Arkady Gaydamak biography. Infamous businessman surrendered to French justice for three years

His name is surrounded by legends and rumors. He has citizenship of four countries. He was charged with criminal cases and brought to justice. A businessman, politician, philanthropist, diplomat and a person with fantastic connections in foreign financial communities. His name is Arkady Gaydamak. Who is he really?

Arkady Gaydamak. Biography

Secrets around his name begin from the very moment of birth. It is still unknown where Arkady Gaydamak was born. According to some sources, this happened on 04/08/1952 in Moscow, other sources claim that Berdichev became the birthplace of the future businessman. It is known that he spent his childhood in Ukraine.

At the age of twenty, Arkady Gaydamak became an Israeli repatriate. At the same time, he got a new name - Aryeh Bar-Lev. Everything that happened to him in his young years in Israel is known only from his words. He lived in a kibbutz (settlement) and worked agriculture. The next career step is a deckhand on a tanker from Liberia. The same tanker became his guide in better life: Arriving in Marseille, Arkady Gaydamak went down the ladder to the shore and never again boarded the tanker. France became his new home.

France

From Marseille, along with soldiers whose documents were not checked at that time, Arkady Gaydamak railway got to Paris. It is here that he takes the first step in entrepreneurship. By his own account, in Paris, he works in a team of painters, enters the business of selling refurbished residential real estate.

The entrepreneur invests all income in his own education, becomes a student of a technical school, and after graduation he is engaged in the translation of technical literature. Thanks to his own diligence and efficiency in doing business, he soon manages to open a translation agency. The business was successful, Arkady Gaydamak acquired a large clientele, and he had to use the services of hired workers to meet demand.

In the mid-seventies, a successful start-up entrepreneur invests in a new direction - serving foreign delegations. It was this business that became for him in terms of new acquaintances and connections. CEOs were his clients. state structures USSR and large Western corporations. At this time, the business gained such momentum that it aroused the interest of French counterintelligence. In 1982, he was summoned for interrogation and raised suspicions of collaborating with the KGB. Some media suggest that it was as a result of this "conversation" that Arkady Gaydamak was recruited and became a double agent.

Business in the Union

In the mid-eighties, a prosperous entrepreneur lost interest in the existing business. At this time, he begins cooperation with the Soviet Union, and succeeds in this. By 1987 Gaidamak Arkady Aleksandrovich is a successful trader. His interests include trade in metal, coal and oil, which he sells to the West with high profitability. The businessman's income reaches seven figures, he acquires luxury real estate in England and France.

Angola. Arms Supply Scandal

Since 1992, Gaydamak has been supplying Angola with a large batch of oil equipment in exchange for local oil. At the same time, he becomes a citizen of Angola. Moreover, businessman Arkady Gaydamak is an adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of this country. In the mid-90s, he oversees negotiations on the return of Angola's debt to the USSR.

The supply of weapons by the Soviet Union to Angola also falls into the sphere of interests of the enterprising Gaidamak. In 2000, France initiates an investigation into this case, puts him on the wanted list, and the businessman urgently leaves the country. In fairness, it should be noted that a year later the case was closed due to numerous procedural violations.

Non-stop business

Leaving France, Gaydamak chose Israel as his new place of residence. All this time, the entrepreneur's assets have been steadily growing. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Bank "Moskva", Bank "Russian Credit". According to some publications, Arkady Gaydamak owns a large uranium business in Kazakhstan, Kazphosphate is his property. The media often mentioned his diamond and oil business in Angola.

Do not leave the businessman unattended and Russian market. In 2005, Agrosoyuz LLC appears, he is also credited with the real estate business. United Media is a holding controlled by an entrepreneur. It includes the Business & FM newspaper, two radio stations, the weekly Moskovskiye Novosti and The Moscow News, the Popular Finance magazine, and an advertising agency.

Political activity

As is often the case in the business environment, entrepreneurs are trying to expand their spheres of influence through politics. Arkady Gaydamak was no exception. In the mid-2000s, he joined the political life of Israel, created the Social Justice movement. In 2007, the first congress of the party was held in the capital of Israel, at which Gaydamak announced that he would fight for the resignation of the government and lobby for the interests of the leader of the Likud party, B. Netanyahu. However, this did not prevent Gaydamak from doing the exact opposite: from Israeli media reports of that period, it is known that Gaydamak assisted Amir Peretz, the antipode and rival of B. Netanyahu.

Later, in 2008, an aspiring politician puts forward his candidacy for the post of mayor of the Israeli capital, but fails miserably in the elections, not even gaining 4% of the vote.

Criminal prosecution

In 2009, the French prosecutor's office demanded six years in prison and a fine of 5 million euros for Arkady Gaydamak in the case of arms supplies to Angola.

