Russian oligarch indicted in campaign finance scheme had ties to Sacramento pot businessman

A Russian oligarch charged in a bizarre international campaign finance scheme involving two people embroiled in the impeachment of former President Donald Trump was at one time a business partner with the man who runs Sacramento’s largest marijuana empire.

This week, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment against Andrey Muraviev, 47, a Siberian cement company tycoon and founder of Qiwi, a popular online Russian cash-sharing app.

Prosecutors say Muraviev sought to expand his fortunes by capitalizing on the booming marijuana business in America as multiple states began legalizing pot for recreational use.

Among his alleged co-conspirators were two men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — associates of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and reportedly partners with Giuliani in efforts to dig up dirt on now-President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in Ukraine. The Biden investigation was at the heart of Trump’s first impeachment, which ended with his acquittal in the Senate.

Another co-conspirator in the campaign finance case, prosecutors say, is a Ukrainian emigre and U.S. citizen living in San Francisco named Andrey Kukushkin.

Public records show that Muraviev and Kukushkin were partners in two businesses with Garib Karapetyan — a prominent figure in Sacramento’s $142 million-a-year legal retail cannabis industry. There is no known connection between Karapetyan and the campaign finance charges. He’s never been accused of a crime related to his Sacramento businesses.

Karapetyan, Muraviev and Kukushkin had been partners in two consulting businesses, Legacy Botanical Company LLC and KKMC Management LLC, according to incorporation statements filed with the California secretary of state’s office. Separately, Karapetyan and Kukushkin were once partners in a pot dispensary on Fruitridge Road called Twelve Hour Care through a business called Sharp Source.

Karapetyan appears to have distanced himself from Kukushkin and Muraviev since 2019, when Kukushkin was indicted and Muraviev’s name surfaced in reports by McClatchy and others as having possible ties to the crooked campaign finance scheme.

Kukushkin’s name has been removed from Sharp Source’s incorporation papers. The Fruitridge dispensary has been rebranded as part of Kolas – a chain of six retail pot shops controlled by Karapetyan. Similarly, Kukushkin and Muraviev’s names have been removed from incorporation papers filed in the past year by the two consulting firms, Legacy and KKMC.

However, a man named Stanley Kukushkin of Elk Grove is a signatory on a document filed with the Secretary of State. It’s not clear if he’s related to Andrey Kukushkin.

The revelations about Karapetyan’s connections to the defendants in the campaign finance case in October 2019, as The Sacramento Bee reported that the FBI was investigating whether city officials were taking bribes from pot investors. Sources told The Bee on Tuesday that the investigation has ended with no charges being brought.

Karapetyan’s lawyer, Brad Hirsch, said in an email that “Kolas had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes for which Kukushkin and Muraviev have been, or will be, prosecuted. Any narrative that creates such a connection is patently false, deliberate and perpetrates an injustice against Mr. Karapetyan and the hundreds of employees of the Kolas team.”

During a City Council committee meeting Tuesday on the state of the Sacramento pot industry, Hirsch defended the Kolas group.

“I was responsible for the consolidation with that group,” Hirsch told the council. “I did everything in compliance with the law. I testified at Kukushkin’s trial in New York.”

According to the trial transcript, Hirsch testified that Karapetyan met with Kukushkin and Muraviev several times in 2016 to set up their companies — three or four times in San Francisco and at least once in Moscow.

Kukushkin and Muraviev “were seeking to get involved in large scale in California cannabis,” the Roseville lawyer testified. “Mr. Muraviev was the financial backing for that business and Mr. Kukushkin was feet on the ground.” KKMC was named for the three business partners, he said: Karapetyan, Kukushkin and Muraviev.

At some point, Hirsch said he stopped working for the companies because of Kukushkin. “I couldn’t do business with Mr. Kukushkin anymore,” he said. He didn’t say why.

In 2019, the The Bee published an investigation into how a handful of investors including Karapetyan acquired many of the city’s cannabis dispensaries, despite city regulations that explicitly prohibit buying and selling permits for the storefront pot shops. City regulations require shop owners to surrender their permits if they want to exit the business and require a public lottery for transferring the license. But the city has never held one.

After The Bee’s investigation, the city enacted a moratorium on dispensary ownership changes, which is still in place, but the moratorium is about to expire in the coming months unless the council votes to extend it.

Oligarch unlikely to be extradited

Under Karapetyan’s leadership, the Kolas brand has become an increasingly visible presence in the city’s business scene. Its purple flower logo brightens billboards around town, and the company is a frequent sponsor of concerts and other community events. Karapetyan has also moved into the pot cultivation business, according to city records.

The campaign finance scheme revolved around a bedrock law in American politics — foreign nationals aren’t allowed to make campaign contributions.

The original indictments in the campaign finance case were issued in October 2019, naming Kukushkin, Parnas, Fruman and an American businessman named David Correia.

Fruman and Correia pleaded guilty, while Kukushkin and Furnas were convicted last fall. Correia was released from prison in January after serving a year, and Fruman was recently sentenced to a one-year term.

Kukushkin was sentenced to a year in prison Tuesday. His lawyer had begged for leniency, saying the Ukrainian-born Kukushkin should have been allowed to organize relief efforts as his homeland struggles against Russia’s invasion.

The grand jury indicted Muraviev in 2020, but the charges against him were kept sealed until Monday for unknown reasons.

Prosecutors say Muraviev was the money man behind $1 million in illegal donations that were funneled to Republican political candidates in 2018 in California, Nevada, Florida and other states. Among the recipients, McClatchy has reported, was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, who said he would donate the money to charity.

Whether Muraviev will ever be brought to justice seems unlikely. He “is believed to be in Russia and remains at large,” the U.S. attorney’s office in New York said.

Even before tensions escalated over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government wouldn’t allow its citizens to be extradited to the U.S to face charges.

This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 2:31 PM.