A businessman whose companies have backed 34 Tory MPs made millions from an allegedly corrupt Russian pipeline deal, leaked files show.
Former oil executive Victor Fedotov owns a firm currently seeking UK government approval for a controversial energy link between the UK and France.
A BBC investigation shows he secretly benefitted from the alleged $4bn fraud in Russia.
His lawyers said “there is no evidence whatsoever” he behaved improperly.
The BBC discovered documents revealing Mr Fedotov as a secret owner of a company called VNIIST that benefitted from hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts from Transneft, the Russian state-owned oil and gas pipeline company.
A 2008 audit report suggested Transneft had lost huge sums to corruption and that one of the contractors that had benefitted was VNIIST.
It was alleged VNIIST was paid for work it hadn’t carried out and that Transneft had lost around $143 million in just two contracts.
The audit report was leaked to Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny who estimated $4bn had been embezzled. No charges were brought against any of those involved.
What the audit report did not reveal was that one of Mr Fedotov’s secret business partners in VNIIST was the President of Transneft, Semyon Vainshtok. The documents in the Pandora Papers show he was secretly benefitting from contracts Transneft had awarded.
They reveal a scheme to funnel profits from the Transneft deals through layers of companies in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Malta and the British Virgin Islands under the ownership of trusts of which Mr Fedotov and Mr Vainshtok were secret beneficiaries. A second Transneft executive was also profiting from the cash.
The Boris Connection
Last year Mr Fedotov was revealed to be the owner of Aquind, the company behind a £1.24bn project to build an electricity cable linking the UK to France. Aquind is currently seeking UK government approval for the project and a decision will be made in weeks.
His connection to Aquind has been hidden through an exemption to UK company laws granted to people with personal security concerns.
Mr Fedotov is now identified on the company’s public records, alongside Alexander Temerko, the Ukraine-born public face and part owner of Aquind.
Mr Temerko is a Conservative Party activist and personal friend of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
He is a regular at Conservative Party fundraisers and has personally donated more than £700,000 to the party.
Sleeping with the enemy … 