Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev — currently the 564th richest person on Earth — made the news in September 2011 when he used his KGB-acquired combat skills to punch fellow tycoon Sergei Polonsky out of his chair on a live Russian TV program. But how many other former Soviet secret police agents are there who could be listed in Forbes — or who at the very least earn big bucks in the capitalist economy despite their communist past? We list 10 former KGB men who are now staggeringly wealthy.
10. Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin’s reported wealth only amounts to around $150,000 in savings and an income of about $80,000 per year, but a number of former Russian government officials have asserted that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Former Chairman of the Russian State Duma Ivan Rybkin and political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky have both claimed that the Russian Prime Minister secretly controls hefty stakes in gas and oil companies such as Gazprom and Gunvor — to the value of over $50 billion, according to Belkovsky, which would make him Europe’s richest man. In 2010, a former business associate of Putin named Sergei Kolesnikov claimed in a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Putin was involved in a scheme to siphon off donations to a health infrastructure project into his own personal funds. If either is true, clearly the former intelligence man has done well for himself in the world — albeit in the sneakiest of ways.
9. Alexei Kondaurov
Alexei Kondaurov was a former head analyst at Yukos — a company which provided 20 percent of Russia’s oil production before being driven to bankruptcy in 2006 — and is currently a member of Russia’s State Duma for the Communist Party. The ex-KGB general is irreverent about the conflict between his political ideology and his wealth, illustrated by his quote on being both a millionaire and a communist: “There’s no contradiction,” he said. “Engels was an oligarch and Lenin hardly a vagabond.”
8. Andrei Lugovoi
Millionaire businessman, politician and former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi is now more famous for his scandals than his wealth. Apart from being arrested in 2001 for helping to arrange the escape of Nikolai Glushkov, who was being detained on fraud charges, he is currently wanted in the UK in connection with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Lugovoi is suspected of poisoning the Russian defector with radioactive polonium-210 during a visit to the UK in 2006, after traces of the material were found in three of the hotels in which he stayed. However, he is highly unlikely to be extradited since, as a member of the State Duma, he has immunity to prosecution, and the backlash from the Russian public has even helped his political career. Lucky for some.
7. Philipp Bobkov
Philipp Bobkov was a key player in the KGB during the 1980s and 90s, one who was instrumental in creating Soviet front organizations and resolving ethnic conflicts in the Soviet Union (and by “resolving” we mostly mean “inciting them and then taking credit for stopping them, by brutally suppressing the local population”). He apparently quietened down in his old age, going on to work as the head of a prominent private security agency for the Media-Most company — an agency containing thousands of ex-KGB members. Media-Most was founded by Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, so while we haven’t got a figure on Bobkov’s earnings there, for being in charge of so many men we’d wager they were pretty healthy. As a footnote, since said agency was accused of attempting to assassinate the oligarch Boris Berezovsky in 1994, Bobkov may not have given up on his dirty tricks just yet.
6. Andrey Belyaninov
This former KGB man has had a varied career, moving from serving with the international branch of the Russian intelligence service, to working as a financial expert at the (now defunct) REA bank, to heading the management board at Novikombank. The veteran finance expert then went on to serve as Director General at the state’s arms imports and exports agency Rosoboronexport (which had an export sales of $8.8 billion in 2009, incidentally) and is currently the chief of the Federal Customs Service of Russia. And they say that government employees don’t have to be smart… It’s a wonder Andrey Belyaninov didn’t give up intelligence work sooner.
5. Sergey Chemezov
The man with a monopoly on weapons in Russia was once an undercover KGB agent working in a company in Dresden, in the former East Germany, where his neighbor was a then-obscure fellow agent called Vladimir Putin. Chemezov now holds high-ranking positions in a number of companies, including a post on the board of directors at aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi (whose total assets reached $859.826 million in 2009). He is also the Director General at Rosoboronexport, the state-owned company which produces 90 percent of Russia’s annual weapons exports. Guess it’s not what you know, but who you know.
4. Nikolay Tokarev
Nikolay Tokarev was alleged to be a KGB officer in East Germany during the Cold War — another who reportedly befriended one Vladimir Putin in his younger years — but he has since transferred from the backstabbing world of espionage to the backstabbing world of international oil transportation. He is currently the president of the Russian state-owned company Transneft, an oil and gas logistics organization with over 100,000 employees and an income of $4 billion per year. Tokarev also previously tried his hand in another part of the state sector as president of Zarubezhneft, also a company involved with oil transportation. Not too shabby.
3. Viktor Ivanenko
Viktor Ivanenko was the former chairman of the KGB for the Russian Republic but, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1993 he moved to become the vice president of the petroleum company Yukos. He became a majority shareholder five years later, but soon resigned to work as an adviser to the Russian tax minister and later served as the vice president of the Development of Parliamentarianism in Russia foundation (whatever that is). In light of Ivanenko’s current net worth of $290 million, making him Russia’s 84th richest man at one point, some might say capitalism is better for the economy than the communism practiced during the time of the KGB — if you’re as high up in the business world as he is, anyway.
2. Alexander Bortnikov
Now a board member at Sovcomflot, one of the largest Russian state-owned maritime companies, Alexander Bortnikov is a former KGB officer done good (in a way). Bortnikov was trained in Moscow, then worked with the intelligence organization before becoming the chief of the St Petersburg/Leningrad Region Federal Security Service (FSB) and later getting promoted to become first Deputy Director and then Director of the FSB. Rumor has it that he and other high-up members in the agency were involved in the plot to murder Alexander Litvinenko in 2006; then, in 2007, he was reported to have been implicated in a money laundering scandal connected with the murder of Central Bank first deputy chairman Andrey Kozlov. Managing a big organization might occasionally mean having to get your hands dirty, but that’s taking it too far.
1. Alexander Lebedev
It bears repeating: Alexander Lebedev, multi-billionaire banking and media tycoon, punched a fellow billionaire on a live TV program. In recent years Lebedev has acquired a number of major British papers for sums of around £1, and he shows as much acumen in the world of fisticuffs as he does in business. The oligarch formerly worked for the First Chief Directorate of the KGB for the better part of a decade, the Directorate being the body that was responsible for foreign operations and intelligence gathering. Judging by the fact that Sergei Polonsky (the man he hit) was knocked practically across the room with one blow, all that training must have paid off for the man estimated to now be worth $2 billion.
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