Four managing directors at Gazprombank Luxembourg — Dmitry Derkach, Sergei Nekrasov, Sergei Belousov, and Pavel Bolshakov — received more than €9 million in profit by exploiting market chaos following sanctions on Russia in 2022, the Financial Times reported, citing documents and sources familiar with the deals.
According to the newspaper, the managers received at least €17 million in personal loans from their employer and began buying Gazprom bonds that were selling at a large discount on the European market. The bonds were then exchanged for new replacement bonds at 100% of their value in roubles in Russia.
The substitution mechanism was introduced after a decree by Vladimir Putin in July 2022, allowing Russian companies to replace their eurobonds with new rouble-denominated securities to support investors who lost access to payments due to sanctions.
The FT noted that the managers acted in sync — buying the same quantity of the same bonds on the same day, often before Gazprom officially announced the exchange opportunity. Sources said Gazprom warned which bond issues were eligible for exchange at the very last moment, giving about two weeks' notice. Without prior information, such deals in a short timeframe would have been "impossible," one source told the newspaper.
The exchange operations, according to a Gazprom statement, were conducted with the involvement of the sanctioned National Settlement Depository. A European Union official who reviewed the investigation results said this "looks like sanctions evasion" and "should be subject to a criminal investigation in Luxembourg." Western market participants viewed the substitution mechanism "with great suspicion."
Luxembourg's regulator CSSF conducted an inspection of the bank in March 2023 but concluded only that the bank violated its own rules on employees' personal accounts; no fines were imposed. Gazprombank Luxembourg itself said it "strictly" complied with "laws, rules, and regulations" and "never participated in violating EU sanctions."
All four directors have left Gazprombank. Derkach said he leads "a private life in Luxembourg" and that "the absence of significant remarks from the Luxembourg banking regulator" confirms the legality of the operations. Belousov and Bolshakov run the investment firm B&B Capital Partners in Luxembourg. Nekrasov returned to Russia and in October 2025 became general director of the football club Spartak.
Sources are divided: the FT and The Moscow Times cite former Central Bank deputy chairman Sergei Aleksashenko's estimate that the bankers may have had insider information about upcoming bond exchanges. Derkach denies any violations, and the bank rejects suspicions of "market abuse."