Abramovich Money Helped Build Curaleaf. Now It Runs 77 Florida Dispensaries.

Oct 19

Massachusetts investigated the Russian billionaire's early loans to the marijuana giant and cleared it. Florida, home to more Curaleaf stores than any other state, has no public record of asking.

RIVERVIEW — In early September, Curaleaf opened a medical marijuana dispensary at 10422 U.S. 301 South in Riverview. It was the company's 77th store in Florida, nearly half of its 178 nationwide. Nothing on the storefront says the company was built in part on early loans from a company controlled by Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who has since been sanctioned in Britain, the European Union and Canada. Massachusetts investigated that money and cleared the company. In Florida, where Curaleaf has more stores than anywhere else, FMNN found no public record that the state ever asked.

The loans from Cetus

Curaleaf's own securities filings show the money. In June 2018, its predecessor took a $6 million bridge loan at 11% from a lender called Cetus Investments Limited. That August it issued $85 million in 15% senior secured debt to Cetus. The filing says the Cetus debt was "repaid in full as of December 20, 2019," refinanced with a new term loan. The filing does not say who owns Cetus.

Leaked files did. On Dec. 22, 2022, Forensic News reported, from records of a Cypriot corporate-services firm, that Cetus is a British Virgin Islands company controlled by Abramovich. The next day, Curaleaf chairman Boris Jordan confirmed to Bloomberg News that Abramovich had provided early funding. Jordan said Abramovich "lent me and Andrey money to invest," referring to fellow investor Andrey Blokh, and that the money was repaid before the war in Ukraine. VICE, citing leaked files, reported in February 2023 that about $225 million went into Curaleaf, then called PalliaTech, from 2015 to 2017. Forensic News put the same total on Curaleaf and its principals, including personal loans to Jordan and Blokh.

Curaleaf has said Abramovich had no role in its decisions and is no longer a lender or investor. In August 2026 a company spokesperson told The Newsground that "as far as the company is aware," Abramovich does not directly or indirectly own Curaleaf shares. In 2022 Curaleaf told Forensic News that the loans it was asked about were repaid "long before Curaleaf was formed or went public." Its filing shows the separate Cetus corporate debt was repaid in December 2019, 14 months after Curaleaf went public through a reverse takeover in October 2018.

Sanctioned in London, Brussels and Ottawa, but not Washington

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Britain froze Abramovich's assets on March 10, 2022. Canada also sanctioned him, and in December 2022 moved to seize $26 million held by one of his companies. The European Union listed him on March 15, 2022, and its General Court rejected his challenge in December 2023.

The United States has not sanctioned him. Bloomberg reported in 2022 that he was not on the U.S. list, and international sanctions trackers still show no Treasury listing as of October 2026. The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2022 that Ukraine's president asked Washington to hold off so Abramovich could help with peace talks.

The man running Curaleaf

Boris Jordan, an American of Russian ancestry, built his career in post-Soviet finance and media. He was general director of the national TV network NTV after the state-controlled gas giant Gazprom took it over, until Gazprom-Media's board fired him in January 2003. Curaleaf's official biography says he became executive chairman of PalliaTech in 2014 and took majority control in 2015. He became Curaleaf's chairman and CEO in August 2024. Jordan told Bloomberg he had not seen or spoken with Vladimir Putin since 2003. VICE reported the leaked files contain no evidence Putin knew of the investments.

Three states asked. Massachusetts explained its answer in public.

After the December 2022 reports, regulators in three states started asking questions.

Massachusetts opened an inquiry in January 2023. At a public meeting on Aug. 10, 2023, the Cannabis Control Commission's director of investigations, Nomxolisi Khumalo, reported the case closed. She found Abramovich had no ownership or control and called it a relationship of a "customary lender-borrower nature," while noting it could be reopened.
Connecticut's Department of Consumer Protection said it would "review the allegations." Talking Joints Memo later reported the review closed in June 2023 with Curaleaf's license in good standing.
Vermont's Cannabis Control Board looked into it too. Its executive director, Brynn Hare, later said the other states' reviews "went nowhere" and that any ties ended before Curaleaf entered Vermont. That December, Curaleaf agreed to sell its two Vermont dispensaries and its grow site.

