Two billionaires with ties to the Kremlin are trying to get Portuguese citizenship under a rule designed for the descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled centuries ago from the Iberian Peninsula
The list of Portuguese billionaires is constantly growing. The Portuguese news agency “Público” recently revealed that a Russian oligarch quietly acquired Portuguese citizenship a year ago, before the well-known case of Roman Abramovich.
THE Andrei Rapoportwho has a fortune of about $1.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine, acquired Portuguese citizenship on December 30, 2019, taking advantage of legislation designed for the descendants of Sephardic Jews, who were expelled in the 15th century from the Iberian Peninsula.
Rapoport, who was born in 1963, is a close ally of other Russian oligarchs, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now in exile in London, and Mikhail Fridman, the owner of the Dia supermarket chain, who was forced to resign after being included in the list of Russian businessmen who were sanctioned by the E.U. after the invasion of Ukraine.
Andrei Rapoport was chairman of one of Russia’s largest private banks before moving into the energy sector as chairman of the state-owned Federal Grid Company. In 2006, he took control of Russia’s largest power grid construction company, which had lucrative contracts with the same state agency he led. In a mysterious transaction, he sold the $2 billion company to an Abramovich partner for $216 million.
Connections with the Kremlin
According to the “Público” agency, two more Russian oligarchs are in line for Portuguese passports. Nisanov, who applied for citizenship on June 26, 2020, and Lev Leviev, who applied on November 6, 2020. Both received certificates of origin from the Jewish Community of Porto, which approved nearly 90% of the 137,087 applications submitted to the Portuguese Ministry of Justice from 2015-2021.
They are known to have strong ties to the Kremlin. Nisanov, who was awarded the Order of Friendship by President Vladimir Putin in 2014, is a real estate developer with a huge fortune (US$4.3 billion, according to Forbes). He is also on the list of businessmen sanctioned by the US and is a “close associate of several Russian officials”, according to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
Leviev’s wealth is not lacking either. Known as the “king of diamonds” he is friends with Abramovich and Berel Lazar, chief rabbi of Russia, while he is also very close to Putin.
The decree that allowed the granting of Portuguese citizenship to descendants of Jews expelled from the country more than five centuries ago came into force on 2 March 2015 and was amended in 2020.
The driving force behind the law was Socialist Party lawmaker Maria de Belém Rozeira. She is the aunt of Francisco de Almeida Garrett, a lawyer and director of the Jewish Community of Porto and one of those currently under investigation. After the Abramović affair and the trafficking of Portuguese passports came to light, the Portuguese government tightened the conditions for obtaining citizenship.
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