In the same year, information was leaked to the press that the businessman was asking for Russian citizenship.

In the fall of 2009, a Paris court found Arkady Gaydamak guilty in absentia of organizing illegal arms supplies to Angola in the period from 1993 to 1998. and sentenced him to six years in prison. Almost 40 people were convicted in this case, and the main defendant did not appear at any court session. In 2011 Court of Appeal reduced his sentence to three years.

In October 2009, it became known that the Israeli authorities had charged the businessman with fraud, collusion with bankers and concealing income in the amount of up to $200 million. After 3 years, the Israelis renounced some articles of the accusation in exchange for a partial recognition of their own guilt, additional payment a fine of about $6,000 and a voluntary contribution of more than $800,000 to a government fund. Gaydamak agreed to such an agreement and pleaded guilty to gaining profit through misconduct.

Investment in sports

Living in Israel, the businessman became the owner of not only a number of enterprises. His interests went further. He buys shares in sports clubs. Gaydamak bought the Beitar football club and actively sponsors the Hapoel basketball team. In 2013, he decided to get rid of the football club by signing a deal to sell it with businessmen from Russia and Kazakhstan. This caused a real riot of fans. Fans staged rallies and picketed the courts. Under their pressure, a new agreement was concluded, according to which 75% of "Beitar" passed to former owner"Hapoel" E. Tabib, and 25% remained behind the association of fans of the Israeli team.

In 2006, the businessman's son Alexander acquires a full stake in the English Portsmouth. The deal cost £32m. But already at the end of 2008 comes to the decision to sell the club. According to the millionaire, the reason for this decision is that he cannot afford to devote the necessary amount of time to the club. The new owner of the team was the billionaire from the United Arab Emirates Suleiman El-Fahim.

art connoisseur

Arkady Gaydamak is the owner of a large collection of antiques in the Empire style. According to him, things in this style are the most natural for human life. In 2000, Gaydamak wrote the book "Russian Empire". The publication was highly appreciated by art critics of the world. The businessman's interest in this direction was born in his young years in Paris, because it was this style that prevailed on the streets of the city. Arkady Gaydamak's taste was greatly influenced by Ariane Dondua, an excellent decorator.

Relationship with Levi Leviev

According to the public online library Antikompromat, Gaydamak Arkady worked closely with the Israeli "diamond king" Levi Leviev in the 2000s. In 2011, a black cat ran between partners. Gaydamak is filing a lawsuit over the breakup of equity participation in diamond mining projects.

Gaydamak stated that business partner He has also not paid dividends earned on the diamond trade since 2004, despite the fact that until that moment he received an average monthly payment of $ 3 million from Leviev. Arkady Gaydamak demanded that he and the defendant be recognized as equal partners. Levi Leviev, who, according to Forbes, ranks 782 in the world in terms of his fortune, appealed the lawsuit. In 2012, the London court satisfied the claim and recognized the businessmen as equal partners, but left the plaintiff's claim for compensation of funds without satisfaction.

Personal life

Little is known about the personal life of a businessman. Arkady Gaydamak, whose family consists of a wife and three children, does not make his personal life a subject of public discussion. They have been together with his wife since the seventies, although they got married only in 1980. In 1971, the son Alexander was born, in 1981 - the daughter Ekaterina, in 1984 - Sofia. Today, Gaydamak Jr. runs an independent business. Katya is a successful jewelry designer, while Sofia promotes her sister's jewelry to the market. On her shoulders - marketing and advertising. Arkady Gaydamak, whose wife belongs to the same faith as him, raised the children in strict religious traditions.

The last one that the businessman gave was the wedding of Sonya's youngest daughter. It took place in May 2015. The happy father Arkady Gaydamak, whose photo, like the whole ceremony, the beautiful bride and guests, was of interest to many, did not stint on organizing the event. For its holding near Tel Aviv, a whole small town. All tables and columns were decorated with thousands of white peonies and orchids. wedding, according to family traditions passed in accordance with religious canons.

Arkady Alexandrovich Gaydamak (Aryeh Bar-Lev) was born on April 8, 1952 in the Ukrainian city of Berdichev. According to other sources, he was born in Moscow but grew up in Ukraine.

In 1972, Gaydamak immigrated to Israel. He lived for six months in an agricultural settlement (kibbutz), then got a job as a deckhand on a Liberian oil tanker. When the tanker arrived in Marseille, Gaydamak asked the boatswain to go ashore, went to the station, got acquainted with the French servicemen and, together with the soldiers, who were not asked for tickets, arrived by train to Paris. In France, he got a job in a brigade of Russian painters, entering, in his own words, into the business of selling renovated apartments. Having earned money for his studies, Gaydamak entered a technical school.

