Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1506906
MATTHEW VELLA THE Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has removed a Malta-flagged luxury motoryacht from its Russian sanctions list, over connections to Russian pres- ident Vladimir Putin. OFAC, an office under the American Department of Treas- ury, removed the motoryacht Addiction from its Specially Des- ignated Nationals List. The Malta-flagged yacht was said to have links to Russian-Is- raeli multi-millionaire Sergei Nikolaevich Adonyev, sanctioned earlier this year for being a financi- er for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The agency however did not release more information. Adonyev, 62, is a telecoms mo- gul in Russia who is said to be a financier to Putin and Rostec State Corporation head Sergei Chemezov, a former KGB agent and high-ranking general who runs the state-owned defence conglomerate. A statement from the State IS Department in Janu- ary did not elaborate on why the Adonyev, who is estimated by Forbes to be worth over half a bil- lion dollars, was being blacklisted. Adonyev's other sanctioned en- tities include his company Kalei- doskop, and another yacht, called Annata. His other major blocked property is his private jet, a Global 6000. In 1994, together with Oleg Boyko – who featured extensively in the MaltaFiles investigations on tax avoidance in 2017 – Adonyev founded Olbi-Jazz, a fruit import- ing company. In 1996, Adonyev's Joint Food Company (JFC) be- came the leading fruit importing company in Russia. Adonyev also co-founded the Russian mobile operator Yota, which he sold to Russian billion- aire Alisher Usmanov's Megafon. He also has a stake in the Russian smartphone maker Yota Devices. In 2019, Bulgaria revoked Adonyev's Bulgarian citizen- ship over a 20-year-old fraud conviction in the United States, when Adonyev was convicted in the United States of defraud- ing the Kazakh government of $4m through false sales of Cuban sugar. He was sentenced to 30 months in jail, much of which he had already served, before being deported to Russia the following year. He was originally investigated by the FBI over suspected involve- ment in a much graver criminal enterprise: traffic of cocaine from Latin America to Europe via the port of St. Petersburg. The inves- tigation lost steam after Adonyev was deported without serving a full US sentence. In 2019 his wife Maria Adonye- va, who has a London-based charitable foundation, had to step down as a patron of the Tate and from a prestigious advisory board at Somerset House, where she was a major donor. Adonyev also supports cultural projects, perhaps the most sig- nificant of which includes the DAU, a large-scale internation- al film project by director Ilya Khrzhanovsky that has produced the six-hour, arthouse satire on Soviet science, DAU: Degenera- tion.vella@mediatoday.com.mt 8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 SEPTEMBER 2023 NEWS Call for Applications Call for Applications for Senior Manager (Finance) at Teatru Manoel (Ref: HR/TM/03/2023) Jobsplus Permit Number: 652/2023 The Senior Manager (Finance) reports to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and is responsible for all aspects of finance at Teatru Manoel, from transaction processing to budgeting. Working with the CEO, the Senior Manager (Finance) will be responsible for the provision of timely and accurate financial information within Teatru Manoel and externally, as well as providing key input into financial decision- making and strategy. The Senior Manager (Finance) will be responsible for robust and efficient financial processes and systems to deliver the highest standards of service. Interested applicants are to visit our website: www.teatrumanoel.mt for the full job description, required qualifications and instructions on how to apply. Application deadline for all calls: Friday 22 nd September 2023 at noon. Vladimir Putin financier's Malta yacht delisted from US sanctions Malta-f lagged yacht Addiction belonging to Putin ally has been removed from Russia sanctions list by United States' Office of Foreign Assets Control Rostec boss Sergei Chemezov, Vladimir Putin and multi-millionaire Sergei Adonyev