Russia arrests Ilya Traber, the former beer bar manager who became a Putin-backed oil tycoon
Russian authorities have arrested 75-year-old businessman Ilya Traber, who rose from managing a beer bar to owning major oil terminals with close ties to President Putin. He is charged in connection with the murder of lawmaker Alexander Petrov.
Ilya Traber, known by the nickname "the Antique Dealer," was detained in St. Petersburg on June 17. The operation was led by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), and the Investigative Committee in Moscow opened a criminal case linked to the murder of lawmaker Alexander Petrov. Traber's business partner Vladimir Danilenko was also detained.
Traber had long been one of St. Petersburg's most influential businessmen, owning oil terminals in Ust-Luga and Primorsk, as well as the Leningrad Regional Electric Grid Company (LOESK). Despite his involvement in the shadow economy and ties to criminal groups, Traber had never faced criminal charges in Russia before.
His path to wealth began as a manager of a beer bar in the 1980s. He then secured a monopoly on antique trade in Leningrad through a joint venture with the city. In 1995, then-deputy mayor Vladimir Putin signed a decision granting Traber's company a monopoly on refueling planes at Pulkovo Airport.
Traber later became a key player in the division of the St. Petersburg port, a process that saw dozens of murders. He partnered with known crime figures such as Vladimir Kumarin and Gennady Petrov. In the early 2000s, Traber obtained Greek citizenship and lived in Europe, but after Spain's Operation Troika in 2008, in which he was named as a leader of a money-laundering network, he stopped visiting Europe.
In 2021, the CEO of one of Traber's companies wrote to Putin requesting 220 billion rubles for the Primorsk terminal. Putin wrote "Consider it" to the chairman of Vnesheconombank. Experts consider the arrest extraordinary given Traber's long-standing ties to the president's inner circle.
