This is a bit of a long read.
It is a translation directly from a Russian language openmedia press article:
https://openmedia.io/investigation/...plantacii-na-filippinax-s-kremlevskoj-bandoj/
"What connects the largest banana plantations in the Philippines with the Kremlevskaya gang
Some Russians got hold of the largest banana plantations in the world. Open Media tells the amazing story of the "face of the project" Robert Gaspard
The right hand of the "Polish Al Capone", one of the leaders of the "Kremlin gang" or an ordinary businessman who got into unpleasant stories? Who is the person who plans to create the world's largest banana plantation on the territory of the Islamists, Open Media figured out.
The Russian-Swiss company Solway Group and its partner TechIron Resources, Inc. will invest in the creation of banana plantations on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, Philippine Secretary of Agriculture Emmanuel Piñol said on his Facebook page. This project became known in mid-January from his own words: then the minister told reporters that a certain Russian group intends to invest 8 billion Philippine pesos (about $ 152 million at the current exchange rate) in a grandiose banana growing enterprise, which will create 10 thousand jobs in the Philippines. In addition to banana plantations, the Russians are also ready to invest in the creation of a fishing project in the province of Maguindanao, according to Philippine media publications.
But if fish is still only in the plans, then the process with bananas has begun.
Investors on January 24 signed an agreement with the Philippine group Bangsamoro, which provided 7 thousand hectares for banana plantations in the southern Philippines, Piñol wrote. Such a volume will make them the largest in the world. The plantations of the Philippine corporation TADECO, which now bear this title, occupy 100 hectares less.
The allocated lands are controlled by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) (
*SP edit: not the fun kind of MILF*), an Islamist organization that fights for the creation of an independent Islamic state for the Moro peoples in the southern Philippines. Their representatives also participated in negotiations with investors, Philippine media claimed. Indeed, in the photos published by Pinjol, people in military uniforms with machine guns come across.
Also in the pictures, among the officials in shirts, there is a man dressed quite
informally - in jeans and a black T-shirt. This is a representative of investors, French-Russian businessman Robert Gaspard living in the Philippines, according to Piñol's explanations. According to Gaspard, Russians expressed a desire to invest in the Philippines after President Rodrigo Duterte's visit to Moscow in May 2017 and his subsequent meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So far, the Philippines, which is one of the largest producers of bananas, ranks only sixth in terms of their exports to Russia. More than 95% of bananas in Russia are supplied by Ecuador
During these summits, the heads of state agreed to "strengthen bilateral relations." "Everything that will be grown in the Philippines will find demand in the Russian market... This is our modest contribution to President Duterte's efforts to bring peace and progress to Mindanao," Piñol quoted Gaspar as saying.
Other details about the project and its investors have not yet been disclosed by the Philippine authorities. The Philippine Department of Agriculture promised to answer questions as soon as relevant officials return from business trips, but two weeks after the first request of Open Media, this did not happen. The Center for Trade and Investment at the Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines advised to focus on the information published on Piñol's FB page.
Not investors, but partners
The description given by the Philippine minister fits the description of the mining and metals company Solway Investment Group, headquartered in Switzerland and with revenues of $419 million in 2017.
The owners of Solway Investment Group Bronsteins do not advertise their connection with Russia: in the spring of 2018, Daniil said in an interview with Forbes that he was a German citizen, and his father, Alexander Bronstein, had Estonian citizenship. About 65% of the company's revenue comes from nickel, the remaining third is about equally accounted for by gold and copper, said Daniil Bronstein. According to Forbes, in the 2000s, Alexander Bronstein became friends with Viktor Vekselberg. In 2003, Bronstein and his partners gave the Sevzapprom company to the SUAL group of Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik in exchange for 18% of SUAL. Thanks to this deal, in 2004, Bronstein was ranked 97th on the Forbes list with a fortune of $210 million.
