The operation launched this Monday in Mallorca by the General Information Commissariat (CGI) of the National Police for the alleged fraudulent sale of five real estate properties of businessman Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kolesov, an oligarch of the Russian arms industry close to President Vladimir Putin, has resulted a day later in three arrests, as confirmed by EL PAÍS police sources. Two of those arrested are expected to be brought to justice, they add. The detainees are a lawyer with dual Russian and Spanish nationality who acted as a translator and attorney for a law firm in that country, and two employees of a real estate agency on the island who, supposedly, helped Kolesov – since December 2024 on the list of those sanctioned by the European Union (EU) for his support for the invasion of Ukraine – to allegedly irregularly transfer his five mansions to relatives or a front company. In the searches, both in the five mansions of the Russian hierarchy and in the offices of the detainees, abundant documentation has been seized. The case is investigating the possible commission of crimes against the public treasury, money laundering, frustration of execution and membership in a criminal organization, according to legal sources.
The investigation that led to the arrests began last summer coinciding with the announcement by the Anti-Corruption Foundation – FBK by its acronym in Russian, founded by the activist and opposition Alexei Navalni who died in strange circumstances in February 2024 in a Russian prison – that it had located five mansions in Mallorca supposedly owned by Kolesov, who, in addition to the EU, was on the sanctioned list of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Switzerland. According to this investigation, the properties, all of them luxury, were acquired between 2017 and 2019 and were located in the municipality of Calvià, in the south of Mallorca, and had been listed until shortly before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in the name of the company JSC Star, a shell company that owns shares in several Russian arms companies. Some of the houses were even listed as the headquarters of Russian companies.
This changed in 2022, when one of these luxury homes, a villa valued at 5 million euros, was put in the name of one of the businessman’s daughters, Nikol, then four years old and listed as a “student.” In 2004, another of the homes was transferred to another son, Alexei, also young and a “student”, who is the godson of former Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. A third, whose value is around 3 million euros, was then placed in the name of the tycoon’s older sister, Lyudmila. The remaining two were listed formally in the name of the company JSC Star when the investigation began, according to the sources consulted. Since September, all of them have been subject to a preventive embargo by the Spanish authorities that prevents them from being sold, according to the investigation by Navalni’s foundation.
Kolesov’s assets are completed with real estate properties in Russia, the Crimean peninsula – a Ukrainian territory illegally annexed in 2014 by Moscow – and Dubai, the city-emirate of the Persian Gulf that, with its extremely high standard of living, has become a sanctuary for major drug traffickers, cybercriminals and fugitives of all kinds in the last five years. The businessman is also awarded the ownership of several aircraft valued together at more than 30 million euros, all of them in the name of a front company.
When the EU included him 15 months ago on the list of people sanctioned for his links with the Kremlin, it highlighted that Kolesov, 69, held the position of general director of the Russian Helicopters JSC company, the main manufacturer of these aircraft for his country’s Army. The European Union then justified the sanctions on the grounds that this company is, in fact, “a key company within the Russian military-industrial complex. The Russian Armed Forces use various types of helicopters and other equipment and defense material from Russian Helicopters JSC in its war of aggression against Ukraine,” the document detailed, adding below: “Therefore, Nikolai Kolesov is supporting actions that undermine and threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”
Kolesov’s biography appears linked to the Russian regime and, above all, to the arms industry. A deputy of the State Council of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, in 2007 he was appointed by Putin as governor of the Amur region, near the eastern border with China. A year later he left office to be appointed general director of KRET (Russian acronym for the Consortium of Radio Electronic Technologies), a company specialized in the development of electronic warfare systems and a subsidiary of Rostec, the all-powerful Russian state defense industry corporation. In fact, he is considered a close collaborator of Sergei Chemezov, the latter’s executive director. This is a close friend of President Putin, with whom he met in the KGB.
Since then, Kolesov has always been linked to the military sector. Thus, in 2019 he became the chairman of the board of directors of Elekon Plant JSC, another defense industry company, and, two years later, he was appointed to his current position as general director of Russian Helicopters JSC. His official biography includes numerous official decorations, the last in 2025. “Under his leadership, key projects in aircraft manufacturing, electronics and helicopter engineering are being implemented, which contribute to strengthening Russia’s technological sovereignty.” reads in it.
