Russian brothers Artur and Vadim Mildov are using their deep pockets to wipe out negative stories about their time in Kenya from the main stream media even as they continue to fight their deportation in the courts of Nairobi.
Artur and Vadim were deported in 2020 on the orders of the then Interior Cabinet Secretary, Dr Fred Matiangi after spending over two decades in Nairobi, where they are suspected of money laundering and operating an international drug trafficking ring.
“Artur Mildov who is not a citizen of Kenya and whose presence in the country is contrary to national interests, be removed from Kenya to his country of origin, Russia, and further direct that the said Vadim Mildov remain in police or prison custody while arrangements for removal are being undertaken. This order is sufficient warrant to keep Vadim in custody,” said a deportation order from Dr Matiangi that was signed on January 2, 2020.
While the reasons for their deportation were not stated, the brothers have been in the past linked to drug trafficking within the Kenyan territory, money laundering and the murder of their associate Victor Gontcharenko, a fellow Russian, in 1999.
For the last two years, however, Artur and Vadim have been trying unsucessfully to come back to Kenya, where they have numerous business interests, without success.
Our sources say they are currently operating from Dubai but maintain proxies in Nairobi to take care of their interests.
Since June last year, their proxies have been on overdrive trying to clean the image of the two brothers, who were once so untouchable that they operated a narcotics business from a house in the upmarket Muthaiga estate for almost a decade as police in Nairobi looked the other way.
A number of editors from mainstream media houses have been uprooted with huge sums of money of up to Sh 1 million in order to delete negative stories about the activities of the two brothers from their news websites.
The clean-up operation, which is being managed by one of the biggest public relations companies has in the last few months made some success but has also led to casualties as well.
One editor from a leading media house was even given marching orders after in-house investigations found out that a story about the two brothers on their news website was no longer being indexed by Google.
Although the article is still on the website, removing it from the Google index was a clever move because it means anyone doing a background check on Artur or Vadim Mildov will not see the story about their expulsion from Kenya, or their links to drug trafficking.
Our sources have told us that negative publicity from Kenyan news websites is standing in the way of a multibillion-dollar business deal for their company, De Lart Capital Holding which is headquartered in Dubai.
The deal has been put on ice since the beginning of last year, and the brothers have been pumping millions of shillings into Kenyan media in order to clean up any negative publicity around them.
In fact, if you Google Artur Mildov or Vadim Mildov today, their record on the internet has been cleaned up to almost 100 percent perfection. All their photos have been deleted from the internet apart from a single image linked to Vadim’s X account, which is no longer active.
The truth, however, is that the two brothers are not as clean as the internet will want you to believe now.
Our investigations reveal that Artur arrived in Kenya in the mid-1990s, accompanied by other Russians, including Andrei Kourtasov, Andrea Petrov, Chapovolo Valeri, and Andrea Kountr.
Upon settling in Kenya, the group registered several companies—Vim Invest Ltd, Laken Ltd, Femga, and Valand Training Ltd.
There is no available record on what activities these companies were involved in but the five Russians lived in the affluent Muthaiga neighbourhood, where they also operated an exclusive strip club.
Their cover was however blown on July 21, 1999 when another Russian Victor Gotcharenko was reported missing.
Artur told the police that Victor had gone to Tanzania for a business trip only for his body to be found days later at the Nairobi dam along Langata road.
Investigations were intensified, partly because the murder of a foreigner is a sensitive matter that could spark diplomatic tensions.
The murder investigation meant digging into the private affairs of everyone Victor was closely connected to.
And just like that, investigations into Victor’s murder revealed that he had been part of a drug trafficking ring which was run by Artur.
After concluding their investigations, police succeeded in having Artur, Petrov, and Kountr deported in 1999. Petrov was arrested upon returning to Russia, while Artur moved to Germany.
Meanwhile, Kourtasov and Valeri faced charges for the murder of Victor, but the High Court acquitted them due to insufficient evidence.
Kourtasov remained free in Kenya until 2013, when immigration officials deported him over drug-related activities.
Somehow, Artur managed to return to Kenya, though the exact timeline of his re-entry is unclear but it is said to be around 2008.
By 2004, he was confirmed to be in Nairobi and was then joined by his younger brother, Vadim. The two lived in a house on James Gichuru Road where they began another drug trafficking ring.
Meanwhile, the two brothers purchased a stake in the popular upmarket Pavement Club and Café, taking over ownership from Jaimini Rajanikant Patel and Seema Rajanikant Patel through one of their companies, De Lart Investments.
Both De Lart Investments and DFT Entertainment became directors of Pavement Club in December 2008.
They also registered another company, Midland Logistics, a now-defunct company with an address in Nicosia, Cyprus. The company was for a long time an agent for OneXbet in Cyprius before it was hastily shut down in 2019.
An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) traced De Lart Investments to another company, De Lart Holding, which is registered in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands.
De Lart was a joint shareholder with another Kenyan company, DFT Entertainment, at the Pavement Club before it was shut down in 2017 due to mounting debt.
After the winding down of Pavement, the two brothers were issued with foreign work permits by the Kenyan government for their other company, Midland Logistics, which interestingly does not have any presence in Kenya.
This work permit was cancelled in January 2020 and is now subject of a fierce court battle.
In their petition, the Mildov brothers say they were first issued with work permits in 2017. They however insist that they were illegally kicked out of Kenya because they have never been given reasons for their deportation or blacklisting by Immigration officials.
This however contradicts the law since they first purchased shares in Pavement Club in December 2008 yet they claim they were issued with permits in 2017 – 9 years later.
This therefore is an indication that their involvement with Pavement Club and Café was in violation of immigration laws.
“I and the co-petitioner (Artur) have been working in Kenya since 2017. During our stay, we were issued Kenyan alien identity cards by the Immigration Department. I and my co-petitioner started a company known as Midlands Logistics Ltd, dealing with transportation services, where we were directors and shareholders,” Vadim states in court papers.