Its owners, Alexander and Daniil Bronstein, are immigrants from Russia, former partners of businessman Viktor Vekselberg. Solway already has assets in the Philippines: according to the company's website, it operates two chromite quarries in the country on the island of Homonhon.
A Solway spokesperson told Open Media that the company has no plans to invest in banana plantations or agriculture in the Philippines, but confirmed that TechIron Resources is its partner, albeit only in mining and metals projects.
Piñol explained to the Philippine edition of the Manila Bulletin that he learned about his participation in the Solway project from Gaspard. He suggests that the decision to invest could not be made by the company as a whole, but by someone from its management, but hopes that one way or another Solway will be involved in the project.
TechIron Resources, Inc. does not deny its participation in the creation of plantations: on its Facebook page, it posted a post by Emmanuel Piñol describing the project. Not much is known about TechIron Resources, Inc. Piñol calls it a Filipino company. Judging by the ads on local recruiting sites, the company was registered in August 2015 for the extraction and processing of minerals. Open Media could not find data on the owners of TechIron Resources. But there was a lot of information about Robert Gaspard, who is called a representative of both investors.
Robert Gaspard is known for
Businessman Gaspar, who, according to various sources, may be 57-59 years old, has not given an interview, or even a comment to journalists, although he often attracted the attention of the press. His life path can be traced through publications in the American, Belgian, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and Spanish media. His name also appears in the official documents of the Securities Commission (SEC, USA) and the materials of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
The European press called Gaspar one of the leaders of the Kremlyovskaya criminal group, which laundered money from drug trafficking, and the right hand of the "godfather" of the Eastern European mafia. Nevertheless, the businessman, who was engaged in vodka, development and media business, has never been officially charged with such charges. But his business partners often ended up in prison or became victims of murders and accidents.
Why do we believe that the hero of these publications and the representative of Russian-Swiss investors in the Philippines are the same person? Open Media was unable to contact Robert Gaspar. But in addition to the description - all publications talk about a Frenchman of Soviet or Russian origin - there is also an external similarity. Gaspard's photo had been published in the press only once before: the local edition of The Olive Press illustrated the text about his business in Andalusia with a picture of a young Gaspard. It depicts a man with a short haircut, in jeans and a black T-shirt.
*SP EDIT: link to 1st photo desnt work*
Robert Gaspard (left). Photo from theolivepress article. ES on the activities of the "Kremlin gang"
Gaspar in this photo looks like a man in a black T-shirt from Pinol's Facebook photos of Russian banana plantation investors. Here, for example, the minister and Gaspard in January of this year are exploring the territory for future plantations, and also meet with representatives of the Philippine administration:
One of the businessman's acquaintances confirmed to Open Media that the photos of The Olive Press and Piñol do indeed depict Gaspard.
Jewels of New York
For the first time, the name of Robert Gaspard, a native of the USSR, appears in the materials of the American media after the murder of jeweler Boris Bezner in New York in April 1989. He was fatally stabbed in his office on 47th Street in Manhattan. In hot pursuit, the suspects were arrested - emigrants from the USSR Grigory Zlochevsky and Robert Gaspar. The well-known American journalist Vladimir Kozlovsky mentioned this episode in a large text for the émigré publication "New Russian Word", dedicated to the Russian mafia in New York.
"They found seized stones and a pistol, which Robik [according to Kozlovsky, by this name Gaspard was known in criminal circles in New York] recklessly took with him from home. At first, both were given life imprisonment, but Robic, who was defended by Barry Slotnik (a well-known American lawyer who defended members of the "Russian mafia", including Vyacheslav Ivankov ("Yaponchik"), was soon seriously reduced in prison, and he left for Europe.
Gaspard was a witness in the case, according to materials preserved in the archives of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. According to the defense, Zlochevsky invited Gaspar to attend a meeting with a jeweler who allegedly owed him money. During the conversation, a fight broke out, Bezner was killed. Zlochevsky claimed that he struck in defense.
