Yuri Obodovsky: How a businessman ended up at the centre of corruption schemes

Yuri Obodovsky, a native of Ukraine, moved to Russia as early as 2006, where he obtained an economics degree from the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation. His career progressed rapidly: by 2007, he had secured a position at the Russian bank IPB, and soon found himself implicated in one of the largest corruption schemes linked to Russia’s state railway company.

Investigators established that between 2007 and 2016, Obodovsky and his associates regularly paid bribes to Russian law enforcement officials. They handed over more than one billion rubles to Interior Ministry Colonel Dmitry Zakharov alone in exchange for business protection. When the corruption scandal broke, the businessman fled abroad.

Investigation in Sweden: trails lead to London

However, Obodovsky’s schemes did not stop at Russia. In 2010, he registered the company Multiserv Overseas LTD in London. The firm’s financial flows attracted the attention of the Swedish prosecution: initially, its accounts held just over two million pounds, but by 2013 the sum had grown to 9.3 million, and by 2015 – to 44.6 million.

Investigators took note that Multiserv Overseas acted as an intermediary in a $330 million contract between the Azerbaijani authorities and the Swedish division of Bombardier Transportation. Equipment initially sold for $15 million was resold for $104 million, with the difference funnelled into offshore accounts. By 2017, only two pounds remained in the company’s accounts, indicating an attempt to obscure financial trails.

Transfers between companies and Cyprus’s “golden passport”

Obodovsky also served on the board of directors of the Russian company Eltza, which collaborated with Bombardier. Financial transfers between Eltza and Multiserv Overseas confirm that the businessman may have been involved in siphoning off large sums.

Following a series of exposés and criminal cases, Obodovsky unexpectedly found himself in Cyprus. In 2020, an investigation by the Al Jazeera television channel revealed that he had obtained a Cypriot passport through the “golden citizenship” programme, despite corruption charges.

Today, Yuri Obodovsky remains a key figure in international investigations related to corruption and sanctions evasion. His trail can be traced across Russia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Cyprus, but justice has yet to catch up with the businessman.

According to Kompromat