After graduating from a technical school, Gaydamak began working as a technical translator, receiving $100 per translated page. Since he worked quickly, and the translations were of high quality, he had a large number of clients. Gaydamak began to hire other translators and in 1974 organized a company in Paris that, in addition to translating technical documentation, was engaged in servicing foreign delegations. The main clients of his company were large Western European companies that supplied the USSR industrial equipment, and on the other hand - representatives of the Soviet state and public structures and enterprises.

According to some reports, when in 1982 small firm Gaidamaka suddenly expanded her activities dramatically, and he himself became rich and began to live in a luxurious mansion, French counterintelligence became interested in him. Gaydamak, who was allegedly suspected of working for the KGB, was summoned "for a conversation" and may even have been recruited into a double agent.

In 1987, Gaydamak switched from his translation business to trading in the USSR. He took up trading: he bought metal, coal and oil in the Soviet Union and sold them to the West. At the same time, Gaydamak did not return to his homeland, continuing to live in London and Paris, where he did not have a business, but had real estate. The annual turnover of Gaidamak as a trader reached several tens of millions of dollars, while the income from each transaction at that time reached 20 percent.

Gaydamak traded until he got to Angola in 1992, selling a large batch of oil equipment, which was paid for by deliveries of local oil. The businessman received Angolan citizenship and became an adviser to the Angolan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Gaydamak said that he received the citizenship of Angola after he issued a commodity loan to the government of the country in the amount of 70 million dollars.

Gaydamak's name was associated with machinations around the return of Russia's debt to Angola. In 1995-1996, he negotiated the settlement of the Angolan debt. However, the entrepreneur himself rejected all accusations of the illegality of the transactions made at that time.

The press noted that Gaydamak's Angolan business was, among other things, closely connected with the supply of Russian weapons to the country. In December 2000, when French justice began an investigation into the supply of Soviet-made weapons to Angola, Gaydamak left the country. He was put on the wanted list by Interpol as one of the defendants in the case, but was not arrested. In June 2001, the case was dismissed due to numerous procedural violations committed during the investigation. After leaving the territory of France, Gaydamak settled in Israel.

Best of the day

Gaydamak continued to conduct his business in Russia. From May 1996 to June 1999, he was a member of the board of directors of the Regional Joint-Stock Commercial Bank "Moscow" (RAKB "Moscow"), and in 2000 he was chairman of the board of the board of the bank "Russian Credit" for several months.

Gaydamak did not disclose his assets for a long time, but information about his enterprises appeared in the press. According to some reports, the entrepreneur has a large uranium business in Kazakhstan and owns the Kazphosphate group. In Angola, Gaydamak created the Terra Verde agricultural holding. The media also called him an influential figure in the diamond and oil business in Angola. Gaydamak called himself the biggest entrepreneur in Angola, if you do not take into account the oil business.

The media reported on Gaidamak's interests in Russia, in particular, in the agro-industrial complex. In 2003, he entered the chicken business. In 2005, he created Agrosoyuz LLC, which had six poultry farms in the Moscow region and Bashkiria, engaged in the production chicken eggs. It is also known that Gaydamak was interested in the Nizhny Novgorod poultry farms. In addition, Gaydamak was called a co-owner of the Ligastroyproekt company, which tried to buy the Ukraina Hotel at an auction, and then bought shopping mall Europark on Rublevka and the owner of OAO Meleuzovskie mineral fertilizers in Bashkiria.

Gaydamak is a media tycoon. As of the end of 2007, his media holding "United Media", created in the same year on the basis of the publishing house "Moskovskiye novosti", united the daily newspaper Business & FM, the radio stations "KINO FM" and Business FM, the weeklies "Moskovskiye novosti" and The Moscow News. The holding also included the eponymous advertising agency, and since December 2007 - the magazine "Popular Finance".

Gaydamak is known for his investment in sports. So, in July 2005, Gaydamak was elected president of the Jerusalem basketball club "Apoel", and in August 2005 became the owner of the Jerusalem football club "Beitar".

Gaydamak was called the main sponsor of the Russian Agrarian Party. The entrepreneur himself stated that he did not finance the party, but credited the poultry farms of its main sponsor, Alexei Chepa. In Israel, Gaydamak first appeared as a public politician and public figure. In April 2007, he expressed his intention to take the post of mayor of Jerusalem in order to turn this city "into a symbol of peace and Judaism." In the same year, Gaydamak created social movement, and later their own political party - both organizations were called "Tzedek Hevrati" ("Social Justice"). In August 2008, the entrepreneur called his party the most numerous in the country. In November of the same year, as the leader of the Tzedek Hevrati, he took part in the election of the mayor of Jerusalem, but lost, gaining only 3.6 percent of the vote.

