A mysterious company in Russia, which allegedly made eye-watering profits that were only surpassed by the country’s energy giants, has “disappeared” without a trace.
The case centers around a firm called Banknota LLC, which was investigated by Russian-language broadcaster RTVI, whose findings were also reported by independent Russian outlets Meduza and The Moscow Times. Newsweek has contacted the Russian financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring for comment.
In an article headlined “the most profitable company in Russia you have never heard of,” RTVI said that, in June, when Russian firms report their revenues for the previous year, it had made an “unexpected discovery.”
This illustrative image from August 13, 2021, in Moscow, shows Russian ruble coins and bank notes pictured next to Russian ruble sign. Russian news outlet RTVI reported that a firm called Banknota made $37.1 billion profits last year before it “disappeared.”
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/Getty Images
According to financial reports, the firm took in 3.7 trillion rubles ($40.4 billion) of revenue and made a net profit of 3.4 trillion rubles ($37.1 billion) last year—more than any other firm apart from state energy firms Rosneft and Gazprom.
Banknota had a website, which is no longer available, although it is still on the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. It said that the firm dealt with mortgage lending, car loans and interest-bearing loans for businesses.
However, RTVI said that the company did not have a banking license. The country’s Unified State Register of Legal Entities lists Banknota’s sole owner as Dmitry Frolov, a Moscow resident who had faced previous convictions for petty theft and was deemed as “unreliable” by the Federal Tax Service.
The firm was reportedly set up in June 2023, along with four other companies at premises that included a business center and the basement of a house, RTVI said. Yet there were no offices at the addresses whose current tenants had never heard of Frolov or his companies.
Describe corruption levels in RU. Staggering, insane, huge? A “fly-by-night” Banknota, a company registered under an incarcerated for petty theft, reported a profit of ~38B USD or 8% of the RU budget, only behind Rosneft and Gazprom. The $ trail seemed to disappear in Belarus. pic.twitter.com/manQeWvnoy
— Andrei Barysevich (@DeepSpaceEye) August 28, 2024
Its article included an image of a Banknota sign above glass frontage at a shopping center on a highway in Moscow. The company disappeared after existing for a year. As of August, there are no physical traces of Banknota with the exception of the sign, RTVI reported.
Banknota had advertised its services in regional newspapers including the Volgograd version of business newspaper RBC. However, how the company allegedly earned trillions of rubles remains unknown.
Experts interviewed by RTVI said such high profits could not be obtained on mortgages and car loans, although the work of brokers acting as an intermediary between banks and borrowers did not require a license.
Banknota had also informed the Russian tax authorities last December that it had a branch in Belarus, though no such branch appears in Belarusian business databases.
Experts said that perhaps the company may have funneled money abroad before disappearing, with one saying that that the financial indicators presented in Banknota statements “cannot be taken seriously.”
