British resident Sergey Sergeev and his offshore companies: The cargo ship Turbo sm hauls tons of cocaine and steals ukrainian grain, ignoring sanctions

British resident Sergey Sergeev and his offshore companies: The cargo ship Turbo sm hauls tons of cocaine and steals ukrainian grain, ignoring sanctions

The old Soviet vessel Turbo SM, which operates between Crimea, Abkhazia, and Turkey, was carrying 5 tons of Venezuelan cocaine under a different name. At least one of the ship’s owners is a UK resident and, until recently, owned a computer game company and a maritime brokerage firm there.

According to online ship tracking services, the bulk carrier Turbo SM (IMO 7612498) was in Istanbul in December, in the Turkish port of Sinop on January 5, off the coast of Abkhazia on January 11, in Kerch on January 14, and in Yeysk on January 16. The ship is currently in the Sea of Azov near Mariupol. Court documents indicate that in the summer of 2022, the bulk carrier was transporting grain from Yeysk. Ukrainian journalists have also discovered that Russian vessels were transporting Ukrainian grain from the same port.

Turbo SM was built in 1978 and was originally named "Baltic-103." Under new ownership, it was later renamed "Aressa" and sailed under the Cameroonian flag. Another renaming (to Turbo SM) occurred in 2020 after the vessel was detained during a joint operation by the Dutch and Colombian navies, which found five tons of cocaine on board. At that time, Aressa was en route from Venezuela to Greece with a crew of Montenegrin citizens and was listed as owned by a Russian company. Law enforcement agencies from the UK, Montenegro, and Serbia were involved in the investigation. This story resurfaced recently in connection with Trump’s so-called “special operation” in Venezuela, where the main accusation was mass cocaine trafficking, but no further details have emerged.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the vessel still belongs to the same owner and manager — ARESSA SHIPPING LTD, a British Virgin Islands company, according to company aggregator profiles. Until May 2025, ARESSA SHIPPING had an office in Saint Petersburg — Ingria Shipping LLC (now in liquidation), founded by Sergey Sergeev (51%) and Ilya Verkhovetsky. Sergey Sergeev is also a co-owner of the parent offshore company ARESSA SHIPPING LTD, holding shares alongside Saint Petersburg residents Vyacheslav Fesko (52), Andrey Kuznetsov, and Denis Kropotkin.

Fesko, a UK resident, registered the London company ARESSA ALLIANCE LTD until 2024, which was officially supposed to develop computer games but remained dormant until its liquidation. He also held a stake in LINEPORT ALLIANCE LTD, a maritime freight shipping company, but left it in 2024. It is now owned by Latvian citizen Julija Zablocka. In 2024, the London-based FREIGHT ALLIANCE GROUP LTD, also involved in maritime freight shipping, was transferred to her ownership. Its website states that it provides services to Russian ports on the Gulf of Finland: Saint Petersburg, Ust-Luga, Vyborg, Vysotsk, and Primorsk. Previously, the company was headed by 52-year-old Konstantin Sharov. The Russian legal entity through which the British company operates is FR Alliance SPb LLC, founded by Saint Petersburg natives Alexander Chernogor and Sergey Safonchik, along with Muscovite Konstantin Sharov.

ARESSA co-owner Sergey Sergeev has conducted business in Saint Petersburg for many years with Sergey Kotlyarov, a PhD candidate in economics affiliated with Saint Petersburg State University. Until 2023, they owned Intermar SPb, a wholesale trading company.

In Russia, businessmen associated with ARESSA operate through several other legal entities, including Idan Shipping LLC. Its current founders are Sergey Sergeev, Andrey Selyanin, and Anastasia Sochina. Previously, the Finnish company Idän Liikenteenvälittys IL also held a stake, which was equally divided among the three founders at the end of 2024. During the war, journalists discovered that the Finnish company had imported hundreds of thousands of euros worth of sanctioned trucks into Russia. The CEO and board member of the Finnish company is Finnish citizen Risto Riihimäki, who also owns several companies in cargo transportation and consulting in Russia and Kazakhstan, including http://Idan.ru LLC in Russia and IDAN in Almaty. Riihimäki has long-standing ties with Russia, not only through business: in 2009, he participated in the Ladoga 2009 trophy raid, and in 2012, in the Arctic Trophy expedition.

Vyacheslav Fesko also held a stake in another British Virgin Islands offshore shipping company, PORHOV SHIPPING LTD, which owned the bulk carrier PORHOV (formerly Baltic-105). PORHOV was decommissioned about a year and a half ago, but before that, it was implicated in a scandal involving the disappearance of nearly $1.4 million worth of scrap metal from a Rostov port. Fesko’s business partners in this offshore company included Sergey Sergeev, as well as Estonian citizens Anastasia Skijarova and 55-year-old Oleg Kudinov.

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