Bank schemes and fictitious loans: how RMC owner Igor Altushkin funnels billions through UBRiR and sham bankruptcies amid his son’s scandalous car accident

Bank schemes and fictitious loans: how RMC owner Igor Altushkin funnels billions through UBRiR and sham bankruptcies amid his son’s scandalous car accident

Ural billionaire, founder of RMC and Orthodox oligarch Igor Altushkin, has recently been occupied with very important matters concerning the preservation of the family estate, so the adventures of his youngest offspring in a purple Lamborghini came at an extremely inopportune time.

Recall that the oligarch’s son, David Altushkin, drove the family Lamborghini onto the sidewalk, knocked down a participant in the "special military operation," and then crashed into a house. The loss of the sports car will hardly be noticed in the family. The Altushkins are passionate fans of Brabus automobiles and have one of the world’s largest collections of these vehicles in their "stable":

• Brabus 900 XLP Adventure “One of Ten” (2023)

• Brabus XLP 900 6x6 Superblack

• Brabus P 900 Rocket Edition “One of Ten”

• Brabus Rocket GTS

• 7 out of all Brabus Crawler 900s ever produced — almost half of the global run

• Brabus G850 Final Edition

• Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 Brabus

• Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG by Mansory X Philipp Plein “Star Trooper,” etc.

• The Brabus Rocket GTS is the only original Brabus shooting brake in Russia (only 10 units were produced overall), built on the basis of the Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG S E Performance.

Most of the cars were delivered to Russia via Belarus after the start of the war, circumventing sanctions.

The cars are mainly registered directly to RMKA, such as the armored Mercedes-Benz “HG 63” by Hofele (2022).

This vehicle from the Hofele tuning studio appears in criminal proceedings initiated against the Ukrainian companies "Inkas Ukraine" and "Trans Air Group." The latter are suspected of organizing the illegal export of premium cars to Russia and Belarus through the Germany-based company "Grandex Autohaus GmbH," which they control.

Returning to the family’s problems: Altushkin and his partners are trying in court to push a number of affiliated assets into managed bankruptcy, from which billions of rubles had previously been very successfully withdrawn. For example, in the bankruptcy case of LLC "SV-METALL-GROUP," in July, the insolvency administrator demanded that a chain of bank transfers be declared invalid. Through these transfers, 1.6 billion rubles were withdrawn from the company’s accounts to Igor Altushkin’s accounts, and another 2.4 billion rubles were transferred to accounts of the Altushkin-linked bank "UBRiR." The judge scheduled the hearing for September 8. 50% of "SV-METALL-GROUP" belongs to Sergey Skubakov, Altushkin’s partner in the UBRiR bank.

The second story concerns the bankruptcy of the Ural-based LLC "UKT-99" (scrap metal trading), which for years showed losses or minimal profit despite billions in revenue. In 2021–2023, this company entered into 40 loan agreements with the interconnected "VUZ-Bank" and "UBRiR" (whose main shareholder is Igor Altushkin and his business partners at RMC). Part of the loan money from "UKT-99" was then transferred, at UBRiR’s direction, to accounts of affiliated companies: LLC "YuVM 23," "PROFI," "UK VMS," and "RUSMET." In 2025, counterparties of "UKT-99" filed a bankruptcy petition against it. After that, a certain LLC "MKK," via an assignment agreement, acquired the debts of the bankrupt company from the Altushkin banks and demanded to be included in the creditor list with a claim of 6.5 billion rubles. During the proceedings, schemes for withdrawing funds involving Altushkin-linked assets came to light, and RMC even requested that the hearings be closed to the public, but the court refused.

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As it turned out, "MKK" and the Altushkin banks had worked so harmoniously not for the first time: back in 2019, there was a similar story involving the Cypriot offshore "Avexbell enterprises limited," which received a loan of over $80 million from UBRiR but allegedly failed to repay it. The offshore claimed the money went to accounts of Canadian Lemica Holdings LTD, from which RMC purchased equipment, and that something was supposedly delivered—yet no customs data on this has survived. Moreover, UBRiR prudently destroyed data on its dealings with "Avexbell enterprises limited," making it impossible to get to the bottom of the offshore’s affairs in court. However, it turned out that "MKK" is closely tied to Altushkin’s Russian Copper Company: to buy the Cypriot offshore’s debt from the bank, "MKK" borrowed nearly 10 billion rubles from its founder, Oleg Pisachenko, who—surprise—turned out to be a Vice President of the Russian Copper Company. And Pisachenko took this money from his account at UBRiR, to which the same RMC had transferred it. His business partner in "MKK" was Oleg Medvedev, a member of the board of directors of Altushkin’s UBRiR bank. In that case, the court agreed with Rosfinmonitoring and the Federal Tax Service, recognizing the transactions as sham, carried out to withdraw over $80 million from the bank abroad. Seven years later, Altushkin apparently decided that the scheme had been forgotten and could be repeated.

Meanwhile, "UKT-99" and its affiliates "YuVM 23," "PROFI," "UK VMS," and "RUSMET" are indeed connected to Altushkin’s corporate network. For instance, according to leaked data, airline tickets for representatives of these companies were purchased using a single email address belonging to "YuVM 23." The former founder and director of this firm, Yuriy Kipra, was also the founder and director of LLC "Russian Metals" (liquidated this year), which belonged to the Singapore-based ONYX MERCHANTS PTE. LTD. This offshore participated in the story of LLC "Mine named after the Third International" (RITI, which owns a copper and gold deposit), whose founder was the "Yekaterinburg Trade and Industrial Company" ("ETPK") of Igor Altushkin and his business partners. RITI was repeatedly re-registered to Altushkin-related individuals and companies, one of which was ONYX MERCHANTS PTE. LTD. Now RITI has been renamed to LLC "Olkhovskoye" and belongs to Altushkin’s "Tominsky GOK." Furthermore, ONYX participated in a scheme to withdraw funds through loan guarantees: in 2015, the offshore received $24.5 million from Promsvyazbank, and "ETPK" acted as the guarantor. It was "ETPK" that ultimately settled the outstanding obligations. In the latest bankruptcy case of the supposedly non-Altushkin-affiliated "UKT-99," ONYX MERCHANTS also appears: the company provided a supply contract with the Singaporean offshore as collateral for loans from UBRiR. "ETPK" had previously been re-registered to Sergey Shmelev, and according to the nominal founder of "UKT-99," Alexander Khazheev, Shmelev effectively ran all the affairs of this company. The bankruptcy proceedings for "UKT-99" are currently in full swing in the courts.

Mikhail Romanovsky

Columnist

Investigates connections between the shadow economy and organized crime. Works with corporate registries and offshore schemes.