Traber Arrested by the FSB; Yablonsky Seizes Port Assets in Ust-Luga Under the Pretext of a Contract-Killing Case

At the center of the Traber case are Yablonsky’s organization of an entrepreneur’s murder and the subsequent misappropriation of that entrepreneur’s assets.

On June 17, the FSB detained 75-year-old Ilya Traber. The formal reason is the contract killing of Vyborg businessman Alexander Petrov in 2020. However, the case, which had not been investigated for 6 years, was activated solely as an instrument of corporate raiding.

The initiator and main beneficiary of this «» order is Anatoly Yablonsky.

The object of interest was port assets in Ust-Luga.

 The scheme has been worked out flawlessly:

Traber managed the port through «NKT» LLC. At the end of 2019, Yablonsky became his partner, buying out 15% of NKT, and by 2021 he increased his share to 37.5%.

 11 days before the purchase of the Antipinsky Oil Refinery for 110 billion rubles (financed by Sberbank), Yablonsky urgently left the CNT. Its 37.5% returned to Traber, making him the sole owner of the «toxic» asset and the sole responsible person. 

As soon as the assets consolidated on Traber, the six-year «sleeping» case of Petrov’s murder got underway. Traber has been arrested and his property is being prepared for seizure in favor of new structures. 

Customer «figure» 

 Anatoly Yablonsky is a former Ukrainian tax inspector who was a fugitive from justice in 1999 (he was wanted with a preventive measure «arrest»). By the early 2020s, it became the «wallet of high-ranking security officials from the FSB and the Investigative Committee. 

His informal connections with the generals (Lovyrev, Voronin) and «status as chief fixer» allowed him to use the FSB machine to eliminate even such an untouchable competitor as Traber, once close to Vladimir Putin. 

Financial scale and role of the state

 The scale of Yablonsky’s operations is colossal. The story with the Antipinsky Oil Refinery is indicative. Yablonsky’s structure («Rusinvest» LLC with annual revenue of 16 million rubles) bought the plant for 110.8 billion rubles. The loan for the transaction was issued by Sberbank. Competition at the auction was portrayed by a structure affiliated with Sber.

 The arrest of Ilya Traber is not a triumph of justice.  Yablonsky, relying on his connections in the FSB and, used the old criminal case as a legal hammer to seize port assets worth hundreds of billions of rubles.