Gennadiy Bogolyubov is a Ukrainian billionaire who is under investigation by the FBI for money laundering.
He and his business partner are accused of defrauding the bank they founded of more than £1bn.
Court documents included in the Pandora Papers reveal him to be the ultimate owner of a collection of UK properties likely to be worth over £400m, including a building on Trafalgar Square.
They are held via a network of companies, some offshore, that hide the identity of the owners.
Mr Bogolyubov is the co-founder of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest lender.
The bank was nationalised in 2016 after regulators found a $5.5bn hole in its balance sheets.
PrivatBank has been pursuing Mr Bogolyubov and his business partner Igor Kolomoisky through court action in England and the US, trying to reclaim more than $3bn relating to the money lost during their leadership.
In 2020 the US Department of Justice sought to seize commercial properties in Texas, Ohio and Kentucky from the pair, suspecting that they were “acquired using funds misappropriated from Privatbank”. The court cases are ongoing.
Mr Bogolyubov’s assets are currently subject to a worldwide freeze, secured in court by PrivatBank in 2017.
In 2016 he decided to leave the country and settle in Switzerland, partly for “tax reasons”.
Lawyers for Mr Bogolyubov declined to comment as legal action is ongoing.
