A British national Nick Stride, who rendered information to an American journalist in 2-14, exposing Igor Shuvalov’s story may soon be deported along with his family from Australia according to SBS news. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-reportedly-set-to-deport-kremlin-whistleblower-and-family Stride was a glazing expert hired as a contractor by Shuvalov, to work on a palace near Moscow in 2006. He is married to Russian Ludmila Kovaleva. The person who hired him was Russia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and has been living in Perth with his family since 2012. Mr. Stride was the source behind 2014 expose in the Foreign Policy magazine on Mr. Shuvalov’s unexplained wealth. In that article, published in Foreign Policy, it is alleged that Shuvalov, then Vladimir Putin’s economic aid and now Russia’s first deputy prime minister, used offshore companies to buy close to $2 million in building materials from a Belgian contractor to build a greenhouse on the estate. It is alleged that Mr Shuvalov, who was Deputy Prime Minister at the time, had amassed a wealth of at least $220 million through questionable business practices.Mr. Stride and his family first fled to the United Kingdom in 2010 but feared they were still “within Russian reach” sought political asylum in Australia. Their asylum bid was rejected in 2012.
Mr. Stride and his children face deportation to the United Kingdom, while his wife Ludmila Kovaleva, who is a Russian national also faces being deported. Journalist Michael Weiss, who was the author of the 2014 article, tweeted earlier this week that his source, Mr. Stride, was in “immediate danger” and had asked for help.Mr. Weiss said he only revealed his source at Mr. Stride’s request because of the urgency of his situation. In December 2011 the source of Shuvalov’s wealth was published in Barron’s. Barrons asserted that when Shuvalov was an economic advisor, nearly $50 million was transferred from a Bahamas registered company to a Cyprus registered company owned by Uzbek born businessman Alisher Usmanov a person who Shuvalov apparently lent money.
