“My Father is a Highly Respected Person”
On the fourth year of Russian “war against the West” the son of the first deputy director of Rostec state corporation was detained in his villa in Spain in a money laundering probe. IStories got the video of his testimonies
Доступно на русском“I have a residence permit as an investor... I’ve been coming here for 20 years, I have nothing to hide... I pay the luxury tax every year, I pay all my taxes, I can’t live any other way, because my father is a highly respected person, I can’t put him or my family at risk,” 42-year-old Dmitry Artyakov insisted in his testimonies in Spain. Dmitry is a son of the first deputy director of Rostec state corporation Vladimir Artyakov. And Rostec is Russian military industrial behemoth, the main supplier of weapons and equipment to support the war.
Artyakov Jr. was detained in Girona in a money laundering probe in July of this year, reported the Telegram channel All Exclusive. He owns two houses in prestigious S'Agaró on Costa Brava, the purchase of these property and the convoluted financial operations involving millions of euros became the basis for the investigation.
IStories obtained video of Dmitry Artyakov’s testimonies from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which acquired materials from the criminal case from a source familiar with the Spanish investigation. Here’s what Dmitry Artyakov told the Spanish prosecutor.
The criminal case on money laundering was initiated by Spanish authorities back in 2019.
According to the case materials, some of which are also in the possession of IStories, Vladimir Artyakov and his wife used Artyakov’s mother-in-law, Anna Kurepina, “presumably <...> as part of a scheme originally developed for laundering money through real estate transactions, which would allow the spouses’ assets to be concealed with the help of a third party.” Artyakov’s son, Dmitry, appears in the case because the property ultimately ended up in his ownership.
The case, DW wrote, was opened in Spain after lawsuits filed by financier William Browder. In 2007, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky discovered that companies belonging to Browder’s Hermitage Capital fund in Russia had been stolen and used for the illegal recovery of taxes from the Russian budget. Magnitsky himself was then arrested on tax evasion charges and died in a Russian pre-trial detention center. According to the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission, the lawyer was held in conditions that could be described as torture.
Companies from the Magnitsky investigation transferred money to the accounts of offshore companies of the investment bank Troika Dialog, founded by Ruben Vardanyan, according to the investigation by OCCRP. The system, which journalists dubbed the Troika Laundromat, allowed the Russian elite to move funds out of the country and conceal their true origins. Dmitry Artyakov’s money for the purchase of the villa in Spain also passed through companies in this network.
“The best place in Spain”
Rostec enterprises produce all kinds of weapons and equipment for the Russian army. The head of Rostec — Putin’s close friend Sergey Chemezov — publicly speaks about the “war with the West.” Meanwhile, the son of his first deputy at Rostec — continued to travel to his luxury villa in Spain with his family and friends. As he mentioned in his testimonies: “I was making improvements, working in the garden <...> wanted to expand.”
“[S'Agaró is] the best place in Spain,” Dmitry Artyakov told the prosecutor. Neither the war, nor U.S. and European sanctions against Rostec and its leadership (including Artyakov Sr.), nor U.S. sanctions against Dmitry Artyakov himself interfered with his visits to Mediterranean resort.
Dmitry Artyakov bought the villa from his grandmother Anna Kurepina for 10 million euros back in 2014. She had acquired the house in 2008 at the age of 80 for 14 million euros, having received a loan from the offshore company Delco Networks (British Virgin Islands). This was revealed in 2019 in the OCCRP Troika Laundromat investigation — Delco Networks was a part of Russian investment bank Troika Dialog offshore network.
“Grandma is living a good life. <...> And I have my own family. <...> In 2008, I was a student,” Dmitry Artyakov shrugged his shoulders when the prosecutor asked if he knew anything about the origin of Kurepina’s money. When asked directly whether his father helped to pay for the villa for his grandmother, Artyakov replied: “I don’t think he helped.”
Judging by leaked banking information, Kurepina is indeed doing well. As IStories found, in 2022 her deposit in the Rostec entity — Novikombank exceeded 1 billion rubles. In Russia, she was the owner of a white Rolls-Royce Phantom and a dark blue Bentley Continental, according to leaked vehicle registration data. Kurepina is 97 years old.
Rostec and grandma’s money
The Russian companies where Kurepina was listed as the owner never showed significant income. But the origin of her money may be linked to Rostec — precisely, to the Russian automotive giant AvtoVAZ, which is part of the state corporation and was headed by Dmitry Artyakov father from 2005 to 2007.
The OCCRP Troika Laundromat investigation showed Kurepina received a stake (42.5%) in the Russian company AFK-Service in 2010, with Chemezov’s mother-in-law Lyudmila Rukavishnikova. AFK-Service soon acquired a Moscow business center, Spiridonovka-20, not far from the Kremlin. Offices there were rented by some Rostec enterprises, such as the radio-electronics Concern Sozvezdie. Previously, the business center belonged to AvtoVAZ, which bought it in the early 2000s for $10 million.
“I give 10,000 euros to each person who travels with me”
“I come [to Spain] every summer. <...> There are 8–10 of us, and each can bring 10,000 euros without declaring it. Since we come every year, I can bring <...> 100,000 euros [in cash]. The police see all this, and there are no problems. I don’t have to declare anything <...> I give 10,000 euros to each person who travels with me [including children and subordinates. — Ed.],” Dmitry Artyakov told the Spanish prosecutor, explaining why more than 200,000 euros in cash were found during a search in his villa.
“There are sanctions since 2022. All bank cards were blocked <...> And I have a big family, and friends arriving. I spend 1,000–1,200 euros a day just on food,” he confided.
