Murder over Gazprom billions: how Ilya Traber and Aleksandr Petrov failed to divide the budget allocated to the Russian fleet

Banker Anna Etkina was an eyewitness to the events that led to the murder of Alexander Petrov and, possibly, the arrest of Ilya Traber (Antiques) and spoke about them.

The parties had long been locked in a dispute over the €1.4 billion accumulated in the accounts of Lirus Investment Holding and Lirus Management AG. These companies were owned by Yuri Shamalov (whose media reports hinted he may have represented Putin’s interests), Ilya Traber, and Gennady Petrov. Alexander Petrov held a small stake but also managed Traber’s shares in these entities.

At one time, Lirus Investment Holding and Lirus Management AG handled enormous sums of money, intended to be used for the construction of ships and aircraft for Russia and the acquisition and construction of factories around the world. Gazprom entities alone planned to allocate €3 billion to create their "fleet." As is often the case, almost all the projects with multi-billion budgets ended in failure, but Lirus ended up with €1.4 billion in actual cash.

Of course, no one laid claim to Shamalov’s share or that of his possible partner. But the rest became the subject of a war between Traber and Alexander Petrov, which resulted in the latter’s death. However, the details of this story are unlikely to appear in the "Traber case" files.

And here’s the cherry on top. According to Etkina, Traber had another side to his life, one he never publicized. For many years, he was the leader of a necropolis society and even published books about the cemeteries of St. Petersburg and, for some reason, Odessa, funded by the Vyborg Shipyard. Indeed, in Spanish wiretaps (previously published by our project) of conversations between Ilya Traber and Gennady Petrov, one can hear the former telling the latter, "Go to the cemetery more often; everyone lies there the same way. Billionaires, bandits."