Who was accused Russian agent Maria Butina's ‘oligarch’ benefactor?

Who was Maria Butina’s “Russian oligarch” connection? In its memorandum arguing to keep Butina in pretrial detention, the D.C. district attorney claimed that she has ties to “a known Russian businessman with deep ties” to the Kremlin. The U.S. government hasn’t named this individual, but the memo describes him as “listed in Forbes as having a real-time net worth of $1.2 billion as of 2018.”

Forbes lists 11 men with that exact wealth in 2018, but the deputy general director of Transparency International, Ilya Shumanov, believes this individual is most likely the former Russian Senator Gleb Fetisov, who sat on the same Federation Council committee as Alexander Torshin (Butina’s unofficial mentor) and frequently played golf with him. In late 2016, Fetisov registered the Hollywood production company Fetisoff Illusion Films Aldamisa Entertainment. His spokesman told reporters that any allegations that he financed Butina are “total nonsense.”