Gaydamak is a collector: he owns a large collection of the Empire style. In addition, he is the author of the book "Russian Empire" (2000). Gaidamak is known as the largest sponsor of the Jewish community in Russia. In May 2005, he was elected president of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations of the Country (KROOR).

Gaydamak was awarded the highest order of France - the Order of the Legion of Honor for rescuing in 1995 two French pilots from Bosnian captivity.

Gaydamak is a citizen of several countries of the world at once - Angola, Israel, Canada and France. He does not have Russian citizenship. In recent years (since 2002) Gaydamak has been living in Moscow.

Gaydamak has a son and two daughters. In 2006, Alexander Gaydamak, the son of an entrepreneur, became the sole owner of the English football club Portsmouth.

On October 27, 2009, the Paris Correctional Court sentenced Arkady Gaydamak to six years in prison for illegal arms shipments to Angola, tax evasion, and corruption.

Arkady Aleksandrovich Gaydamak was born on April 8, 1952 in the Ukrainian city of Berdichev (according to other sources, he was born in Moscow, but grew up in Ukraine).

In 1972 he emigrated to Israel, where he took the name Arye Bar-Lev. He lived in a kibbutz (agricultural settlement), worked as a loader, a sailor on a tanker. Soon he left for France, where he created a translation agency that served mainly Soviet missions.

According to media reports, Gaydamak established relations with the Angolan government in the 1980s. The press claimed that Gaydamak soon began selling anti-insurgency weapons to Angola, despite an international embargo.

After the collapse of the USSR, the businessman invested in various projects in the post-Soviet territory. Gaydamak's name was associated with machinations around the return of the Angolan debt to Russia: in 1995-1996, it was Gaydamak who negotiated the settlement of the Angolan debt. However, the entrepreneur himself rejected all accusations of the illegality of the transactions made at that time.

In 2000, in France, Gaydamak was charged with illegal sale weapons in Angola, in connection with which the businessman moved to Israel. Israel refused to extradite him to France.

In Israel, Arkady Gaydamak acquired a number of businesses and sports teams. In particular, he bought the Jerusalem football club "Beitar", sponsored the basketball team "Apoel" (Jerusalem).

In parallel, Gaydamak developed business in Russia and the CIS countries. In 1996-1999, he was a member of the board of directors of Moskva Bank, in 2000-2001 he headed the board of directors of Rossiyskiy Kredit Bank. In 2006, he acquired the Moscow News publishing house (on the basis of which he created the United Media holding).

In 2008, Gaidamak's holding stopped publishing Moskovskiye Novosti, transferring this brand to RIA Novosti.

According to media reports, in July 2009 United Media were sold to the metallurgical magnate, the owner of the Novolipetsk plant, Vladimir Lisin.

It was also reported that Gaydamak owns a number of assets in the agro-industrial complex. According to the press, in 2005 he created Agrosoyuz LLC, which had six poultry farms in the Moscow region and Bashkiria. Gaidamak was also called the owner of OAO Meleuz Mineral Fertilizers in Bashkiria.

Arkady Gaydamak was also involved in politics. In 2007, he founded the Tzedek Hevrati (Public Justice) movement in Israel. In July 2007, in Jerusalem, at the first congress of the movement, Gaydamak announced that he would seek the resignation of the government of Ehud Olmert and support the leader of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In July 2008, Arkady Gaydamak announced his candidacy for the mayor of Jerusalem.

In the elections held in November, Gaydamak was defeated, managing to take only third place with 3.6% of the vote.

On October 1, 2009, Agence France-Presse, citing a statement from the Israeli Ministry of Justice, reported that the Israeli authorities charged Gaydamak with fraud and money laundering. Documents submitted to a Tel Aviv court accused Gaydamak of conspiring with high-ranking bankers to cover up $175 million in financial transactions.

According to the prosecution, Gaydamak tried to buy the Dutch company without informing the authorities that the money for the deal was being allocated in violation of the anti-money laundering law.

On October 27, 2009, the Paris Correctional Court sentenced Arkady Gaydamak to six years in prison for illegal arms shipments to Angola, tax evasion, and corruption. According to investigators, at the height of the civil war in Angola ruling regime José Eduardo dos Santos planned to buy weapons in France, but was refused. Then the Angolan authorities turned to the French businessman Pierre Falcon, who, together with Gaydamak, organized the supply of arms worth $790 million from Eastern Europe, including 150,000 shells, 12 helicopters, and six warships.

Arkady Gaydamak is a citizen of France and Israel. In addition, thanks to the contribution to the economy of Angola and Canada, he has diplomatic passports of these countries.