In one of the publications dedicated to the case of the jeweler, it is mentioned that Gaspar was 27 years old in 1989, his real name was Ruben Gasparyan, and he was born in Odessa.
The Russian episode
The next time Robert Gaspard appeared was in Moscow: a person with this name was listed as the producer of the 1992 film "Am I to Blame?" People's Artist of the USSR Klara Luchko, who played the main role in this melodrama, recalled in an interview that for a long time she could not find money for filming, until through acquaintances she contacted a certain woman from Armenia, who emigrated to the United States, but recently returned to Russia and does business here.
From media publications, it is known that in the 1990s, Gaspard began to supply the Russian market with alcohol, and his mother, a big fan of Soviet cinema, helped him a little in business.
As follows from the disclosure of information to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in 1996 Gaspard was listed as a co-owner of Kremlyovskaya Group Inc (KGI), registered in the offshore state of Delaware, whose subsidiary Kremlyovskaya Group NV from Antwerp, Belgium, was engaged in the production and supply of vodkas to Russia under the brands Kremlyovskaya De Luxe and White Eagle. The second co-owner of KGI in the SEC papers is a certain Ricardo Fancini.
In the future, journalists will call Gaspard the "right hand" of Fancini, who, in turn, is considered the "godfather" of Eastern European organized crime. And the history of Kremlyovskaya vodka will be the subject of investigations and trials with the participation of the Belgian police and the FBI.
Vodka with heroin
As the FBI investigation established, the Kremlyovskaya Group was created in 1994 to launder money received from the transit of huge quantities of heroin from Southeast Asia to the United States through Belgium and Poland. The organizers of the scheme were called the leaders of the "Russian mafia" in New York, Boris Nayfeld, Vyacheslav Ivankov and Riccardo Fanchini (a native of Poland, also known as Richard Kozina or "Polish Al Capone").
As Kommersant wrote in 1996, referring to the materials of the trial in Belgium, Fancini and his partners organized the supply of heroin from Thailand: the cathode tubes of TVs were stuffed with the drug (businessmen purchased a TV assembly plant in Thailand for this occasion).
The televisions arrived by sea to Belgium and Poland, then couriers recruited from the residents of Brighton Beach transported the equipment to New York. This scheme worked successfully for several years: the FBI explained that they did not consider Poland as a drug trafficking point, so those arriving from there were not searched very carefully.
In the early 1990s, Fancini created the company M&S International, which established the supply of food and consumer goods to the Soviet Western Group of Forces. Through this company, money earned on the supply of heroin was laundered, besides, the scheme allowed army generals to earn money - purchases were made at inflated prices with budget money, Kommersant wrote. The difference was divided between drug mafia dealers and high-ranking army officials. To sell goods imported through the ZGV channel, the M&S Intourcenter trading company was created, which was controlled by businessman Otari Kvantrishvili.
After the murder of Kvantrishvili in April 1994, Fanchini switched to working with the "Kremlin" vodka.
The Kremlyovskaya vodka brand was invented by Brighton Beach natives Yakov Tilipman and Mark Nudel. In the 1980s, Tilipman was involved in the case of robbing jewelry stores in New York. Prior to Kremlyovskaya, the partners were engaged in the supply of the famous Royal alcohol to Russia, as well as cigarettes and other alcohol through the Russian America joint venture, the advertising face of which was the young showman Alexander Tsekalo. The partners became co-owners of Belgian and Russian companies from the Kremlyovskaya Group.
Thanks to an agreement with the National Sports Fund, which had the right to import alcohol and cigarettes into Russia duty-free, the group did not pay any excise taxes for the import of vodka from Belgium. Fancini invested in advertising - the commercials of "Kremlin" and "White Eagle" were shown on TV around the clock.
