Boris Usherovich and Mettmann Public Company Limited: the shadow scheme of the fugitive RZD contractor for moving billions through Cypriot offshore companies and nominal directors

Mettmann Public Company Limited, a private company based in Cyprus specializing in offshore investments and real estate, attracted the attention of investigators after it issued €50 million in bonds on the Cyprus Stock Exchange.

While such a deal is ordinary in the real estate world, it drew attention because the 500,000 bonds sold were purchased by individuals closely linked to the inner circle of Arkady Rotenberg, a long-time ally of Vladimir Putin. These connections made Mettmann a focus for investigators.

Analysis of corporate documents and the company’s leadership connections shows that behind its seemingly respectable façade lies a complex system for moving capital out of Russia and subsequently investing it in Europe, primarily in real estate in Spain, Cyprus, and Montenegro.

The outward appearance of Mettmann Public Company Limited is bland and seemingly respectable: an offshore company as offshore companies go. The company was registered in Cyprus on December 20, 2019, and remained “dormant” until 2022, meaning it carried out virtually no activity. But in January 2022, sudden changes occurred — Mettmann Public Company Limited was converted into a public company. This allowed it to issue bonds on the Cyprus Stock Exchange.

Even then, there was nothing particularly unusual or suspicious — it was a standard legal procedure for changing the company’s organizational form. Everything was legal and routine.

However, the subsequent flow of capital was highly atypical. The fact that Mettmann Public Company Limited immediately went public and issued 500,000 bonds with a nominal value of approximately €100 each, totaling about €50 million, was also not unusual for Cyprus — a normal bond program and a standard financing scheme for development projects.

Investigators’ attention was drawn not to the mere issuance of half a million bonds on the Cyprus Stock Exchange, but to who acquired them and the subsequent changes in the company’s corporate documents — names of people connected to major Russian business structures and offshore networks suddenly appeared.

This raised suspicions that these instruments were being used to transfer Russian-origin funds into the European economy. Suspicions turned into certainty after the company’s investment portfolio and corporate structure were analyzed.

Each fact uncovered during the investigation may seem innocent on its own, but taken together they paint a very different picture. Journalists noted several indicators: nominal directors; a complex network of offshore companies linked to Mettmann; and non-obvious beneficiaries hidden behind nominal shareholders.

Mettmann’s transactions and investments are connected to a network of firms registered in various jurisdictions, yet sharing directors and registered addresses. Moreover, formal shareholders and managers do not always match the people who, according to investigators, may control the financial flows.

Against this backdrop, several journalistic investigations suggested that Mettmann could have been used as a financial “transit center” to move capital from Russia to Europe.

Further investigations confirmed this assumption, revealing that the key figure connecting Mettmann to Russian elites is businessman Boris Usherovich — one of the founders of the infrastructure company “Group 1520,” a major contractor for Russian Railways (RZD) and a participant in multiple corruption scandals.

RZD, in turn, is influenced by people in the close circle of the Russian president, including brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. Part of the money extracted through corruption schemes from the Russian budget, through Usherovich’s business structures and his partners, formed financial flows that were then redistributed through offshore structures.

According to investigations, Mettmann is one of these structures — it was through Mettmann Public Company Limited that a scheme was built allowing capital to be moved out of Russia and then legalized through investments in European real estate.

The scheme worked as follows: funds were generated through infrastructure contracts linked to RZD and other state projects. These funds were then transferred to offshore companies registered in Cyprus and other jurisdictions. After moving the capital out of Russia into offshore jurisdictions, Mettmann Public Company Limited issued corporate bonds, which were purchased by affiliated entities.

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It was precisely this issuance of bonds and their subsequent buyback that attracted investigators’ attention. The bonds Mettmann issued on the Cyprus Stock Exchange were immediately purchased by affiliated entities. The funds obtained in this way were invested in development projects in Spain, Montenegro, and Cyprus.

This scheme allowed funds of questionable origin to be converted into legal investments, as real estate is traditionally one of the easiest tools for legitimizing capital due to its complex ownership structures and relatively lax oversight.

The fact that €50 million worth of bonds was purchased using Russian corruption money is confirmed by the analysis of Mettmann’s documents. The company is linked to a circle of people who simultaneously have close ties to the Rotenberg network.

Foremost among them is Zvonko Mickovic, the largest shareholder of Mettmann, owning about 82.5% of its shares. Investigations mention him as a partner in business structures connected to Boris Usherovich and Ilya Plotitsa.

Boris Usherovich is a Russian businessman, one of the founders of Group 1520, a major RZD contractor. He was involved in the high-profile Colonel Zakharchenko case and is internationally wanted for corruption-related charges.

Ilya Plotitsa, Usherovich’s business partner, manages several offshore companies. His name appeared in the Panama Papers and other investigations related to asset concealment.

Among the owners of Mettmann Public Company Limited is Russian citizen Alexander Weinstein, linked to Plotitsa and listed as a bondholder of the company. Another Russian, Alexander Mizgunov, is involved in the company’s management and retained his position even after a change of director.

Initially, investigators’ attention was drawn to Oksana Hadjipavlou, who was then the company director and owned a small share of Mettmann. She is a Cypriot citizen, originally from Russia, and even after leaving the directorship — which happened after the first investigative publications about the company — she retained her stake in Mettmann.

Oksana Hadjipavlou was succeeded as director in 2025 by Natalia Nazarova, who, according to investigations, may serve a nominal role.

Currently, the most interesting aspect is Mettmann Public Company Limited’s present situation. Following a series of journalistic publications about Mettmann’s ties to Russian capital, information about new bond issuances has disappeared from public access. In addition, Mettmann has suspended its activities. This likely indicates the company is attempting to restructure management and transfer assets to another offshore entity.

This practice is common in offshore networks: when public scrutiny rises, assets can quickly be moved between companies with the same beneficiaries.

Regardless of Mettmann Public Company Limited’s current status, the bigger question is the fate of the funds the company invested in real estate in Cyprus, Spain, and Montenegro. We are talking about €50 million, raised through bond issuance, which was purchased by affiliated Russian citizens linked to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

It appears that the authorities in Spain, Montenegro, and especially Cyprus are either turning a blind eye to the origin of the funds invested in real estate on their territories, or allowing the development projects to proceed to completion before suddenly “discovering” that the money is under sanctions.