In February 2009, the press wrote that Gaydamak had applied for Russian citizenship (in the 1970s, Gaydamak gave up his Soviet passport in order to emigrate to Israel).

In recent years, the businessman has been living in Moscow.

Arkady Gaydamak is known as the largest sponsor of the Jewish community in Russia. In May 2005, he was elected president of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations of the Country (KROOR).

He was awarded the highest order of France - the Order of the Legion of Honor for the rescue in 1995 of two French pilots from Bosnian captivity.

Arkady Gaydamak is a collector: he owns a large collection of Empire style. In addition, he is the author of the book "Russian Empire" (2000).

Gaydamak has a son and two daughters. In 2006, Alexander Gaydamak, the son of an entrepreneur, became the sole owner of the English football club Portsmouth.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Very little is known about the youth of Arkady Gaydamak, spent in the USSR, and he himself prefers not to talk too much about it. A thick veil of secrecy shrouded his biography until the age of 20 so securely that the exact place of birth is still unknown - Moscow or Ukrainian Berdichev. In the course of 20 years, Gaydamak left the Union in the direction of Israel, but did not stay long in the promised land. Living in a kibbutz did not impress him.

Having enlisted on a tanker and arriving at the port of Marseilles, Arkady, or rather Aryeh Bar-Lev - as it was written in a brand new Israeli passport, escaped from the ship to the shore and got by train to Paris. France became his true homeland, and his favorite sounds were the music of the national anthem "La Marseillaise", which personified success for Gaydamak. Since 1973, Arkady began the countdown to living in Paris and feels like a real Parisian in his soul.

He spent his first year in an unfamiliar country in the company of former compatriots - Russian-speaking emigrants who made a living repairing apartments. In addition to mastering the profession of a painter, he got the opportunity to improve his language skills by communicating with the French at the household level. In the future, linguistic abilities will become the basis of his first independent business and a source of capital accumulation.

Translator Gaydamak

Wasting no time, Arkady Gaydamak graduated from a Parisian college, where he specialized in technical translations, after which he forever threw the paint brush far into the corner. The translator's first rate was $100 per 1 page of text. Gaydamak's customers were mainly branches and divisions large companies who tried to enter the market of the country of the Soviets and needed translations of the texts of advertising booklets, price lists and commercial offers into the great and mighty Russian language.

Compared to other Soviet émigrés, who often became dishwashers or loaders, Gaydamak's business can be considered highly intelligent. By 1976, Arkady Alexandrovich was fully naturalized in France, received the long-awaited citizenship and registered a company that provided translation services. He had employees for the first time. Somewhere at the same time, he was able to establish contacts with the diplomatic mission of the USSR and began to serve its needs.

In 1982, Gaydamak opened a branch of his company in Canada, where the Soviet diplomatic mission and trade mission were also customers of his services. By this time, he had acquired a reputation, if not rich, then quite respectable by European standards as an entrepreneur. Evil tongues claim that in many respects, connections with the KGB residency in France and Canada helped the flourishing of his business. Indeed, a fugitive from behind the Iron Curtain had to bear the stigma of an anti-Soviet for life, and then instead of popular contempt, such grace fell on him from official representatives of the Soviet state!

Angolan citizen

The fate of Arkady Gaydamak made a sharp turn in 1992, and the point is not that he began to trade in oil. He learned to conduct large-scale trading operations since 1987, when he became an intermediary in the trade in raw materials exported from the USSR to Europe. In that year, his foot confidently entered the African continent and he soon became the owner of the citizenship of Angola. Until now, Gaydamak is officially an adviser to the Foreign Ministry of this state and is on the staff of the Angolan embassy in Moscow.

In an African country, he found his Eldorado. Only gold was first replaced by hydrocarbons, then it was the turn of diamonds, then the confidence of the Angolan authorities in him became so huge that he was entrusted with the "holy of holies" of the state - supplying the country with weapons and ammunition. In Angola, a decade and a half went Civil War between the communist regime of José Eduardo dos Santos and rebels from the guerrilla organization UNITA.

In addition, Angola took part in the Great Congo War. The need for weapons was enormous. The complexity of the situation was that an embargo was imposed on the arms trade with Angola by the UN Security Council. For Arkady Gaydamak, international sanctions were not a big obstacle. They only increased his profits from transactions. Gaydamak quickly turned into a fabulously wealthy man. There were cases when he gave commodity loans to the government of Angola for tens of millions of dollars. His influence on the leadership of the country was unlimited. He was actively involved in the process of negotiations on the restructuring of the state debt of Angola to the successor of the USSR Russian Federation and brought difficult process to a mutually beneficial outcome.

