• Founder and CEO, Unicoin.com
    Unicoin is the official cryptocurrency of Unicorn Hunters which Forbes called “The most iconic business series of recent times”.
  • CEO, TransparentBusiness
    TransparentBusiness SaaS platform was designated by Citigroup as the Top People Management Solution
  • International Entrepreneur
    Created the largest bank in Russia by age of 25 before defecting to the United States in 1992 and starting from scratch.

Couple, Tied to Putin Foes, Fights Deportation

A week before Christmas, Homeland Security agents pulled a well-dressed Russian couple from their vehicle at a tollbooth near the Canadian border, where they were hoping to seek political asylum. The two were placed in handcuffs and flown to Washington where officials prepared to deport them to Russia to face charges of embezzling millions of dollars.

Alexandre Konanykhine and his wife, Elena Gratcheva, argued that their lives would be in danger in Russia. But U.S. officials rejected those pleas, and the two were flown from Washington to New York for deportation. On Dec. 22, minutes before they were to be put aboard a flight to Moscow, agents escorting them received an urgent telephone call. A federal judge had ordered a stay of the deportation.

Now Konanykhine is in jail in Arlington, awaiting the next twist in a decade-long, roller-coaster ride through the U.S. judicial system. His wife was freed on Dec. 24.

Since arriving in the United States with his wife in 1993, Konanykhine has lived a life of extremes. He has gone from being a jet-setting Internet banker with an apartment in the Watergate and matching his-and-hers BMWs, to a prisoner, to a political refugee, to a successful businessman again and back to a prisoner, awaiting deportation.

Along the way, he has made and lost millions of dollars and been the target of CIA and FBI investigators, a Russian military prosecutor and, according to court testimony, a Russian mafia hit man. At one point in his immigration proceedings, a frustrated judge threw up his hands, saying the entire case "is such a stretch that it might be a novel by Tom Clancy."

Konanykhine has had close dealings with opponents of President Vladimir Putin and contends that, in continuing the deportation proceedings, the U.S. government is helping Putin's efforts to suppress dissent. U.S. officials deny the case has political overtones.

The current episode in his case began on Nov. 20, when a Justice Department appeals panel ruled that he faced no risk of political persecution if he were sent back to Russia in response to a long-standing request from the government.

Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for Homeland Security, said agents from the agency then went looking for Konanykhine and learned he had "disappeared from his residence and at that point was determined to be a flight risk." Changing residence without notifying the government is a breach of an agreement reached between the government and Konanykhine in 1997, Courtney said.

"There was a final order for Konanykhine's removal [from the United States], and we are bound by law to follow that," Courtney said. "We are following the law."

Konanykhine's attorney, Michael Maggio, counters that his client had 10 days to notify the government of his change of residence, and that deadline had not expired.

A Homeland Security official said U.S. officials learned of Konanykhine's plans to seek asylum in Canada from the Canadian government, which, under an agreement with the United States, cannot grant asylum to someone who has been rejected for it in the United States.

Konanykhine and Gratcheva said in affidavits that they were driving toward the Peace Bridge, a border crossing in Buffalo, N.Y., when more than a dozen masked Homeland agents dragged them from their vehicle.

Courtney said that no excessive force was used and that there were only four agents, none of them wearing masks. He said agents only wore masks in "extraordinary circumstances, and there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about this."

Attorney Maggio said the arrest violated the agreement his client had with the government allowing him to remain in the United States on parole and work "pending final resolution of his immigration proceedings."

"I have never seen a case like this," Maggio said. "All my client wants to do is leave the United States, which is what they want him to do. You have to wonder why the government is spending countless resources to keep a guy from leaving, especially when the country is on high alert for terrorist attacks. It is almost Sovietesque."

The deportation to Moscow was put on hold at the last minute by Judge T.S. Ellis III of U.S. District Court in Alexandria. At an emergency hearing on Dec. 22, he said it was "unseemly to the point of being sinister the haste with which both the plaintiff and his wife were being shepherded or hustled out of the country."

Gratcheva said that Homeland officials were waging a "personal vendetta" against her and her husband. "It is like we have an execution order hanging over us all the time," she said. "As soon as we go back, we have no doubt Alex will be tortured and killed. There is no one left there to say a word in our defense. "

A decade ago, as a gifted student at the Moscow Physics and Technical Institute, Konanykhine was one of the young entrepreneurs who made a fortune in the sale of state assets as the Soviet superpower imploded. By his own account, he became a multimillionaire in his mid-twenties, living a life of luxury in Russia and joining the inner circle of President Boris Yeltsin.

In those days, Konanykhine collaborated with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who went on to become Russia's wealthiest man and a major shareholder of the huge Yukos oil company.

In October, Khodorkovsky was hauled off an airplane by armed Russian commandos and is in prison there. His arrest is widely viewed as political revenge for his funding of parties opposed to Putin.

Konanykhine's high living in Russia ended in the early 1990s, when he had a falling-out with his business partners. In 1993, Russian law enforcement officials accused him of embezzling millions of dollars. He responded that he was being persecuted for exposing corruption in Russia and that he had prevented millions from being stolen.

In late 1993, Konanykhine and his wife moved to Washington. But he caught the attention of U.S. and British officials when he set up the European Union Bank, an Internet bank in the Caribbean that U.S. and British investigators say helped illegally siphon millions of dollars out of Russia.

