From an office building in the heart of Zurich’s financial district, a prominent lawyer ran the small holding company Inter Energia in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn area.
For 23 years, he headed the Copenhagen-based company, which works directly with Russia through the sanctioned oil company Rosneft. The activities continued after the invasion of Ukraine.
The lawyer’s connections reach all the way into the Kremlin’s top ranks. Danwatch can now reveal that Inter Energia’s director from 25 October 2000 until 26 October 2023 was the Swiss lawyer Andres Baumgartner.
Andres Baumgartner’s law firm in Zurich was mentioned in the international Panama Papers revelations in 2016, where he was personally named as a money launderer for the Russian oligarch Sergei Roldugin, also known as Putin’s cellist friend.
Roldugin is a close childhood friend of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He is even godfather to the president’s daughter. Baumgartner is accused of helping to launder up to 15 billion kroner for the cellist Roldugin through, among other channels, the British Virgin Islands and Russia’s Gazprombank in Switzerland.
Money that, according to Panama Papers documents, ultimately ended up in Vladimir Putin’s pocket.
He was later sanctioned by the US for laundering money for the Russian president. In the justification for the sanctions, the US authorities wrote that he and his business partner have “handled Russian assets on a significant scale”:
“(They) are major handlers of Russian assets and are important business and cash flow facilitators for Russians. Baumgartner and Delco have provided trust and corporation formation services to many Russian clients, including sanctioned Russian individuals. Baumgartner and Delco are each the director of many Russian-owned entities.”
Danwatch contacted Andres Baumgartner through his law firm Baumgartner, Dietrich & Partner. In a written reply, he confirms that he was a director of the company, which is owned by former KGB spy Juris Savickis.
But “that is all,” he writes.
“We are not aware of any relations to Russian intelligence services. Inter Energia Holding ApS is a pure private investment. There is no link whatsoever between the (fake) Panama Papers stories, the wrong Roldugin-allegations and Inter Energia Holding ApS,” the lawyer says, adding:
“ There is no public interest in repeating the defamation of my name 10 years after the first fake news publications,” says Andres Baumgartner, who was sanctioned by the US in 2024.
Should be investigated by the authorities
Inter Energia—the company in Copenhagen—today has assets of more than 100 million kroner, which are, however, frozen in Latvia.
The company was owned by Juris Savickis, a former top spy from the Soviet intelligence service KGB, who stepped down from the company in August this year. According to Danwatch’s research, Savickis worked for the KGB for two decades and was, among other things, responsible for issuing false identities to spies tasked with infiltrating the West.
Inter Energia’s primary purpose is to own a gas company in Latvia, Itera Latvija, together with Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft. The ownership is held through a third company in Cyprus, which Danwatch has previously described.
Senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies Flemming Splidsboel says it is striking that the people involved in the Danish company include a spy specialising in creating false identities, a lawyer accused of laundering money for Putin, and a partnership with Rosneft via Cyprus.
“It is obvious that the Danish authorities are keeping an eye on these things,” says Flemming Splidsboel.
“Some of what you mention here is money laundering and document forgery.”
He stresses that he does not know anything for certain about the specific case, but fears that the company could, for example, be linked to Russian hybrid warfare.
“That is, of course, problematic. What is really behind it is hard to see through, but a lot of suspicious things are happening,” he says.
As an example, he mentions that Russians pay private actors in the Nordic countries to carry out sabotage and espionage for them.
But, with all that said, the company could also very well be legitimate, Splidsboel stresses.
“My starting point is that it is legal until the authorities say it is not,” he says.
The Danish Business Authority has told Danwatch that it cannot comment on the specific case, but that, as a rule, it investigates cases where there is suspicion of sanctions breaches.
If the suspicion is strong enough, the cases are handed over to the police.
Andres Baumgartner stresses that the money-laundering case and Roldugin—which he denies any wrongdoing in—have no connection to Inter Energia. He also calls the entire case fabricated.
“I have never met or seen or communicated in any way with such person,” he writes to Danwatch about his relationship with Sergei Roldugin.
He also calls the Pulitzer-winning Panama Papers investigation a “fabricated story” that was “created by some journalists.”
“Publishing such wrong fact again will be a violation of journalists codex of proper reporting, acting against good faith, and this could have consequences for you and your colleagues,” Andres Baumgartner writes.
The millions poured out
During the Swiss lawyer’s time as director—when, according to the Panama Papers and the US authorities, he laundered billions for the Russians—there was also plenty of movement in Inter Energia’s cash holdings.
In the period when the Swiss lawyer Andres Baumgartner was director, 258 million kroner was transferred from Copenhagen to Inter Energia’s owner, the KGB man Juris Savickis.
This is shown by a review of Inter Energia’s annual reports from 2000 to 2023. The money went through a company in Cyprus which, according to Denmark’s CVR register, was owned by Juris Savickis.
Flemming Splidsboel calls the circumstances surrounding Inter Energia “strange”, but says Denmark is not the most obvious place to launder money.
“But you can carry out all sorts of other shady activities,” he says.
As director, Andres Baumgartner was explicitly listed by name in the company’s signing authority rules. From 2013 to 2023, the provisions required the company to be represented by two directors, but one of them had to be Baumgartner.
Signing authority is a company-law power of attorney. In short, if you have signing authority, it means you are authorised to enter into agreements on behalf of the company.
That is why Andres Baumgartner apparently had an essential role in Inter Energia, says Troels Michael Lilja, professor of company law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Southern Denmark.
“If the company must be signed for jointly by two directors, and one of them specifically has to be him, then it means he has very great power in the company. In reality, he actually has the greatest power,” he says.
The Swiss businessman continued to hold sole power for years after the Panama Papers documents came to light. That in itself is remarkable, Troels Michael Lilja believes.
“When a name like that turns up, I can understand why it is a case you are interested in.”
Removed “Russian” from the website
Despite Andres Baumgartner denying any wrongdoing and saying the US is the real problem, his law firm has nevertheless cleaned up its website after the sanctions.
Baumgartner, Dietrich & Partner’s very sparse website had, among other things, a number of details removed about partners, location and which services they offer.
An archived version of the website shows that the lawyers, for example, updated the page in 2025 to remove the specific detail from their profile that they could serve clients in Russian.
Andres Baumgartner is of Russian-Ukrainian origin and himself speaks fluent Russian, and according to a major interview from 2024, he has worked closely with several Russian clients for years.
But that is no longer stated on the site.
Danwatch has tried to ask Andres Baumgartner whether he was employed by Juris Savickis, why Inter Energia was based in Denmark, where the 258 million kroner ended up, and why he stepped down from the company in 2023.
He has not answered that.
When Danwatch first revealed Inter Energia’s shady activities together with Rosneft, the company still had a Danish director.
The man’s name is Anders Anton Maier and he works for the IT giant CSC—the same place where Inter Energia had a c/o address for years.
But Anders Anton Maier stepped down from the company without responding to Danwatch’s enquiries, and neither he nor CSC can now be reached.
