Freedom Holding Corp. was accused of “brazen sanctions evasion,” along with openly flouting anti-money laundering and know your customer regulations, as part of an investigative report published by short seller Hindenburg Research on Tuesday.
Founded in 2008, Freedom was previously based in Russia until it moved its headquarters to Kazakhstan. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the financial services firm in October 2022 sold its Russian business to Maxim Povalishin, its deputy general counsel and member of the board, for approximately $140 million.
However, Freedom’s founder and chief executive, Russian-born billionaire Timur Turlov, still secretly controlled its Russian entities, according to Hindenburg’s report.
Ukrainian authorities last year sanctioned Turlov for his Russian ties. With the firm shut out from its two largest growth markets—Russia and Ukraine—Freedom used its new Kazakhstan headquarters to avoid sanctions, according to a former Freedom employee.
“[T[housands of Russians came to Freedom Finance (Kazakhstan) to open accounts and transfer their assets,” the employee allegedly told Hindenburg.
In an Aug. 4 public filing, Freedom, which is listed on the Nasdaq, disclosed two of its subsidiaries provided brokerage services to sanctioned individuals and entities during fiscal year 2023 but that the transactions “did not involve any nexus with the United States, the European Union, or the United Kingdom.” The firm said it does not have direct access to the customer check systems of institutional customers including Russian entities and could not “provide assurance that the beneficial owners who are the beneficiaries of trades being carried out … are not sanctioned persons.”
The Hindenburg report cited Freedom helping clients divert funds from Alfa-Bank following the latter being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in April 2022. Freedom used this as an opportunity to advertise its services to move assets from the sanctioned bank.
Another Turlov entity, FFIN Belize, still advertises the ability to sell Russian rubles through Alfa-Bank, allowing customers to funnel money from a sanctioned Russian bank into the U.S. market, Hindenburg alleged.
Freedom has previously disclosed its reliance on FFIN, which was established to provide investors in Russia and Kazakhstan with easier access to U.S. securities markets, for a “significant percentage” of its revenue.
Freedom could not be reached for comment.
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