Their applications had not been approved by the counterintelligence directorate of the Security Police
Two friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, businessmen Gennady Timchenko and Boris Rotenberg, they obtained Finnish citizenship by bypassing the applicable procedure. Their applications were not approvedfrom the counter-espionage directorate of the Security Police, reports from the Finnish News Agency (STT) and the newspaper “ilta sanomat”.
According to the journalists’ information, the Immigration Service did not address the Security Police twice. In fact, in Timchenko’s case, the process of obtaining citizenship was organized in such a way that the counterintelligence did not manage to deal with the case, writes the newspaper “ilta sanomat”. According to the claims of the newspaper’s anonymous source within the Security Police, the process of examining the application was organized in such a way that those who could influence the decision were on summer vacation. Rotenberg and Timchenko applied for Finnish citizenship in 1998. The former’s application was approved relatively late in 2002, while the businessman was required to renounce his Russian citizenship in order to obtain Finnish citizenship, which he later reacquired.
Timchenko’s application was processed “incredibly quickly”, points out the Finnish News Agency. He got a Finnish passport in 1999. At the time Timchenko applied, unlike Rotenberg, he was already wealthy and had joint business with a friend of the head of the Migration Service, the Finnish news agency points out. The commander then was Matti Saarelainen. The counter-espionage began to investigate the role he played in Timchenko obtaining Finnish citizenship, as the newspaper “ilta sanomat” writes. But the investigation was not completed because he retired.
The newspaper “ilta sanomat” writes that Timchenko was in the zone of interest of the Security Police. In the early 1990s he arrived in Finland to head a company founded by a KGB agent who had been deported from Sweden. Under Putin’s patronage, the company brought in cheap oil from areas outside St. Petersburg and sold it at multiple profits. Today, the fortune of this businessman is estimated to be 11.3 billion dollars according to Forbes magazine.
Tymchenko and Rotenberg were placed on sanctions lists by the European Union and the United States following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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