Trouble

In those years, Gaydamak was seen in Paris, London, Lusaka and Tel Aviv. Moscow was away from the routes of his flights, but soon the emigrant will again see the domes of St. Basil's Cathedral. In France, the millennium began with "Angolagate" - a global scandal over the emerging facts of arms trafficking in circumvention of UN sanctions, in which many officials Fifth Republic. France was interested not only in profitable arms supplies, but to a greater extent in obtaining contracts for the purchase of Angolan oil at dumping prices.

French businessman Pierre Falcone, son of then President Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, who served as an adviser to the government, and Foreign Minister Charles Pasqua were at the center of events. The main role was played by Arkady Gaydamak. Through his company ZIZ, he purchased weapons from Slovakia and transported them to East Africa. Without waiting for a possible arrest and prosecution, he left Paris, heading back to Israel. Interpol became interested in his person, but the Israelis refused to extradite the fugitive.

Gaydamak settled in Caesarea and plunged into social and political life. He created his own Social Justice party, unsuccessfully participated in the election of the mayor of Jerusalem and showered charity on the Beitar football club and the Hapoel basketball club. In France, the investigation has come to an end. Gaydamak was sentenced to 6 years in prison and a hefty fine. The judges were not even moved by the information that the defendant had been an agent of French counterintelligence for many years.

Unexpectedly in unison with France financial activities Arya Bar-Leva became interested in local prosecutors. In connection with the suspicion of money laundering through accounts in the Hapoalim bank, Gaydamak was forced to weigh anchor again and arrive in 2005 in his historical homeland - Russia. He was so touched by the warm welcome of his compatriots that he wrote a request for a Russian passport. Subsequently, Gaydamak will refute his act, arguing that France is his whole life, and in Russia he does not even have any business. The immigrant was telling a lie.

Honest business in Russia

Not having Russian citizenship, he was a member of the board of banks Moskva and Rossiyskiy Kredit, and also had a share in the ownership of Agrosoyuz LLC, a monopolist in the production of chicken meat and eggs. In neighboring Kazakhstan, his interests focused on the development of a uranium deposit. A separate story is the property of Gaydamak in the media. In 2006, he acquired the Moscow News newspaper, and 2 years later the United Media media holding, including printed edition, radio station and internet portal. The press was none of his business.

In 2008, he closed Moskovskiye Novosti, firing everyone as an employee, and a year later he sold the media holding to Vladimir Lisin. He explained his decision by the unprofitability of this type of business. In public life, Gaydamak was distinguished by the leadership of the "Congress of Jewish Religious and public organizations in Russia”, general sponsorship of the “Agrarian Party” and the use of connections in Israel to acquire the ROC of the Sergius metochion in Jerusalem.

The Moscow period of life was not particularly successful for Arkady Gaydamak. He started a multi-year legal battle with his former partner of the Angolan period, Levi Leviev, over the non-payment of dividends from diamond mining by the Angola Selling Corporation. He initially entrusted the fate of the millions he had not received to the London court, which did not heed his arguments and refused compensation.

Gaidamak made a second attempt to achieve justice according to his own ideas in Tel Aviv, where, along with Leviev, the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar, unexpectedly turned up in the defendants, but everything ended with the same result. To complete the list of misfortunes, Gaydamak was arrested in Switzerland in a very old civil suit for non-payment of the coach's salary. sports club"Beitar".

Gaydamak decided to interrupt the series of failures with an honest confession of his guilt. In Israel, he managed to settle the matter by paying a fine and transferring a tidy sum to the state trustee fund, after which the questions to him from the Jewish state were exhausted. On November 24, 2015, Arkady Gaydamak voluntarily surrendered to the French authorities. By this time, French justice had revised the sentence, upholding a prison sentence of 3 years and a fine of 375,000 euros. From the verdict, any mention of illegal disappeared without a trace, and only the concealment of information about the income received and the non-payment of due taxes remained. While Gaydamak is atoning for his guilt, his business can be continued by his businessman-son, the owner of the English Premier League club Portsmouth, and his daughter, the designers of the personalized jewelry brand Gaydamak.

ARKADIY GAYDAMAK

Arkady Gaydamak has always worked for the Kremlin mafia, since he illegally sold weapons in Africa from the Rosvooruzhenie warehouses (through a chain of front companies). This figure is also interesting because he was associated with the intelligence of three countries: Russia, France and Israel. Moreover, he was not some kind of petty agent, but had open contacts at the level of the leaders of these intelligence services.

Gaydamak was born in Moscow but grew up in Ukraine. In 1972, when he was 19 years old, he left for Israel - but he stayed there for a very short time and moved to France. There, Gaydamak took up the translation business: he organized his own firm in Paris, where the translators he hired translated technical documentation and served foreign delegations. In 1982, this small firm suddenly expanded its activities dramatically, and Gaydamak himself became very rich and began to live in a luxurious mansion. Apparently, this is somehow connected with the fact that Gaydamak then switched to servicing Soviet trade delegations. In the same year, French counterintelligence began to suspect that Arkady Gaydamak was working for the KGB - he was summoned "for a conversation" to the authorities, but everything worked out (perhaps he had already been recruited and became a double agent) ...

