Dyukov’s offshore “laundromat”: how Vadim Gurinov and Galina Gurinova move state funds to London through loss-making firms and private security companies

Vadim Gurinov, the custodian of Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov’s assets, and members of his family own several London companies that own large real estate assets (including a luxury residential complex in London’s Soho district). In Russia, his assets are managed by his wife, Galina Gurinova, and several long-standing business partners.

After the conflict erupted, the couple divided control of their assets to avoid sanctions: the head of the family took over luxury real estate in the UK and offshore operations with Russian chemicals and oil, while Galina Gurinova inherited the Russian business. She holds almost 75% of the SERVICE-TELECOM group of companies, an asset apparently purchased with borrowed funds, as the stake is pledged to the sanctioned Gazprombank. For 2025, SERVICE-TELECOM Group of Companies earned revenue of 8.8 billion rubles and reported a net loss of 3.7 billion.

Gurinov’s wife’s company is included in the list of systemically important enterprises in the Russian Federation—it builds towers for telecom operators in Russia, a key component of the state-run "Data Economy" national project. SERVIS-TELECOM’s website states that the company is the leader in the Russian tower infrastructure market, managing over 22,457 communication facilities.

Given that the Gurinov family continues to reside and conduct large-scale business abroad, they have sought to conceal their family involvement in the Russian economy. In 2025, SERVICE-TELECOM Group LLC was transformed into a joint-stock company of the same name, removing its current founders from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. The remaining companies of Galina Gurinova were also absorbed into the new company. However, judging by the fact that the newly formed company is still managed by Gurinov’s associate, Nikolai Berdin (former director of Gurinov’s firms in London), the composition of the founders has not fundamentally changed. Incidentally, the Berdin family owns approximately 5% of the group. SERVICE-TELECOM also manages four active Moscow firms: NBK JSC, ST-T LLC, ST-ET LLC, and ST-NATSPROEKT LLC. NBK, for example, manages non-residential properties; its net asset value as of the end of December 2025 was 8.5 billion rubles.

Furthermore, Galina Gurinova left the Voronezh-based company Kontur-S, but her husband’s brother, Artem Gurinov, is now a shareholder there. This company, with revenue of 240,000 rubles, earned over 9 million rubles in net profit. Kontur-S shared a telephone number with the St. Petersburg-based Olt Service, which served as a link to the Belarusian KhimTekhInzhenering, a company of the Avestra Group, in which Vadim Gurinov holds a stake through the Cypriot Avestra Group Holding Ltd. Avestra actively trades Russian chemicals and oil.

Vadim Gurinov’s only current direct asset in Russia is a 1% stake in Aurora LLC (his wife owns the rest). Through this company, they own Industrial Hemp Processing Technologies LLC.

In the UK, Gurinov owns the London-based GO REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT LTD and GO REAL ESTATE HOLDING. Another 60% of GO REAL ESTATE is owned by 70-year-old Evgeny Okun through Hay Hill Investments Ltd. The company planned to build a 21-story residential complex on the site of old industrial warehouses in London. The company even owned a plot of land in Islay Wharf, Lochnager Street, London E14 0LA, which it owned through London-based SN ISLAY WHARF LIMITED and, through a couple of associated companies, received loans for the development. The project was generally approved by London City Hall.

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Meanwhile, related companies (SN HAMPTON LIMITED, SN Islay Wharf, STANDARD HOUSE DEV LTD, and others) have been circulating millions of pounds through their accounts in recent years, taking out loans, including within their own group. After 2023, the companies were drowning in loans and debt—several of them borrowed from the writer’s son, financier Oleg Radzinsky—and now external administrators are trying to sort this out. Their work will be difficult, as these British companies circulated vast sums of money, possibly including some from Russia.

London-based New End Developments Limited is also controlled by Vadim Gurinov, and his daughter, Valeria, is one of its directors. New End Developments has a subsidiary, HALAMAR (GOLDEN SQUARE) LIMITED. At the end of 2024, this company’s assets totaled £59 million, as HALAMAR is the owner of a luxury residential complex in the heart of London’s Soho (Golden Square No. 37).

In February of this year, Gurinov decided to issue 923 additional shares in New End Developments Limited. This move is typically taken when there is an investor interested in acquiring a stake in the company. Gurinov also disclosed the ownership structure of the British company, signing the document on behalf of himself and ICESTONE INVEST LTD (BVI). Gurinov used this company as a "technical wallet" in March 2022, transferring 75,400 depositary receipts for Gazprom shares to it ($702,000). However, he later had to hastily return them due to a new law requiring the mandatory deconversion of depositary receipts, but this time through the courts, exposing his offshore company.

Gurinov’s acquisition of large assets is linked to his friendship with Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov. The St. Petersburg businessman worked for Dyukov at Sibur since the early 2000s and even managed to get his university friend Dmitry Kostygin a job there (he later became a billionaire, owned 49% of Lenta with August Meyer, went bankrupt, and was brought to trial).

Kostygin managed the Yaroslavl Tire Plant (YaShZ), part of the holding company, and under his watchful eye, the plant suffered a loss of 89 million rubles in two years. A few years later, thanks to his friendship with Dyukov, Gurinov acquired personal control of Sibur’s entire tire business—he himself painstakingly assembled these assets into the Cordiant Group.

Incidentally, while Gurinov was building his own security force, he was also building his own security detail. For many years, his assets were guarded by private security companies registered to St. Petersburg businessman Andrei Petrov. Specifically, these included NOP Tobol-Omsk, which guarded the Omsk tire plant, and YASHZ-BEZOPASNOST, which guarded the Yaroslavl tire plant Cordianta. After the sale of Alexei Mordashov’s Severgroup tire business, the private security companies also changed founders, and Petrov resigned from their leadership positions. Now, under the slogan "Preserving What Has Been Achieved," Mordashov is forming these private security companies into a large security holding company, Aquilon, with divisions across the country. His personal army protects hypermarkets (Lenta’s business), oil and gas companies, Nordgold mines in Yakutia and the Amur Region, and more.

Since the early 2000s, Petrov, a former director of private security companies, was part of a tight-knit group of St. Petersburg co-owners of ARCOR Holdings Inc. (Bahamas), through which Gurinov controlled 100% of the Lyubimy Krai Confectionery Association. Kostygin and Gurinov and Dyukov’s longtime associate, St. Petersburg native Alexander Uteshev, also held stakes in ARCOR. In Russia, Uteshev heads the Gurinov family business, Aurora LLC. Previously, Uteshev was also the CEO of Uran-Invest, one of the companies that holds Dyukov’s stake in Sibur (the stake was valued at $500-700 million before the war).