The Russian authorities announced a search for the company’s founder and former co-owner Sergey Petrov in 2019. Rolf became one of the largest companies seized by the state after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. At the beginning of last year, the General Prosecutor’s Office requested the nationalization of the company, which was also supported by the court, the portal wrote.
Kremlin, according to agency sources Reuters became the owner of Rolf at the end of last year, although it was not officially announced. The company did not even clarify how the head of the boxing association became the head of car dealerships. In an interview with Kommersant newspaper in June, Kremlev claimed that he was interested in selling the cars and that he wanted to buy the company’s assets at the market price.
Name change
Kremlev is a close friend of the head of the president’s security Alexey Rubezhny. They met in 2010, when Kremlev joined the pro-Kremlin motorcycle club Noční vlci. His former name was Lutfulloyev, and he was twice convicted of extortion and fighting. Then he changed his surname to hide the dark side of his biography.
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According to the Projekt server, Kremlev and Rubezhnoy were in the betting business together. The Kremlin has stakes in major bookmakers that control more than half of the Russian market, and also has the gambling regulator under its thumb. Revenues in this system in the first half of last year amounted to 32 billion rubles (about eight billion CZK), they wrote The Moscow Times.
The Rolf company was founded by Sergey Petrov, a former member of the Russian Parliament. Until 2021, he used to be part of the list of the richest Russians. In 2019, authorities began prosecuting him on suspicion of illegal currency operations while exporting money from Russia. Petrov, living in exile, has denied any wrongdoing apart from refusing to support Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and taking part in anti-government demonstrations in late 2011 and early 2012, the website added.
Petrov lives in Austria, Rolf owned through a Cypriot company. Rolf was one of the first car dealers in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The company reported revenues of 323.8 billion rubles (about 79 billion CZK) last year, Reuters wrote.
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