According to Dmitry Artyakov’s testimony, he started visiting Spain with his grandmother when she bought the house in 2008.
“Why did your grandmother also buy two cars and a motorcycle?” the prosecutor asked.
“For I could drive it. <...> She was at the age, she would’t have been able to drive,” Dmitry Artyakov responded.
“Those years I was a student. When she bought the house, we started going [to Spain] together. In 2014 she became elderly [Kurepina was 80 when she bought the villa, and 86 when she sold it. — Ed..], she decided to sell <...> I decided to buy <...> I made an offer, she agreed.”
When asked why his grandmother decided to sell the villa, Dmitry Artyakov replied that “grandma was already getting old, she stopped traveling [to Spain].” But, according to leaked flight data, Kurepina flew to Girona (S'Agaró is located in Girona Province) with Dmitry Artyakov, his children, and his father’s brother, Yuri Artyakov, in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Vladimir Artyakov, the Rostec executive, also flew to Girona (at least in 2017 and 2018), as did his wife Tatyana.
Why did Dmitry Artyakov buy for 10 million euros what his grandmother had perchased for 14 million? “Because the market was like this, and then — like that,” he gestured, illustrating the rise and fall at the real estate market.
The 10-million-euro loan to Dmitry Artyakov was provided by the Cypriot company Digimarket Holdings. As he claimed in his testimony, it was advised by his family office — Quinta.
This was also the name of the Dutch-registered company Quinta Capital Partners, with a branch of the same name in Moscow, another part of the Troika Laundromat system, which managed the assets of Troika Dialog founder Ruben Vardanyan. Quinta was noted for transferring money to cellist and Vladimir Putin’s friend Sergey Roldugin; in 2010, it transferred him $5.7 million, OCCRP found out.
Artyakov said in his testimony that he had known about Spanish criminal case for three or four years and still continued to travel to Spain with his family and friends, because he was “absolutely open” and “did not violate any laws.” “If I had been summoned [for questioning], I would have come,” Dmitry Artyakov said.
Rostec and Dmitry Artyakov’s money
“I know my dad works at Rostec, but I don’t know what he is doing there. He has his own story there. I have mine. I have my own big business,” Dmitry Artyakov assured the court. At the interrogation, he stated that he had fully repaid the loan (10 million euros, received for the villa purchase) last year.
“I have a high income in Russia, I can easily repay the loan. I paid it off with my own money,” Artyakov told the prosecutor, noting that he works for a large, “strategic” freight rail company, Modum-Trans.
The history of this company was closely connected to Rostec. Dmitry Artyakov became CEO of Modum-Trans in 2018; before the time, the company was called UVZ-Logistics and belonged to the state tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod. In 2016, Putin by his decree transferred the shares of Uralvagonzavod to Rostec. At a briefing, the head of Rostec, Chemezov, stated that Uralvagonzavod’s large debts (276 billion rubles) arose because “UVZ-Logistics was buying railcars from itself”, and that most of these debts could be compensated by selling UVZ-Logistics.
As a result, the lion’s share of the company (75%) ended up with Dmitry Artyakov. At that time, the company’s revenue exceeded 77 billion rubles, and net profit was 7.5 billion rubles. Previously, Uralvagonzavod valued the asset at 85 billion rubles.
In 2017, Dmitry Artyakov acquired a stake (about 14%) in Samaraenergo with revenue of more than 43 billion rubles. He bought it from his father’s adviser at Rostec, Vladimir Avetisyan.
In 2024, Artyakov became the owner of a stake (15%) in the company Avtoinvest — a major shareholder of KamAZ (a part of Rostec). He acquired it from Troika Dialog founder Ruben Vardanyan, and it was valued at more than 3 billion rubles.
Family and friends
Vladimir Artyakov and Sergey Chemezov are longtime friends, sources told IStories. Vladimir Artyakov worked with Chemezov since the 1990s — Artyakov was his subordinate in the Presidential Property Management Department; later, he headed AvtoVAZ, served as governor of Russian Samara region, and finally became Chemezov’s first deputy at Rostec.
The Chemezov and Artyakov families are also connected by joint businesses. Dmitry Artyakov and Chemezov’s sons, Stanislav and Alexander, were partners in at least three companies in Russia, operating in the food, real estate, and logistics sectors. And at the Spanish resort of S'Agaró, Dmitry Artyakov’s property is next door to a villa which was owned by Chemezov’s stepdaughter, Anastasia Ignatova, according to OCCRP. The intermediary for the villa purchase deal was Maria Baer-Pakhomova — the sister of Roman Pakhomov, CEO of one of Rostec’s companies. She was also the intermediary when Artyakov’s grandmother bought the property in 2008.
“When you were detained, there was a Lexus in the garage, who bought it?” the Spanish prosecutor asked Dmitry Artyakov. He replied that he had bought the car in Spain, in April–May for 123,000 euros. He gave his bank card, issued by Belarusian Statusbank, to Maria Baer, and she paid (cards from some Belarusian banks were valid in Europe until summer 2025, before the 18th EU sanctions package was adopted).
According to OCCRP sources, after Dmitry Artyakov’s detention, the Spanish judge did not place him under arrest, despite the prosecutor’s request, but released him on bail of 1 million euros.
The court ordered Artyakov not to leave Spain, a source close to the investigation said. The same source reported that Spanish police are analyzing documents related to the family of Rostec head Chemezov, found in Dmitry Artyakov’s house. But there is no information if any probe involving Chemezov’s relatives was started.
Dmitry Artyakov and Vladimir Artyakov did not respond to IStories’ requests.