Igor Olenicoff is an American real estate developer born in 1943 in Moscow, Russia. Other than his outstanding business sense, Olenicoff is best known for his legal problems and tax evasion trials for his use of off-shore accounts in order to hide his property.
Have you ever wondered how rich Igor Olenicoff is? According to sources it has been estimated that Igor Olenicoff overall net worth is $3.9 billion. This astonishing wealth comes from his sole ownership of the “Olen Properties” company and tax evasion.
Igor Olenicoff Net Worth $3.9 Billion
Igor was born during World War II to a family which escaped to Iran and then emigrated to the US in 1957. Extremely poor, they arrived with only four suitcases of clothes and a total sum of 800 dollars, unfortunately being robbed almost immediately after their arrival. His father worked as a janitor and his mother as a housekeeper, so this hard life left an impact on young Olenicoff who decided to pursue a career in finance. He enrolled at the University of Southern California and graduated with a degree in corporate finance and mathematics, also obtaining an MBA. In his first years after college, Igor worked as a consultant and corporate executive. However, in 1973 he purchased his first 16 unit duplex and founded the “Olen Properties” company which now owns around 6.5 million square feet of office space and thousands of residential units all over Florida, California, Las Vegas and Arizona.
“Forbes Magazine” estimated Olenicoff’s wealth at $1.6 billion in 2006, solely upon his ownership of “Olen Properties”. However, in an interview, Igor told the magazine that he did not own the company and that its true owners were offshore companies incorporated in 1980. However, according to Forbes, the IRS investigated Olenicoff for tax evasion and determined that he was the sole owner, using an offshore company in order to hide his assets. Denying this, Igor claimed that this was a Russian parastal investment, but the IRS still charged him with $77 million for various tax penalties. In 2007, Igor pleaded guilty for filling a false tax return and had to pay $52 million as well as return his offshore funds to an American based bank. Olenicoff was also found guilty of copyright violation, and had to pay $450,000 compensation to artist Don Wakefield. Even after all of these financial slowdowns, Olenicoff preserved an impressive amount of wealth, making him one of the richest people in Florida and the oldest Russian-born billionaire.
When it comes to his personal life, Olenicoff is married to Los Angeles native Jeanne M. Patterson and the couple had two children, Andrei and Natalia. Igor was training his son to take over his company, but unfortunately Andrei died in a car accident in 2005. After his son’s tragic death and due to Andrei having suffered from retinitis pigmentosa during his life, Igor founded the “Andrei Olenicoff Memorial Foundation” in his honor. Some of Foundation’s first collected gifts were sent to Russian orphans in need. Olenicoff went on to teach his daughter, Natalia to run “Olen Properties”.
