Trans-World Group

The aluminum sector was one of the most contested industries during the Russian privatization process.[4] David Reuben had been buying aluminum from the Soviet state since the late 1970s. In the post-Soviet turmoil, Reuben that found he could get the finished metal at low Soviet-era prices and then sell it at market rates.[4] To set up the scheme, he established a partnership with Lev and Michael Cherney.[4] Lev Chernoy's top aide was Vladimir Lisin, who, during the Soviet era, had been second-in-command to Oleg Soskovets when he was a steel-works executive.[4]

Oleg Soskovets, now Deputy Prime Minister, helped the firm in getting official approval for a tolling agreement.[2][5] Under the system, both the raw material and the finished product were the property of TransWorld.[2] The scheme maximized the cost of plant inputs and minimized the selling price for the metals.[2] Trans World concluded its first tolling agreement in 1992, with the BrAZ smelter in Bratsk.[2]

By 1994, Trans-World was selling more than 600,000 tons of aluminum a year, or a quarter of Russia's total exports.[4] As more of Russia's industry was privatized, Trans World bought stakes in the country's largest smelters, to prevent the rise of competitors which also might be interested in signing tolling deals.[4][6]

When the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Factory, Russia's second-largest, refused to enter an agreement with Trans-World, the director of the plant began to receive threats.[4] Vadim Yafyasov, a deputy director, was killed in front of his Moscow home on 10 April 1995.[4] Felix Lvov, a Trans-World rival, was picked up by men with special services IDs as he was sitting in a plane at Sheremetyevo Airport. His corpse was found in a nearby wood several days later.[7] Trans-World eventually took control of the Krasnoyarsk smelter in cooperation with Anatoly Bykov,[1] described by the New York Times as "one of Russia's most infamous mobsters".[8]

Oleg Soskovets was dismissed from his government post in 1996, after falling out of favor with Yeltsin.[9]

A series of investigative reports broadcast by the NTV television network in 1996 accused TransWorld Group of working with the Izmailovsky gang of the Russian mafia, and of having committed a series of high-profile murders: in particular, those of Felix Lvov, Oleg Kantor and Vadim Yafyasov.[7]

In 1997 the company was investigated by the Russian police and the National Criminal Intelligence Service of Britain, but no charges were brought.[10] By late 1997 Trans-World Group was being squeezed out by Russia-based financial groups, and had lost control of parts of its holdings, including Novolipetsk Steel.[6]

In early 2000, Trans-World sold most of its aluminum holdings to Roman Abramovich, who merged them with Oleg Deripaska's company to create Russian Aluminum (today Rusal).[1]

In June 2000, an investigation into Trans-World's business was published in Fortune magazine; the article remarked that the company's history was filled with "more than a few corpses".[3] The Reubens brothers subsequently sued Richard Behar, the article's writer, for libel in a London court.[3] The magazine issued a clarification to the story in 2004, where they specified that "Fortune did not claim and does not claim that the Reubens were responsible for any murders".[3]

Fortune's findings were mirrored in the pages of the Financial Times, which in a 2000 article similarly noted that struggles over the control of the Krasnoyarsk smelter had resulted in dozens of murders.[11] While noticing that the victims included both allies and competitors of Trans-World, the story stressed that David Reuben "angrily denies any hint that they or their partners had any role in the violence".[11]