Konstantin Strukov had everything: gold mines, public office and a private plane of 50 million dollars. But he wanted to leave Rositas and the Russian police hunted him at the last minute, when he was about to fly to Türkiye from Cheliábinsk, an industrial city located in the Urales region. The image of the Funeral Face Magnate in the Jet toured the Russian media as an unequivocal sign: the Kremlin does not forgive who leaves the lane.
Strukov was not born with an Armani suit or surrounded by bodyguards. He started stinging stone in the mines and lifted an empire with excavator. His crown jewel, Uzhuralzoloto, already appears as the third largest gold extractor company in Russia, with more than 320 million dollars in annual revenues. So far, all good. The mess came when he wanted to play two bands: continue filling his pockets in the private sector while occupying a public office. A bargain … until the Kremlin stopped his feet.
Since 2000, Strukov occupies a seat in the Legislative Assembly of the Oblast of Cheliábinsk and, since 2017, he also exercises as vice president. The law prohibits officials from maintaining active businesses, but he managed to continue sending. He placed several relatives and colleagues as testaferros and kept control without staining his hands. But this time he didn’t slip.
The Attorney General’s Office decided to act in July. He imposed a prohibition of exit from the country to the whole family and, shortly after, opened a process to remove all assets. In total, Strukov and his people controlled the participations in eleven companies, with Uzhuralzoloto as the Gordo Award. The Russian hacienda suspects that the oligarch had been taking the money from the country for some time and diverting it to accounts abroad. And that, in full economic purge of the Kremlin, smells for betrayal.
“He used his institutional position and disproportionate influence on local authorities to camouflage the real property of strategic companies,” said a prosecutor’s source to the Tass agency. The secret services (the FSB) also got to work and registered the offices of the mining group and the personal offices of Strukov in the region. According to the BBC, the operation also investigates possible environmental crimes and violations of labor security regulations in the mines. They have thrown out of the thread until they leave it without a jersey.
When Putin tightens, the oligarchs tremble
Strukov’s case does not only greet or punctual corruption. It is power. Who commands. For months, the Kremlin executes a surgical operation to recover control of the most lucrative sectors in the country, especially those linked to raw materials. Attorney General Igor Krasnov gave Vladimir Putin a report with clear figures: the State has recovered companies for an estimated value of 30,000 million dollars. And it does it with precision of surgeon, company to company, oligarch to oligarch.
In 2024 alone, The Moscow Times has counted about 70 companies under state intervention, with revenues that exceed 10,000 million dollars and assets for almost 7,000 million. Gold interests, and Uzhuralzoloto paints too well to leave it out of the package.
To this is added the international history of the Strukov family. The daughter of the tycoon, Alexandra, has a Swiss passport and lives outside Russia, although it is the owner of several societies in the Urals. His mother manages a commercial company in Serbia. And Strukov himself has a hotel business in Montenegro. Too many links with “no friends” countries for the times.
“Strukov thought he could be in politics, earn money from spuers and protect himself after his contacts. But that doesn’t work anymore,” an ex -as an ex -analysis of the Ministry of Finance explained to the BBC. The Kremlin has changed the rules of the game and it is no longer enough to have friends: blind loyalty is needed. In the Russia of Putin, who does not dance the son of power ends out the game board. No gold or plane.