When perestroika began in our country, Gaydamak abandoned his translation business and started trading with the Soviet Union.

But Gaydamak's real business began in 1992, when he, together with another French adventurer (P. Falcone), began selling weapons to Angola (first they sold 7 Russian helicopters in exchange for oil).

Here it is necessary to tell a little about Angolan affairs and why our government could not sell these helicopters to the Angolan government itself. In this country, from time immemorial, there was a guerrilla war (at first it was a war with the Portuguese colonialists, then the Angolans began to sort things out among themselves). The Soviet Union, along with the Cuban "volunteers", supported the "progressive forces" led by their puppet dos Santos from the MPLA party. And the imperialists supported the partisans from the UNITA movement, led by the reactionary figure Savimbi ... After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world community decided that it was time to end this endless war. In September 1992, free elections were held in Angola under international supervision, in which UNITA lost and the MPLA won. But Savimbi declared that the results were falsified - and continued the civil war. The UN Security Council then adopted a resolution on a complete ban on the supply of weapons to Angola - to all warring parties. That's why Gaydamak was needed here: in all such regions that fell under the UN ban, arms supplies are carried out secretly, with the help of the mafia.

In addition, the French government also intervened in this game. More precisely, that half of it, which consisted of socialists - the French government was then a coalition. A paradoxical situation has arisen: the socialists President Mitterrand and the Minister of the Interior decided to secretly support the MPLA in Angola, that is, the legitimate government - and the right, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, continued to support their old ally Savimbi and the UNITA partisans ... The fact is that the President of Angola dos Santos sent a personal letter to President Mitterrand in March 1993 asking for his help. And Mitterrand decided that this former Soviet puppet should be helped! There were some small bribes, but main reason such a decision by President Mitterrand is still different: this was required by the national interests of France - it was necessary to ensure access to Angolan oil. There are rich deposits in Angola, oil is extracted there for three billion dollars a year. In the event of Savimbi's victory, all this oil would have gone not to France, but to the main and most powerful ally of the UNITA partisans - that is, the United States. The right-wingers in the French government were ready to make such sacrifices for the sake of the "Atlantic solidarity of the countries of the West" - and the socialists were more important than contracts for the extraction of Angolan oil ...

Thus began this scam with the secret sale of Russian weapons to the Angolan government through Gaydamak's French firm. Contacts with Arkady Gaydamak were then maintained by the son of President Mitterrand, who officially served as adviser on African affairs to the president. The Afghans had no money, they paid for weapons with oil and diamonds (at that time they were mined in Angola for half a billion dollars). In 1993-1994 alone, Gaydamak's company brought weapons worth 630 million dollars to Angola, and the civil war there continued for a very long time (it ended only in 2002, when Savimbi was killed) ...

Gaidamak's other Angolan scam is his active participation in paying off Angola's debt to the Russian government. On the Internet, this whole story is described in great detail, we will present here only the main results of this joint machination of Gaydamak and the governments of Angola and Russia: the entire old Soviet debt was $ 5.5 billion, of which the Angolans paid $ 1.5 billion in oil - but in reality it got into the Russian treasury only 160 million dollars, and everything else was stolen by the Kremlin mafia (first A. Vavilov, then M. Kasyanov was responsible for the Angolan debt specifically in the government). Something went to the President of Angola dos Santos (he is now among the 50 the richest people peace).

And everything was going well for Gaydamak until the government changed in France. The rightists then received all power into their own hands - the government's frauds of the socialists began to be exposed. In December 2000, President Mitterrand's son and other accomplices of Gaydamak were arrested. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Gaydamak himself - but he managed to move to Israel in advance ... Mitterrand's son then escaped with a slight fright - he received only 2.5 years probation for tax evasion. Initially, he was accused of having received a 1.8 million dollar bribe from Gaydamak - but the court accepted the young Mitterrand's explanation that it was a "fee for consultations" ... And the President of Angola, in response to allegations of corruption, said that they had nothing in Angola there is no such thing: "We don't even have such a word in our language as corruption!" Although Angola sells three billion dollars worth of oil a year, but one billion of them disappears to no one knows where every year ...

Now about Arkady Gaydamak's friendship with the secret services: until this whole scandal erupted in France, Gaydamak was almost the official representative of our SVR and FSB in this country. All the delicate problems that the French secret services had in relation to ours were always resolved through Gaydamak. There are at least two cases where Gaydamak used his connections with the heads of our special services to help the French government:

1. In 1995, he helped rescue two French pilots who were captured by the Serbs in Bosnia - for which he received France's highest award, the Order of Merit.

