal, on June 2, 2023 — that is, almost a year and a half after the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine — Alexei Gubarev invested in Russian real estate, registering an apartment in his wife’s name at the following address: Krasnoyarsk, Akademika Kirenskogo Street, 25a, apartment 29 (cadastral number 24:50:0000000:38631).
This fact once again clearly refutes the statements made by Gubarev and his lawyers about his alleged complete severance of ties with Russia in 2021.
At the same time, we are not talking about these apartments, but about much larger real estate holdings that belong to Alexei Gubarev but are formally registered to nominal owners.
As we have discovered, Alexei Gubarev, through a network of companies under his control, owns more than 4,000 square meters of real estate in the Federation Tower in the Moscow City complex. The market value of these premises may exceed €50 million.
In particular, the 63rd and 69th floors of the Federation Tower contain premises with a total area of over 2,000 square meters. The formal owner of these properties is the Russian company Sky Office LLC, whose sole founder is the Cypriot company ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED, owned by Alexei Gubarev.
In addition, Bashnya57 LLC, also owned by Cyprus-based ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED, owns premises with an area of approximately 2,200 square meters located on the 57th floor of the Federation Tower.
This fact is confirmed by the company’s official financial report.
The beneficiary of ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED is Alexei Gubarev, as confirmed by the company’s corporate documents.
This circumstance directly contradicts Gubarev’s statements about completely severing ties with Russia in 2021.
On May 19, 2022, two months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Gubarev transferred his 1,000 shares in ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED to TAIALA LTD, and the nominal shareholder, lawyer Angelos Pafitis, transferred another 500 shares. As a result, formal control of the company passed to TAIALA LTD.
The hasty transfer of shares shortly after the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine looks like an attempt to more reliably hide toxic assets behind a nominee company.
ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED was registered in Cyprus in 2016, and its structure, including directors, secretaries, and shareholders, included individuals who were part of Gubarev’s long-established so-called «nominee cluster.»
Directors of ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED:
Χαράλαμπος Χαραλάμπους (Charalambos Charalambous)
Κωστάκης Μολέσχης (Kostakis Moleskis)
Παναγιώτης Γεωργίου (Panagiotis Georgiou)
Inna Tzouvalliakidou
Secretaries:
Charalambos Charalambous
Kostakis Moleskis
Nikoleta Anastasiadou
AGP Secretaries Ltd (corporate provider used by a number of Gubarev’s companies, owned by lawyer Angelos Paphitis)
Shareholders:
ANGELOS PAPHITIS (nominee, lawyer, owner of AGP Secretaries Ltd, covered up Gubarev’s involvement)
CHRISTIANA CONSTANTINOU (nominee, lawyer, employee of a firm owned by Angelos Paphitis)
ALEXEY GUBAREV (beneficiary)
Panagiotis Georgiou (director) — a «classic» nominee. Appears in hundreds of companies. Appears as an officer in a number of structures associated with Gubarev: AUKA PROPERTIES LTD, RAKELITA LTD, SANTIENIO LTD, JEMINO LTD, SAIFINTECH LTD, ZOINT HOLDINGS LTD, etc.
AGP Secretaries Ltd is a corporate provider and secretarial company that has been used repeatedly by Alexey Gubarev in his structures. The company is owned by lawyer Angelos Pafitis, who was also the nominal shareholder of ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED.
Inna Tzouvalliakidou is the nominal director of ECOMPRO and a number of companies that are part of Gubarev’s «nominal cluster.»
ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED is registered at Krinou 3, The OVAL, Office 902, Agios Athanasios, Limassol, which is the anchor address of the «Gubarev cluster.» A number of his structures in Cyprus are registered at this address.
TAIALA LTD, to which the shares of ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED were transferred, belongs to another corporate cluster, where Julius Ludwig Baumgartner and Jozef Maruna act as nominee officers. It was registered on May 5, 2022, just two weeks before receiving the ECOMPRO share package, which undoubtedly indicates that it was created specifically for this purpose.
Prospectacy Limited (secretarial/mailing address) is listed in ECOMPRO’s corporate documents as the contact for correspondence (Evagorou 31, Office 54, Nicosia). Prospectacy also appears as the mailing address in TAIALA LTD’s documents.
These facts clearly demonstrate that ECOMPRO HOLDINGS LIMITED’s assets were managed by Gubarev, and that the transfer of shares to TAIALA LTD was a formality aimed at concealing the real owner of the expensive real estate in Moscow. It is noteworthy that there is no information about this multi-million dollar deal in open sources, which is absolutely atypical for transactions of this scale in the Moscow luxury real estate market. Moreover, after the transfer of shares from ECOMPRO to TAIALA, neither company has submitted financial reports to the company registry to date, which only reinforces suspicions that the transaction was fictitious.
In modern Russia, it is impossible to do business, own significant assets, earn money, and not be loyal to the Kremlin. The slightest suspicion of disloyalty leads to the inevitable seizure of all property and a long prison term. Alexey Gubarev knows these rules, strictly adheres to them, and carries out all the Kremlin’s orders. Otherwise, everything he owns in Russia would have been taken away from him long ago — right down to the old cars in his collection, which were to become exhibits in his private museum and were hastily re-registered in his mother’s name in the summer of 2022.
Among other things, Gubarev accused us of lying about his father. In the statement of claim, his lawyer writes the following: «[Paragraph] 15.12. In addition to the reference to his mother, there is also a reference to his father, whom they portray as involved in various frauds and convicted in Russia. It is also mentioned that the claimant’s father obtained Cypriot citizenship, which is also untrue, as the claimant informed me. The claimant’s father died on 31.08.2010 and never obtained Cypriot citizenship.»
We will leave the question of Gubarev’s father’s citizenship for later. We do not know exactly what Alexei Gubarev told his lawyer. However, we have at our disposal extracts from the databases of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, where the information is presented very clearly and leaves no room for interpretation or ambiguity:
Those of our readers who follow our publications know that, in addition to Alexei Gubarev, another Russian citizen, Oleg Reshetnikov, who calls himself the IT ambassador of Cyprus, has also filed a lawsuit. What exactly he did not like in our article remains a mystery. To close the topic with this impostor, we are publishing an extract from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs database confirming the accuracy of the information presented in our publication regarding Reshetnikov.
Please note the date of issue of the driver’s license and compare it with Oleg Reshetnikov’s statements that he allegedly has not visited Russia since 2014 or 2015.
We will continue to publish evidence confirming the facts set out in our article.
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