FSB raids "Putin's friend" Ilya Traber in St. Petersburg, who is Russia's shadowy oil port tycoon?

Russian FSB officers detained 75-year-old businessman Ilya Traber in St. Petersburg on June 17, 2026, in connection with the 2020 murder of deputy Alexander Petrov. Traber controls major oil terminals in Ust-Luga and Primorsk and has decades-long ties to Vladimir Putin dating back to the 1990s. The arrest is described by journalists as an extraordinary event, raising questions about whether Putin himself ordered or approved the detention of one of his oldest and most secretive allies.

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers detained prominent St. Petersburg businessman Ilya Traber, known in criminal circles as "the Antiquarian", in St. Petersburg on June 17, 2026. A criminal case related to the murder of St. Petersburg deputy Alexander Petrov was opened by investigators in Moscow. Traber's business partner Vladimir Danilenko was detained alongside him. Searches were simultaneously carried out at the home of Gennady Petrov, head of the Malyshev organised crime group, as part of the same investigation.

Decades of untouchability

For more than 30 years, Traber built one of Russia's most opaque business empires without ever facing formal criminal charges. Denis Korotkov, a journalist with the Dossier Center who covered St. Petersburg for many years, told Meduza that the arrest is « », an event completely out of the ordinary.

The 75-year-old is the owner of Russia's largest oil transshipment terminals in Ust-Luga and Primorsk, as well as the Leningrad Regional Electricity Grid Company (LOESK) and numerous other businesses. His career began as manager of the Zhiguli beer bar on Vladimirsky Prospekt in Leningrad, a place where access came at a price, before he made the leap into the antiques trade at the dawn of perestroika.

From antiquities to oil

In December 1991, Traber established a joint venture with the city of Leningrad that gave him a virtual monopoly over the city's antiques trade. The arrangement was structured so that profits flowed to Traber while losses stayed with the city. He subsequently branched out into fuel, acquiring the monopoly right to refuel aircraft at Pulkovo Airport, a concession signed off by none other than Vladimir Putin, then serving as St. Petersburg's deputy mayor.

« , - ,» Korotkov noted, Putin's signature appeared on many of the relevant documents.

Traber went on to associate with figures at the heart of St. Petersburg's criminal underworld: crime boss Vladimir Kumarin, the Vasiliev brothers, and Gennady Petrov. When the city's seaport was carved up in the 1990s, a process Korotkov described as leaving «dozens» dead, including the port director, his security deputy, and the head of the shipping company, Traber served as chairman of the board of the investment consortium managing the port.

Putin connection and European adventures

Among Traber's alleged associates was Nikolai Shamalov, whose son Kirill was married to Putin's daughter Katerina Tikhonova. Journalist Maxim Freidzon claimed Putin sought a 15% cut from the Pulkovo fuel concession and received 4%, a claim Putin has never confirmed or denied.

In the early 2000s Traber surfaced in Europe as a Greek citizen, how he obtained that citizenship remains unknown.. He acquired a Swiss estate called Château de Soully and was linked to the Monaco-registered company Sotrama, allegedly involved in laundering Russian criminal proceeds. Monaco reportedly declared him persona non grata. He was named in Spanish prosecution documents related to Operation Troika in 2008 as one of the leaders of an informal Russian consortium for global money laundering, though he was not arrested. A Spanish court's main target in that operation was Gennady Petrov, whose intercepted calls reportedly referenced senior Russian officials including Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin.

A murder, and a question of power

The current arrest is formally linked to the 2020 sniper killing of Alexander Petrov (no relation to Gennady Petrov), who was shot from long range as he walked from a bathhouse to a lake at his estate in the Vyborg region. Petrov had been the effective power broker of Vyborg and its surrounding district throughout the 1990s, with Traber reportedly as the senior partner behind him. The Primorsk terminal that Traber was building lay within territory Petrov controlled, giving rise to potential motive.

In 2021, the general director of a Traber-linked company wrote directly to President Putin requesting 220 billion roubles in state financing for the Primorsk terminal construction. Putin forwarded the request to the head of Vnesheconombank with a positive note. « ?», Korotkov asked rhetorically. What other LLC director could write to Putin and receive a response?

Can this happen without Putin's approval?

Korotkov was unequivocal about the political significance of the arrest. « , - , ,» he said, it is very hard to imagine anyone carrying out such an operation against Traber without at minimum Putin's consent.

Traber controls assets of enormous strategic value, oil terminals, electricity grid infrastructure, and there is no shortage of interested parties who would benefit from seizing them, including the Russian state itself. Korotkov noted that Traber is one of the few people who knows exactly what Putin did as St. Petersburg's deputy mayor in the 1990s. «, - , ,» he said, what Putin stole in those years, and how he did it, could still catch up with him.

If the arrest of someone this close to the Kremlin was carried out without Putin's knowledge, Korotkov warned, «, - », something is wrong with Russia's power vertical. But his own conclusion was that Putin almost certainly knew.