2. In 1997, he helped to rescue 4 French intelligence officers who illegally entered the territory of Chechnya under the guise of a humanitarian mission and were captured there by Chechen bandits for ransom.

Arkady Gaydamak continued his work as an intermediary between the special services on sensitive issues in Israel as well. Back in 1998, Gaydamak took care of obtaining Israeli citizenship and soon organized a joint company in this country, together with former leader Mossad Yatom. Gaydamak successfully developed cooperation with the Mossad until very recently. The fact is that after being expelled from France, he began to engage in a very specific business in Kazakhstan - he bought several large enterprises uranium industry. Gaydamak is proud of the fact that 40,000 people work for him in Kazakhstan... Analysts believe that in this way the Israeli government got the opportunity through Gaydamak to secretly obtain raw materials for its nuclear program - in order to replenish its nuclear arsenal.

In this regard, we want to emphasize our point of view on all this ebullient activity of Gaidamak: he has always been and remains, first of all, an agent of our KGB - and all contacts with the special services of France and Israel Gaidamak carried out only with the sanction of the Chekist mafia (which the KGB has turned into). So if Israel really received nuclear materials through Gaydamak, then this means that the Kremlin's KGB mafia decided to make some money on this operation.

None of the analysts doubts Gaidamak's connections with our Chekists - he himself is very fond of emphasizing his great connections in the organs. But once we came across an article on the Internet where there was such an objection to this: Arkady Gaydamak cannot be an agent of the Russian special services - how else to explain the fact that in December 1999 he used his connections with the Angolan government to oust our state-owned company ALROSA from the diamond mining industry of this country! Then the Angolans broke the previous agreement with ALROSA and granted exclusive rights to all diamond mining to Gaydamak and his friend Leviev. But there is a very simple explanation here: Gaydamak has always worked for the Kremlin, that is, for the "family clan" of the mafia. And the ALROSA company was then in the hands of the government of Yakutia, whose relations with the Kremlin at that time were very complicated (apparently, the Yakut elite belonged to the "Moscow mafia"). But as soon as the "St. Petersburg Chekists" seized the management of ALROSA and ousted the Yakuts from there, the Angolan government in March 2005, with the most active assistance of Gaydamak, renewed the contract with ALROSA and provided all the country's diamonds at the full disposal of this company...

Here is a brief biography of the new president of ALROSA:

NICHIPORUK Alexander Olegovich. He graduated from the international faculty of MFI in 1980, then postgraduate studies at IMEMO in 1983 and worked at the same institute until 1991. IMEMO then had a strong reputation as a KGB institution, where almost half of the employees were foreign intelligence officers who used this institution international economy for cover. In 1991 - 1994, Nichiporuk worked as a representative of IMEMO in Germany - that is, he fell into the area of ​​\u200b\u200bresponsibility for the 4th Department of the PSU, in which Lieutenant Colonel V.V. Putin served in foreign intelligence until 1990. In 1994, Nichiporuk went into business: he became the chairman of the board of the Entrepreneurship Development Bank. In November 2003, Nichiporuk was appointed First Vice President - and on December 16, 2004, he became President of CJSC ALROSA.

Previously, we referred such figures to the "European mafia of foreign intelligence." Now our classification has changed a little: the more traditional name "St. Petersburg group of the KGB family clan" is used. But the essence of the matter does not change from this ...

A few more words about Gaidamak's involvement in arms smuggling: Angola was his main, but by no means his only client. There is a constant massacre in Africa, in several places at the same time - and many African countries are under a UN arms ban. But there is no shortage of weapons anywhere (if there is something to pay!) - all groups of our KGB mafia are involved in this business and supply weapons to absolutely all the warring parties (and not only in Africa). Arkady Gaydamak did not remain aloof from these cases - there is even evidence that he supplied the famous al-Qaeda through Sudanese intermediaries!

The latest information about Gaydamak on the Internet was as follows: for some reason he quarreled with the Israeli authorities, and in this country they also began to "press" him - in March 2005, they tried to arrest bank accounts in an Israeli bank where the money of many representatives of our mafia is stored. But Gaydamak turned out to be quicker than other oligarchs and managed at the last moment to transfer his 120 million dollars from there to another country (the total size of Gaydamak's fortune is now estimated at 800 million dollars) ... Gaydamak, of course, is a great patriot of Israel (like all such KGB agents) - but The interests of the KGB mafia are still in the first place for him. On this basis, sometimes such informers have conflicts with their historical homeland.

Let us now turn to Gaidamak's business partner Lev Leviev.