Konanykhine denies doing anything illegal and says he was trying to create a legitimate offshore bank. Khodorkovsky was his main backer in the enterprise.

The CIA became interested in Konanykhine when it received reports that he was involved in efforts to buy citizenship for several dozen Russian nationals in Latin American countries as part of a plan to invest $1 billion in Russia funds.

He was arrested in his Watergate co-op in June 1996 and charged with immigration fraud. The Russian government demanded his extradition on the old embezzlement charges, saying he had stolen $8.1 million and labeling him Russia's most-wanted criminal.

But in February 1999, Konanykhine was granted political asylum, in part because an FBI agent testified that the Russian mob in New York had a contract out to kill him. He moved to New York and set up an Internet advertising business, KMGI Studios. The U.S. government appealed the ruling granting him asylum. On Nov. 20, it won and moved to deport him.

In an e-mail before he was arrested, Konanykhine said he believed his deportation order was directly related to the arrest in Russia of his longtime associate Khodorkovsky. "Putin is trying to destroy not only Khodorkovsky but his team," Konanykhine wrote. "A number of his partners and vice presidents are being railroaded. I was both his partner and VP, so getting this decision now, after 11 years of my wife and I living here and seven years after my immigration case started, does seem to be too much of a coincidence to me."

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More News...

Washington Post:
Konanykhin, one of the first Russian millionaires after the fall of the commies, left in 1992 and was granted asylum here in 1999. He's built a very successful Web advertising business in New York City. He had been chosen "New York Businessman of the Year." "As such, you will be honored and presented with your award," NRCC chairman Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.) said, at a "special ceremony" April 1. " President Bush and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are our special invited guests.
CNN:
Alex Konanykhin controlled Russia's largest commercial bank in the 1990s
Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Konanykhin was a whiz-kid physics student who became a pioneering Russian capitalist in early 1990s, building a banking and investment empire valued at an estimated $300 million all by his mid-20s. He was a member of President Boris Yeltsin's inner circle.
The Sun:
Alex Konanykhin fled Russia in 1992 and won asylum in the US after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The entrepreneur had set up 100 different companies in Russia and had an estimated net worth of $300million by the time he was 25. He is regarded as one of the first Russian millionaires after the fall of the Iron Curtain. One of the newly open country's leading lights, he even met with US President George HW Bush in 1991 on a joint visit with Russian leader Boris Yeltsin. However, he was then kidnapped in 1992 while visiting Budapest and all of his business assets were seized in Russia. … Being hunted by the Russian state, Konanykhin won asylum in the US in 1997 and set up a new life - but the shadow of the Kremlin continued to loom over him.He went on to rebuild a business empire and set up multimillion dollar firms such as TransparentBusiness in the US.
The Deal:
... a New York-based software startup called TransparentBusiness Inc. has drawn backing from Fortune 500 executives through a relatively new type of securities offering called 506(c) as part of an effort to raise $10 million this year ... Alex Konanykhin, CEO of TransparentBusiness, said he decided to reach out directly to accredited investors by purchasing ads in financial publications. One particularly bold ad includes the figure, 90,000%, with a question mark next to it. Konanykhin said the ad speaks to the large market opportunity for his company's software, which helps governments eliminate fraud by verifying billable hours charged by outside contractors. ... One of the investors, Ken Arredondo, told The Deal he invested in TransparentBusiness and agreed to serve on its board of directors because of the company's strong management team and the huge market opportunity to increase transparency of outsourced contracts worldwide. He believes in the company's product and said it's unique. "It's a Saas-based, easy-to-use tool," he said. "There are a lot of technology players out there that are a lot bigger, but none of them have what they have. There will be competition, but they have the product now. They have first-mover advantage."
The Baltimore Sun:
Business whiz kid.
WJLA TV / ABC:
Russian Bill Gates.
The Times:
By the time he was 25 he was one of the most important figures in post-Communist Russia. But in 1992, while on a business trip to Hungary, Alex Konanykhine was kidnapped.
The New York Times:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation notified Konanykhin that Russian organized crime figures had paid to have him killed.
Los Angeles Daily Journal:
Representing himself through much of the process, Konanykhin managed to convince an immigration judge of an alleged INS and KGB conspiracy and cover-up. Following the court's admonishment, the INS agreed to drop all charges and also pay $100,000..The judge also ordered an investigation of the Justice Department. In separate actions, Konanykhine subsequently won multimillion dollar libel judgments against two Russian newspapers. A $100 million lawsuit against the Justice Department is pending, alleging perjury, fraud, torture and witness tampering by U.S government officers on behalf of the Russian Mafia.
Profit Magazine:
Imagine you are a teenage physics genius who quickly amasses a $300 million empire of real estate and banking ventures, has dozens of cars, six hundred employees, several mansions and two hundred bodyguards—but you are nonetheless kidnapped by those you trusted, threatened with torture and death, and have your entire empire stolen from you one dark night in Budapest. You escape with your life by racing through Eastern-block countries and flying to New York on stashed-away passports—only to have the KGB and Russian Mafia hell-bent on your hide and the U.S. government jailing you and conspiring to serve you up into their clutches. All this before your 29th birthday. Sound like a Tom Clancy thriller? No. . . just a slice in the life of Alexander Konanykhine.