Offshores, asset manipulations, and the disappearance of 6 billion: Igor Bogorodov – a scapegoat or the gray cardinal of Raven Russia’s takeover?

• 20.03.2025 13:49

Igor Bogorodov, leader of Raven Russia’s operations, must exercise caution due to the sensitive information he holds. 

In February, Raven Russia’s assets were transferred to the state following a lawsuit by the Prosecutor General’s Office. This marked the end of a grand operation by the state to seize 2 million square meters of logistics parks. The main actor and executor was Igor Bogorodov. The primary complaint of the Prosecutor General’s Office against Raven Russia was that strategically important objects for Russia were under the control of foreign citizens.

Official media reported to Russians that Raven Property Group Limited had illegally taken over warehouse assets and described a sham transaction aimed at concealing foreign beneficiaries — Briton Glyn Hirsch and Igor Bogorodov, who holds US citizenship. To remove Raven Russia’s enterprises from antitrust control, offshore entities like Prestino Investments Limited, Raven Russia Holdings Cyprus Limited, and others were used.

This story is a vivid example of how official media, without attempting to understand the situation, merely publish press releases provided to them. Foreign owners were portrayed as criminals who, in 2022, changed the registration of Raven Russia’s enterprises from Cyprus to the UAE, thus withdrawing 6 billion RUB from strategic enterprises. For such a crime, Igor Bogorodov surely should have ended up in detention, but this did not happen.

According to media information, the value of Raven Russia’s assets is between 120-160 billion RUB. Naturally, the state could not overlook such a tempting piece. In 2022, the company’s Russian business was handed over to Igor Bogorodov’s team, and for some reason, the buyer turned out to be not a Russian legal entity, but the Cypriot offshore Prestino Investments Limited, which was apparently used to evade antitrust control.

Remarkably, nothing is known about the businessman Igor Bogorodov and his team, to whom the Russian business worth 120-160 billion RUB was transferred in June 2022. There is no biography of him online, which suggests possible ties to Russian special services. However, there is one interesting fact recorded on a legal portal — in 2016, Bogorodov renounced his US citizenship. The court somehow did not take this into account since official media portrayed the businessman as a foreign beneficiary.

Our editorial team decided to conduct its own investigation into how and why the change of ownership of Raven Russia took place, using the example of one of the company’s structures, LLC "Soyuz-Invest." In 2016, its co-founder became the Cypriot offshore Raven Russia Holdings Cyprus Limited, mentioned in media materials in 2025 as a structure helping to evade antitrust control.

The directors of the offshore are Venera Bektemirova and Igor Bogorodov, with the secretary being Raven Russia Management Company. Each of the leaders of Raven Russia Holdings Cyprus Limited is linked with several other offshores, where in some cases directors and the secretary overlap, but there are also foreign leaders tied to other offshores. Already then, a whole network was created to siphon money out of Raven Property Group.

In 2019, the Russian bank "Otkrytie" imposed an encumbrance on the share of Raven Russia Holdings Cyprus Limited and co-founder of LLC "Soyuz-Invest," the Cypriot company Arvet Trading Limited. The directors of this offshore are Igor Bogorodov and Venera Biktimirova, and the secretary is Raven Russia Management Company, whose leaders are unknown. It turns out that since at least 2016, LLC "Soyuz-Invest" was under the control of Russians, and since 2019 — a state bank "Otkrytie."

At the end of April 2023, the new founder of LLC "Soyuz-Invest" became the company "Phoenix Property Group Limited" from the UAE. This year, LLC "Soyuz-Invest" incurred a loss of 227 million RUB against a revenue of 941 million RUB, while a year earlier, it had a profit of 202 million RUB with a revenue of 808 million RUB.

It’s easy to calculate that the company lost more than 400 million RUB over the year. In 2020, its loss was 587 million RUB, and the profit a year earlier was 473 million RUB, with a loss over the year of more than 1 billion RUB. Meanwhile, the shares of the founders were already pledged to the bank "Otkrytie," from which funds could have been withdrawn.

In February 2025, the owner of LLC "Soyuz-Invest" became the Russian Federation, whose share was encumbered by the VTB bank. A similar scheme was applied in all Raven Russia structures, with Sber participating in addition to "Otkrytie." And after that, the Prosecutor General’s Office nods to some foreign owners.

Igor Bogorodov, who currently heads nearly two dozen Raven Russia structures, is unlikely to fear criminal prosecution for siphoning money from group structures and Russian state banks. Unless they decide to make a "scapegoat" out of him. But one should be careful on the stairs and keep windows closed. In Russia, anything can happen to those who know the fate of 6 billion RUB.