Back in November I wrote an article on LinkedIn called
This was a follow up to two previous articles.
The “If this doesn’t make you angry…” article was about a company called Marinostro Ltd who had, as their initial directors, a firm called “Lawsons Secretaries Ltd” who were directors to over 100 companies despite filing dormant accounts for their entire existence. One of the other companies which had Lawson Secretaries as a director has recently caught my eye and I’d like to tell you more about it. The interesting thing, for me, is just how many other major news stories this entity ends up connecting to. But let’s start from the beginning.
The company in question is called Lexus Associates (UK) Ltd (LAUK) – nothing to do with the car company!
LAUK was incorporated in Scotland as a Limited Company on 10 April 2008 by Lawsons & Co LLP a now dissolved limited liability partnership operating from the same address as Lawsons Secretaries (39-43 Duke Street Edinburgh). The original directors were Joanne Wright (who featured strongly in my previous article) Lawson Secretaries Ltd and Stephen John Kelly although both have since resigned. The company itself was dissolved on 18 April 2017.
In its annual return for 2011 it disclosed that its previous shareholder (Sarman Partners Corp) had transferred its entire shareholding to Fincorp International Marketing SA. Sarman Partners Corp is listed in the Panama Papers as being a BVI based entity linked to Estonia with shareholders named Valery Perchukov and Tatiana Rakhmatullina living at the same address in St Petersburg. The entity was created by Mossack Fonseca.
The new shareholder, Fincorp International Marketing SA is also listed in the Panama Papers, based in BVI, created by Mossack Fonseca with links to Estonia and shareholders named Alexey Perchukov, Valery Zadorzhnyy and Elizaveta Bogdanova all with addresses in St Petersburg.
So far, so er… interesting.
The appearance of Stephen John Kelly piqued my interest however, as it is a name that crops up time and time again and I’d like to draw out some of those connections.
Firstly, as originally reported by Patribotics (and, yes, I know that Louise Mensch, who runs the Patribotics site is someone who polarises opinion but anyone who cites independent verifiable sources is ok with me – the non-verifiable stuff I can take with a pinch of salt).
She recently ran an article (https://patribotics.blog/2018/02/25/putins-wikileaks-host-mob-laundromat-funded-gop/) that referenced Mr Kelly in relation to another UK company called Optimal Telecom Ltd which he ran along with another gentleman who started out, according to their company filings as Petr Ulanov but who, in 2010, became Petr (or Piotr, or Peter) Chayanov.
Petr Chayanov also runs a Russian company called Hostkey which, amongst others acts as both a webserver and nameserver for Wikileaks. Now the jury is out on exactly what that means (some will tell you it gives them access to the Wikileaks SSL keys – and effectively allows them to deanonymize whistle-blower information) while others will tell you it is part of what is known as a Round-robin DNS which is a method of ensuring a very stable web presence. Either way, it is disconcerting, to say the least, to find Wikileaks being hosted on any sort of Russian server without giving a tiny bit of credence to the connections between Wikileaks, the DNC hack, Trump’s request for Russia to release the remaining 33,000 DNC emails, the eventual destination of Edward Snowden and the fact that Wikileaks does not appear to have ever leaked any Russian information of note. But that is all conjecture.
But that’s not the end of the connections.
Stephen John Kelly is also, according to the ICIJ’s offshore leaks database – https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/194017 – a shareholder and director of Boily Systems Ltd, along with another Russian named Alexey Chernov. Boily systems was allegedly the vehicle through which the Hermitage/Magnitsky money was laundered (see, for example, the affidavit filed by the SDNY in the Prevezon case – https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/judiciary/upload/Russia%2C%2003-31-17%2C%20Magnitsky%20Act%20-%20DOJ%20Second%20Amended%20Verified%20Complaint.pdf). Which in turn, leads back to Alexander Perepilichnyy, who was allegedly murdered in Weybridge (and who I’ve written about before) who was both a shareholder in Quartell Trading (also involved in the Magnitsky case) as well as a Beneficial owner of Financial Bridge, allegedly one of the entities involved in the Deutsche Bank mirror trades (do you ever feel like you’re going around in circles?)
Do a bit more digging and his name crops up in relation to another money laundering scheme (this time in Slovenia – see https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sl&u=http://www.delo.si/novice/slovenija/pomorski-agenti-brez-pisarne-in-ladij.html&prev=search).
And then, if you dig a bit more, there’s the Armenian case – http://hetq.am/eng/news/21552/money-laudering-attempt-fails-two-different-verdicts-in-nayirit-case.html/
Get the picture?
All we need now is to connect him to Ali Moulaye and the games up! Which, of course, we can do very easily given that one of the other entities allegedly used in the mirror trading affair was Chadborg Trade LLP whose accounts were, of course, signed off by none other than Ali Moullaye (he used a variant!)
So there you have it! One name linking Magnitsky, Perepilichnyy, Wikileaks, Russia, Mirror trading, Slovenian money Laundering, Armenian Money Laundering and much more which I just don’t have the energy to reference at the moment.
Do you think someone will eventually get the message that we need to clean up UK legal entities and perform much better due diligence on both their officers and filings!
Hiding in plain sight - my search for money launderers 