Spanish journalist and researcher Alberto Quian has published an investigation that shows that the names of the Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman and his associates have up to this day remained unscathed due to a corrupt plot that led to the greatest environmental catastrophe in Spain.
Mikhail Fridman was the charterer of the ‘Prestige’, yet no major media ever tried to investigate his responsibility – or any of his partners – in that catastrophe; nor did Spanish Justice. Why? The answer may lie in the life story of Fridman, a Russian oligarch too frequently accused of endemic corruption on the Kremlin level; links to criminal activities, including murders of journalists, fraudulent auctions, bribery and relations with the mafia and paramilitary groups.
The greatest ecological catastrophe in Galicia resulted in a single convict, the captain of the ship, the Greek Apostolos Mangouras, an old man sentenced to nine months in prison for a crime of disobedience to the Spanish authorities and another two years for a reckless crime against the environment in its aggravated form of catastrophic deterioration. But Galician society never blamed him; people knew that others were responsible.
Galicia Confidencial made Fridman’s involvement in the ‘Prestige’ case public a month before the trial that began on November 16, 2012. But neither the mainstream media, nor prosecutors or the Government ever used the fact, which puts Fridman at the center of a complex plot.
The National Court of Spain eventually saw Fridman at judicial proceedings in 2019 in relation to his taking control of the DIA chain of supermarkets through his investment group LetterOne. The Court suspects that Fridman could have caused the company’s stock market crash in July 2017 by more than 90% in order to buy it at an inadequately low price.
The other case initiated in the National Court against Fridman is that about the bankruptcy of the Spanish technology company Zed Worldwide which he also acquired at a price well below the market in 2016, after the company had been declared bankrupt. Fridman was charged with crimes against the market, unfair management, insolvency and corruption in business.
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