The Indiana lawmakers have secured $6.5 million in congressional earmarks for Ener1, Inc., and have talked up the company’s efforts to secure a slice of nearly $3 billion in two Energy Department programs offering grants and loans as part of President Obama’s stimulus package.
Their pitch sounds as American as apple pie: The New York-based company would create much-needed jobs in the nation’s heartland and help jump-start production of energy-efficient hybrid and electric vehicles.
But there’s one detail they don’t mention.
Ener1 has substantial financial ties to Russian industrialist Boris Zingarevich, a wealthy timber magnate and longtime business associate of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Mr. Zingarevich is frequently listed among the powerful and influential businessmen known in Russia as oligarchs.
According to federal records, Mr. Zingarevich is the “provider of substantially all of the funding” for Ener1 and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. The companies he owns, controls or is associated with - including Bzinfin SA, an off-shore firm that holds 66 percent of the shares of Ener1’s parent company - have the potential to exercise substantial sway over Ener1’s operations, documents filed with U.S. securities regulators state.