A year after the start of production, in 1995, Kremlyovskaya De Luxe took fifth place in the world in terms of production volumes, the brand became a sponsor of the Formula1 Jordan-Peugeot team, and Fanchini purchased the yacht Kremlyovskaya Princess (Western media associated its name with Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Dyachenko-Yumasheva). But the business ended as suddenly as it began - in 1996, the benefits for the import of vodka and cigarettes for the National Sports Fund were canceled, Fancini's partner Boris Neifield was arrested in the United States for drug smuggling, the Belgian police began an investigation into the connection between the international drug mafia and a vodka company registered in Belgium.
The enterprise had to be curtailed. To do this, Fancini and Gaspard reorganized the parent company of the KGI group in 1996 - it was sold to Asia Media Communication (AMC), registered in Nevada, in which Gaspard was also a shareholder. Thanks to this operation, the partners managed to withdraw the money of the group that had declared bankruptcy from Belgium. The Belgian investigation failed to prove Fancini's involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering. The charge could only bring him fictitious bankruptcy - for it in 1997, Fancini received four years in prison. Other managers of the company also received short sentences. No charges were brought against Gaspard. But after the investigation and trial in the press, he and other co-owners and managers of the group began to be called the Kremlevskaya gang - "Kremlin gang".
Fanchini and Gaspard's partners in the Kremlyovskaya Group ended badly. In December 1995, Nudel was kidnapped directly from the departure hall of Sheremetyevo-2 airport, a few months later his body was found in the Pakhra River. Tilipman, who ran the Moscow office of Kremlevskaya, was shot dead at his dacha near Krasnogorsk in 2002. Another founder of the group, Rashmiel Brandwein, who went out of business and spoke in interviews about the Russian mafia's ties to drug trafficking and people in the Kremlin, was shot dead in the center of Antwerp in 1998.
The head of the National Sports Foundation, Boris Fedorov, died suddenly of heart failure in 1999, although he had never complained of heart problems before.
Operation Majestic
For several years, the "Kremlin gang" disappeared from the media to "surface" in the south of Spain - in Andalusia. In the early noughties, Ricardo Fancini and Robert Gaspard appeared on the Costa Del Sol - Fancini has a luxurious villa here, one of the best on the coast. The partners immediately set up a business: with the support of the mayor of the town of Casares, Juan Sanchez, they built 115 luxury villas on the coast in 2000-2005
The Majestic complex on the coast of Andalusia. Photo by TripAdviser
In addition, they invest in the media. In 2004, Gaspard and another partner of Fancini, businessman of Russian-Armenian origin Robert Frank Money, met Maurice Boland, a popular radio DJ from Ireland nicknamed "Mr. Marbella", at the luxurious Las Dunas hotel in Estepona. According to local expat publication The Olive Press, the partners offered Boland, known for his interviews with celebrities, including David Beckham, to lead their project, the first English-language radio station on the Andalusian coast - Radio Europe Mediterraneo (REM).
"He immediately seemed cute to me, and his accent reminded me a little of a character from the movie Borat," Boland recalled his first meeting with Gaspar. Soon a TV channel was added to the radio station. In addition, Gaspard organized tours of world celebrities in Marbella.
The TV channel and radio station immediately became popular. Among other things, they advertised the village of Majestic. "I once asked about the origin of the investment, Gaspard said that the money was earned from copper mines or something like that," Boland told reporters.
"We knew from day one that this was dirty money laundering. It was clear from these investors that they were real gangsters," an anonymous source of The Olive Press from among the station's former employees objected.
Majestic's problems began at the end of 2007, when Fancini was arrested in London. Unlike the investigation in Belgium ten years ago, when he managed to avoid accusations of drug trafficking, this time things went badly for him: the FBI managed to prove the businessman's involvement in the supply of a batch of ecstasy to the United States. At the same time, he was reminded of TVs with heroin, vodka, and other sins.
"Fancini has been charged with crimes committed over the past 20 years. To familiarize themselves with the case materials, a separate cell was allocated, completely filled with boxes of materials collected by the investigation," the BBC wrote. Realizing that he was facing a life sentence in the United States, Fancini made a deal with the investigation. He pleaded guilty to smuggling 1.8 million ecstasy pills into the country with a total weight of 424 kg, agreed to pay a fine of $ 30 million, and also did not object to the confiscation of property - 40 houses around the world with a total value of $ 67 million.
