Businessman from the United Arab Emirates Mohamed Ali Rashed Alabbar, who is among the initiators of the Riga Waterfont project, is friendly with the Chairman of the Council and co-owner of Rietumu Bank Leonids Esterkins and a Romanian citizen, owner of the Latvian company FAMIR. Emmanuil Grinshpun.

The territory of Andrejsala, measuring 50 hectares, which is indirectly owned by the families of ex-Prime Minister Andris Šķēle and Seimas deputy Ainārs Šlesers, is promised to be turned into a beautiful embankment, into a kind of marvelous “Northern Dubai” in the next couple of decades. But many experts are critical and even started talking about a new Kremlin-Latvian Laundromat.

As the Latvian public television program De Facto reported in June, the project developers have already begun to attract potential applicants for a residence permit. Foreigners, in exchange for an investment of 250 thousand euros, are offered the opportunity to obtain a residence permit in Latvia and the European Union. De facto indicates that becoming residents of Latvia and the European Union is offered both on the project website and on news portals in Arab countries, as well as on social networks, for example, in Egypt.

In the photo posted on Facebook by Mohamed Ali Alabbar, he is standing on Alberta Street in Riga, hugging Leonid Esterkin and Emmanuel Grinshpun. “In Riga, Latvia, with some friends,” reads the caption under the photo (published on August 18, 2022).

The Latvian press practically does not write about Emmanuel Grinshpun. According to Crediweb.lv, in 2018 he acquired the Latvian company AFT Services, after which he named this company FAMIR.

As indicated in the Land Register, in 2018, the company of Emmanuel Grinshpun bought a building in Jurmala for 600 thousand euros: Bulduru prospekts 33 k-3 – 1. The house became not only a shelter for the owner, but also a synagogue.

In May 2021, an interview was published on the website of the Jewish Community of the Republic of Moldova in which E. Grinshpun told how he ended up in Latvia.

- The history of my family for many generations is connected only with Moldova, or, if we stick to historical names, then with Bessarabia. And Jurmala appeared in our lives quite accidentally and rather prosaically. The first time we got there was when Igor Krutoy invited us to the “New Wave”. After several competitions, they began to come there every summer; in Miami the climate in summer is not the most pleasant. We rented real estate for several years, and therefore we already purchased it,” said E. Grinshpun.