Omnia Arhing

Omnia Arhing is a Slovenian architecture, planning, and interior design company founded in 1997. The company received a total of €5,243,864 through Laundromat firms Drayscott Overseas and Ronida Invest in 2012 and 2014.

The firm’s portfolio shows that many of its recent projects have been in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. In fact, the company’s sole owner, an architect named Štefan Šček, its director Mitja Arnautovski, and project manager Darko Dolenc were awarded with certificates of honor by the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov for their work on a Grozny brick factory.

Šček also appears to have other connections to some of Chechnya’s most powerful people. He is a shareholder of a Chechen company, GS Group, which is registered at the same address as the Ahmat Kadyrov fund (named after the Chechen leader’s assassinated father) and other companies belonging to the Hizriev brothers, who are said to be in Kadyrov’s inner circle.

One of them, Hasmagomed Hizriev, is Chechnya’s former Minister of Construction who oversaw the construction of the brick factory built by Omnia Arhing. Asked for comment on the stream of money that ended up in Omnia’s bank account, Šček explained that Omnia had no business relationship with the Laundromat companies that wired the payments. Instead, he explained, Omnia was doing business solely with the Chechen Ministry of Construction which was at the time led by Hizriev. He added that Omnia’s contract with the ministry allowed the client to wire payments from third parties.