The villa in Vaniköy: Company in the UK, he is in Istanbul: Documents reveal the Russian owner of the illegal villa

Masum Gök

The rise of Boris Borisenko, the owner of the illegal villa in Vaniköy, Istanbul—a property that has pitted the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality against the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change—has been as rapid as the construction of the villa itself. Boris Borisenko, who became a focal point of public attention in Turkey following reports about the illegal villa, was born in Lithuania in 1990.

Boris Borisenko currently serves as the director of the UK-based company Prue Biofuel. The company was established on February 16, 2016, two years after the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2014. 

The company was established in 2016

Prior to this company, Boris Borisenko served as the director of a company called Mtuu Limited, which was established in 2013 but is currently in liquidation. 

Following the US sanctions imposed on Russia and Russia-linked businessmen after the Ukraine war, many Russian oligarchs came to Turkey. Boris Borisenko is one of the businessmen who arrived during this period. 

It had been alleged that the famous mansion in Vaniköy, Istanbul, where Adnan Oktar had been a tenant for years, was sold to the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. However, it turned out that the buyer was not Abramovich. The two villas on the 10-decare plot, owned by Mustafa Cüre, were purchased for 26 million dollars by Boris Borisenko, the director of the UK-based company Prue Biofuel.

Ulvi Özcan, Managing Partner of the Bosphorus real estate agency Bosforce, stated in an interview with the Hürriyet newspaper at the time the villa was sold that they had conducted a valuation of the land and villas located in Vaniköy, block 928, parcel 3, in January 2022, saying: “There are not many plots of this size or properties of this quality on the Bosphorus. Last year, I was invited to conduct a valuation for the sale of the property in question. The figure we provided as a sellable price at that time was in the range of 13-14 million dollars. They dismissed our figure and said, ‘We want 20 million dollars.’ It was sold for well above its value.”

News Source: Masum Gök