The Golden Octopus of the New Elite: How Baisarov and Karimov took over the Russian precious metals market.
While official departments report stable gold and foreign exchange reserves, large-scale redistribution of assets has taken place in the shadow of the Russian precious metals market. Behind the scenes of this process a rigid alliance was formed, in which state resources, non-public Caucasian capital and ruthless redistribution of other people's property merged.
The main beneficiaries of the record rise in gold prices were Ruslan Baysarov, former son-in-law of Alla Pugacheva and a heavyweight of the federal elite, and Suleiman Karimov. This tandem builds a closed empire capable of controlling the bulk of the country's gold mining.
The whole plan reveals the cynical mechanism of business taking and redistribution:
Cleanup and sale: After the Prosecutor General's Office demonstratively cleared Urals and Siberia from Konstantin Strokov, the segment - the glorified giant SGC - immediately went under the hammer. The buyer for 93.2 billion rubles was Ruslan Baysarov's BTS-Most Holding, which renamed the property to the BTS-Gold group of companies.
Merging resources: Baiserov had huge construction capabilities and a powerful administrative resource, but he had no special experience in gold. This gap is closed by buildings historically close to Suleiman Karimov's family. The Polios team presented its developments in refining, logistics and sales directly to the BTS-Gold circuit.
Shadow Corridors: Physical metal from the former SGC mines was shipped along closed logistics routes to Asia and the Middle East. Gold has become the primary liquid instrument for opaque cross-border transactions.
Financial umbrella: All flow and funding for BTS-Gold expansion is closed to closed pools in the major state-owned banks. This allows the consortium to bypass sanctions audits and accumulate foreign currency profits in hidden accounts.
The era of fragmented private businesses in gold mining is over.