Russian pot entrepreneur tied to Parnas, Fruman is latest charged in campaign finance plot
.jpeg "Andrey Muraviev")
A would-be Russian marijuana tycoon who allegedly bankrolled a scheme by Rudy Giuliani associates to distribute illegal campaign contributions has been charged with campaign finance crimes.
The charges against Andrey Muraviev are the latest shoe to drop in a plot that includes South Florida-based Soviet émigrés Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — two of the odder characters in the orbit of the last administration — President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, a $1 million political fund and the peculiarly named company Fraud Guarantee.
The South Floridians, whose donations included $50,000 to the successful campaign of Ron DeSantis, separately got tangled up in a Giuliani-engineered plot to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine, the effort that led to the first impeachment of then-President Trump.
Neither DeSantis nor his campaign are charged with any impropriety.
The marijuana mission apparently had to do with securing cannabis licenses in a number of states, but the plan ultimately fizzled after Parnas and Fruman and two other associates failed to submit the requisite paperwork on time to obtain licenses in Nevada and elsewhere.
Parnas now awaits sentencing after being found guilty by a New York jury on six campaign finance charges, while Fruman is due in prison to serve a sentence of one year and a day.
Muraviev was charged with conspiring to make an illegal foreign straw donation and making an illegal foreign donation. He was actually indicted in September 2020, but the charges were sealed until Monday, for reasons that are not clear.
Muraviev, believed to currently be in Russia, wasn’t initially named when Parnas and Fruman were arrested, but McClatchy and the Herald were the first to report that he was the likely source of $1 million the pair received as part of a plan to obtain marijuana licenses in a number of states and use political contributions to grease the wheels on their applications.
Among the beneficiaries of Parnas and Fruman’s political giving was the Friends of Ron DeSantis Political Action Committee, which took in the $50,000 donation from a company tied to Parnas and Fruman in June 2018.
After DeSantis won, Muraviev texted his congratulations to Parnas and Fruman, the indictment says. Muraviev’s partner Andrey Kukushkin, who was also charged and found guilty in the scheme, added his congratulations on “victory in Florida “ and wrote “[w]hen can we get a license and look for the stores,“ according to the indictment.
Despite the congratulatory message, it isn’t clear the money Parnas and Fruman gave to the DeSantis committee, in the name of their company Global Energy Producers LLC, ultimately came from Muraviev. The Miami Herald reached out to the DeSantis campaign but did not hear back immediately
The same company also gave $325,000 a month earlier to a super PAC associated with then-President Trump.
Parnas gained an audience with Trump, and Parnas and Fruman worked with Giuliani on the effort to find damaging material in Ukraine on Biden and his family.
Giuliani is currently under federal investigation in connection with his efforts in Ukraine.
Muraviev, who had made a fortune as the CEO of a Russian cement company and through his holdings in the Russian online payment company QIWI, had already invested in several California marijuana ventures with Kukushkin before the partnership began with Parnas and Fruman and he continued to be involved in numerous California marijuana ventures after Parnas, Fruman and Kukushkin were arrested, as the Herald has previously reported.
Parnas and Kukushkin were found guilty of several campaign finance charges by a New York jury in October 2021 and are awaiting sentencing. Fruman pleaded guilty in September 2021. A fourth man charged as part of the scheme, David Correia, pleaded guilty in October 2020 and was released from prison in January 2022.
Parnas was also charged in a separate scheme whereby he and Correia defrauded investors in the ironically named company Fraud Guarantee, which portrayed itself as a fraud prevention company but whose name became the butt of jokes. The money they raised was used to fund Parnas’ lavish lifestyle. Parnas is reportedly planning to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge related to that scheme.
This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 7:06 PM.
