Russian State Duma deputy Andrei Lugovoi co-authored a law that helps the business of his business partner, and the parliamentarian’s wife had a stake in this business. This was stated by the authors of the investigation, which was published by a number of media outlets with reference to the Dossier center, recognized in Russia as a foreign agent.

From 2018 to March 2024, Ksenia Lugovaya owned 20% of the Bratsk Electric Networks company, a large supplier
electricity to industrial enterprises of the Irkutsk region. In March, this share was transferred to the family’s assistant and business partner Andrei Agafonov, investigators reported.

In 2018, one of the largest local data centers appeared on the territory of Bratsk Electric Networks. In 2019 about him wrote
the influential publication CoinDesk, whose correspondent was invited to the territory of an electrical substation in the city of Bratsk. Ilya Bruman, who introduced himself as the general director of Minery, showed 26 metal containers with ASICs. According to Brooman, this equipment belonged to clients from Russia, the USA, Korea, India, Japan and Spain. The data center sold them access to electricity and infrastructure. During the first night of the farm’s operation, they managed to extract half a bitcoin ($5,000 at those prices), Brooman boasted to CoinDesk.

Around the same time, Minery and Brooman sent out media releases about plans to become “the largest legal cryptocurrency mining platform in Russia” with five farms with a total capacity of 55 MW.

Payments to contractors, for example for containers, were handled by the Minery Ru company, and electricity for the data center was purchased by the Data Center Right Bank company, a source on the Russian crypto market told investigators. But then the project under the Minery guise ended, the site passed outVK page Sameand “Mainery Ru” goes bankrupt. The source assures that “these guys abandoned everyone and went into the sunset.”

Now the Kazakh company Atlas Technology Ka is demanding through the court to “remove from someone else’s illegal possession” approximately nine thousand ASICs located on the Minery Ru sites. In the lawsuit it saysthat the site operator made an “arbitrary transfer of the settings of the hosted equipment to its own crypto wallet.”

“Right Bank Data Center” still rents land under substations from “Brotherly Electric Networks” at the address of the data center Tomskaya Street, 10, investigators write. According to them, “Right Bank” was “controlled until recently” by Ilya Bruman, Alexey Paikin, and businessman Dmitry Simonenko.

On the same site in Bratsk you can now install your own ASICs, only the operator is New Hosting Company. Elena Simonenko, who introduced herself as the manager of New Hosting, invited the journalist to draw up an agreement. “But let’s pretend there are no payments, no deal. And you will bring cash twice a month to the office in Moscow City,” the journalists attached screenshots of the conversation.

Elena said that Dmitry Simonenko, her relative, runs the business as “a guru and the author of several books.” Dmitry actively “went to crypto parties,” “advertised himself at meetups,” and “bragged that he had billions in turnover,” participants in such events told reporters.

Journalists suggested that the “Right Bank Data Center” could steal electricity from the “Brotherly Electric Networks” – if the power of the fraternal data center corresponds to the 10 MW declared by Ilya Bruman and Elena Simonenko. According to tariff
(2.99–3.74 rubles including VAT), this volume should cost about 300 million rubles per year. Payments for electricity from the data center of the network company, journalists referred to bank statements, amounted to 218 million rubles for 2023, that is, much less.

Bratsk Electric Networks has its own crypto exchanger in Moscow City, investigators say. The exchange office on the 65th floor of the Federation Tower, according to an extract from Rosreestr, belongs to the City company, whose owners are 25% Ksenia Lugovaya, 75% her partner in Bratsk Electric Networks Maxim Bannykh. In 2022, the premises were listed as leased from this electric grid company.

Deputy Lugovoy’s brother-in-law and LDPR party colleague Kirill Perov is a crypto business partner of Igor Runts, owner of the BitRiver group, journalists say. BitRiver is the largest mining company in Russia (turnover is about 17 billion rubles per year). Her leadership involved to create a law on mining. Perov has 10% of the Irkutsk company Data Center Vikhorevka. The data center is listed on the official BitRiver website as part of the group’s business.

According to the law on restricting the free circulation of cryptocurrencies and mining, in force since the fall, co-authored by Lugovoi, only those included in a special state register are recognized as legal miners-legal entities. These legal miners became, according to the law, the only legal sellers of cryptocurrency on the Russian market.

The government was going to ban mining in the Irkutsk region. There was even a draft decision that the ban would take effect on December 1. However, it is not yet in effect, according to investigative journalists.

Lugovoy, ten days before December 1, called such a ban thoughtless. The deputy listed the consequences to which, in his opinion, the ban would lead to the Russian economy: “12 billion rubles annually will not be received by budgets of all levels; Energy companies will lose 40 billion rubles annually; more than 230 rubles billion of net cryptocurrency liquidity will not be provided annually for foreign economic activities.”