Harold Invest

The Russian Laundromat Exposed
Investigation

Harold Invest is an Austrian company with a Czech bank account which is in the business of purchasing old apartments in Vienna, renovating and upgrading them, and then selling them. It has bought at least nine apartments for this purpose in recent years.

March 20, 2017

Harold Invest is an Austrian company with a Czech bank account which is in the business of purchasing old apartments in Vienna, renovating and upgrading them, and then selling them. It has bought at least nine apartments for this purpose in recent years.

The firm received 26 bank transfers totaling the equivalent of $2,511,143 from Laundromat shell companies Valemont Properties and Alaro Business throughout 2013 and 2014, with “electronic equipment,” “electronic goods,” and “antennas” listed as the reasons for the transactions.

The company’s owners - Olga Mironowa, Lev Fishler, and Nikolai Rybchenko - appear to be of Russian origin. Mironowa has an address in Vienna, while the others have addresses in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

The only Lev Fishler from Ekaterinburg reporters were able to find is described in industry publications as the vice president of ABB Electroengineering, a Russian branch of ABB, a major Swedish-Swiss multinational headquartered in ZĂĽrich and operating mainly in robotics and automation technology. The firm has operations in around 100 countries, with approximately 132,000 employees as of December 2016. Its Russian branch, where Lev Fishler works, counts Russian Railways as one of its clients.

Mironowa, Fishler, and Rybchenko did not respond to requests for comment