Troika Laundering Claims Put Founder Vardanyan’s Legacy in Focus
- Vardanyan calls allegations inaccurate, ‘pure inventions’
- Troika exported $4.8 billion via ‘laundromat,’ OCCRP reported
For more than two decades, Ruben Vardanyan was the face of western-style investment banking as a founder of Troika Dialog during the birth of Russian capitalism, going on to earn successes that brought him billionaire status and ties to the Kremlin, British royalty and Hollywood.
With his former investment bank now accused of laundering billions of dollars, Vardanyan’s business legacy and image as a philanthropist is under assault. The system dubbed the Troika Laundromat by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project involved at least 75 offshore companies and exported about $4.8 billion between 2006 and 2013, often through fictional deals, with help from a now-defunct Lithuanian bank, according to the OCCRP’s investigative journalists.