A court in Krasnodar Krai has approved the confiscation of the Tuapse Commercial Sea Port (TMPK) and other enterprises from Azerbaijani businessperson Shakhlar Novruzov and the offshore company Vonixel Limited BVI, registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Krasnodar Krai’s Arbitration Court granted the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office’s claim on Monday, 24 November.
The list of assets transferred to the state includes the sea port, an enterprise associated with it, Dar Fruit, and the Temryuk Trans-shipment Terminal. These companies specialise in handling fruit and vegetable cargo in the ports of Tuapse and Temryuk. The total capitalof the companies exceeds ₽691 million ($8.7 million), their annual revenue amounts to ₽264.7 million ($3.3 million), and their net profit to ₽67.1 million ($848,000). In addition, 24 port infrastructure facilities with a cadastral value of ₽383.6 million ($4.8 million) were transferred to the state.
At the prosecutor’s request, the court ordered immediate enforcement of the decision in order to prevent disruptions to the port’s operations and the withdrawal of assets. The Prosecutor General’s Office stated that the enterprises owned by Novruzov and the offshore company were used not only for legal cargo handling but also for transporting goods that violated sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, as well as goods that were not declared and were taken out of Russia.
The history of the port complex dates back to October 2014, when Novruzov acquired 100% of the shares in TMKP LLC. Shortly afterwards, the rights to the company were transferred to the offshore company Vonixel Limited BVI. According to supervisory authorities, this constituted a violation of legislation regulating control over strategic enterprises.
Later, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Novruzov continued acquiring assets in the port, purchasing the TMKP Enterprise’, which, together with TMKP LLC, forms a unified technological complex for handling, storing, and transporting cargo. These transactions were also not approved by the authorised bodies and were declared void. As a result, control over the strategic enterprise ended up with a foreign resident from the UK, a country which was designated as unfriendly by the Russian government in May 2022.
In 2024, Novruzov attempted to legalise the business and regain his shares in TMKP LLC using forged documents in the Prikubansky District Court of Krasnodar. Investigators classified the entrepreneur’s actions as attempted fraud on an especially large scale.
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The death of two ethnic Azerbaijanis, brothers Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov, as a result of a raid by Russian law enforcement agencies in Yekaterinburg, led to an escalation of relations between Azerbaijan and Russia.
Following this, Baku cancelled a number of Russia-related events and raided the offices of Sputnik-Azerbaijan as relations seemed to plunge to a new low.
Aytan Farhadova