But, most importantly, he testified behind closed doors to the FBI against members of the "Russian mafia" in Spain and the United States. In 2009, a Brooklyn court sentenced Riccardo Fancini to 10 years in prison.
According to Polish investigative journalist Witold Gadovsky, Fanchini testified against members of the Tambov group in Spain, which helped the Spanish security forces to carry out Operation Troika in 2008 and detain Alexander Malyshev and Gennady Petrov, who are considered leaders of the Tambov organized criminal group in Spain.
However, with the arrest of Fancini, the Majestic project had to be curtailed. In 2009, Gaspar announced to Boland that the radio station was in serious trouble and would have to be closed. Formally, it was about the claims of the tax inspectorate - the owners owed about $ 200 thousand in taxes. However, the Spanish police were already investigating their activities in Andalusia. Gaspard disappeared from Spain.
In 2012, the mayor of Casares, Juan Sanchez, was arrested. The investigation found that he signed construction permits in circumvention of all possible laws and restrictions. The court will consider that the official did this for large bribes (€ 282 thousand) from members of the "Russian mafia", which laundered its money both through a development and through a media project.
By 2015, police had seized 250 homes, five commercial premises, 20 cars and 165 bank accounts as part of the Majestic investigation, The Olive Press reported.
In 2017, Sanchez was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison. Money, the same one who helped persuade DJ Boland to work for Russian investors, was also sentenced to 8 years.
Open Media sent a request to Spanish law enforcement agencies regarding Gaspar's status in the Majestic case, but did not receive a response.
The way to the east
Riccardo Fanchini was released from an American prison in 2017. According to journalist Witold Gadovsky, the businessman has already found a new field for investment - he is opening a shrimp plant in Indonesia - a state located in Southeast Asia, like the Philippines, where Robert Gaspar is negotiating the creation of a banana plantation.
It is possible that businessmen will have to hear about the drug problem again.
Southeast Asia in general and the Philippines in particular have long announced a course to combat drug trafficking. A growing threat to the region is posed not only by methamphetamine, of which the Philippines is considered one of the leaders in production, but also by American cocaine, said President Duterte, known for his cruelty to drug traffickers, in the spring of 2018. He claimed that Mexican and South American cartels were strengthening their positions in the Philippines by setting up transshipment points for their products. As an example, he cited the largest supplier of cocaine in the United States, the Sinaloa cartel.
The words "bananas" and "drugs" have appeared in the same news more than once. "The entire drug trade is completely related to bananas," Vladimir Kekhman, the founder of Russia's largest banana importer, JFC, told Dozhd TV in 2011. This is how he commented on the reports of the police, who found 120 kg of cocaine on one of the ships with his products. There is always a drug in the supply of bananas, and nothing can be done about it, but fruit importers have nothing to do with it, Kekhman assured. "This is usually done by the team," he explained. There can be no claims against the owners of bananas, he believes: "And we do not prove anything. I repeat once again: the ships do not belong to us, we own the fruit.
What was known about the supply of fruits from the Philippines
Russia agreed to increase the supply of Philippine fruits back in 2017. At that time, Minister Emmanuel Piñol came to Moscow to meet with the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev. "We consider it a promising area to increase the volume of fruit supplies from the Philippines to Russia. We are ready to work out this issue in detail after receiving specific proposals from the Philippine side," Tkachev said at the time.
According to ru-stat.com based on statistics from the Federal Customs Service, from November 2017 to October 2018, Russia imported bananas worth $1.17 billion. Filipino bananas ranked sixth in this ranking with a share of 0.1% ($1.7 million). At the same time, according to Emmanuel Piñol, Philippine bananas do not come to Russia directly, but through China."