In New Jersey, where the company started, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission said it could "not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation."

What Florida's law asks, and doesn't

Curaleaf entered Florida in January 2017, when PalliaTech's Florida arm paid $28 million in cash for a 70% stake in Modern Health Concepts, one of the state's early licensed operators. The stake became controlling after state approval. No public record shows whether Abramovich-linked money helped pay for it. The Florida business is now wholly owned by Curaleaf.

Florida's medical marijuana law requires background screening of anyone owning 5% or more of a licensee and state approval 60 days before an ownership change. It says nothing about foreign money, sanctions or Russia. A separate 2023 law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, names Russia a "foreign country of concern," but its contracting rule covers government contracts that involve personal data, not marijuana licenses.

In March 2023, the trade publication CRB Monitor reported that Florida regulators did not respond to its questions about Curaleaf. FMNN found no public record that the Department of Health's Office of Medical Marijuana Use has reviewed the Abramovich loans. The department did not answer FMNN's questions either.

New questions in 2026

This year a small investigative outlet, The Newsground, reopened the subject. Reporter Scott Stedman, who co-wrote the 2022 Forensic News story, reported that FBI records released under the Freedom of Information Act show two federal grand juries examined matters involving Curaleaf, starting in 2018, and that both ended without charges. He also reported that a Cyprus company tied to a longtime business partner of Jordan's sold 15.5 million Curaleaf shares to Credit Bank of Moscow in 2020, and that the bank took the shares, then worth about $58 million, in December 2023, about ten months after the U.S. sanctioned it.

Curaleaf says it was never told it was the subject of any FBI investigation. Through counsel, Curaleaf and Jordan have called the reporting defamatory and say neither owns or controls the Cyprus company. The Newsground says it does not allege any crime or sanctions violation. No other outlet has independently confirmed the share transactions.

Where it started: New Jersey

Curaleaf's roots run to New Jersey's first medical marijuana program, signed into law by Gov. Jon Corzine and put into effect under Gov. Chris Christie. In 2011 the state picked six nonprofit operators. One, Compassionate Sciences, was managed by PalliaTech and received its grow permit in June 2015. That spring, John O'Brien, who had directed New Jersey's program for about four years, resigned, and PalliaTech hired him as its compliance officer in New York, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Columnist Chris Goldstein laid out much of this history in a 2023 piece for InsiderNJ that first drew FMNN to the story.

How Florida's market was built

Florida's market was designed to be small. The 2014 law that created it allowed five licenses and limited applicants to nurseries that had operated in the state for at least 30 years and were registered to grow more than 400,000 plants.

Trulieve, now the state's dominant operator, was not a nursery. Its founders, led by CEO Kim Rivers, teamed up with nurseries that qualified. On Nov. 23, 2015, the Department of Health approved Hackney Nursery of Quincy for the Northwest region license that became Trulieve. A partner in that application, Simpson Nurseries, was owned by the father of then-state Rep. Halsey Beshears, who voted for the 2014 law. His brother Thad was Hackney's chief operating officer. The Miami Herald reported Halsey Beshears filed no conflict-of-interest disclosure before the vote.

Tallahassee developer J.T. Burnette, then Rivers' boyfriend and now her husband, was recorded in 2016 telling undercover FBI agents that he and Beshears had worked "little tweaks" into the 2014 licensing rules, which MJBizDaily reported would keep certain competitors from qualifying. "Halsey and I worked through it," he said. The tape was played at his 2021 federal bribery trial, which involved a Tallahassee city commissioner, not marijuana. On the stand, Burnette said he had been bragging about something that happened "before my time." A jury convicted him of five counts, and an appeals court upheld the conviction in 2023. No court has found the licensing was rigged. Beshears, Rivers and Trulieve were not charged. Trulieve said "neither Trulieve nor our CEO are involved in the case."

A 2017 law expanded the field but kept the model in place: every licensee must grow, process and sell its own product. That structure is what made a Florida license worth $28 million to PalliaTech in 2017.

The other side of the ballot

In 2024, the industry spent heavily to legalize recreational marijuana with Amendment 3. Trulieve put in nearly $145 million. Curaleaf gave at least $3 million to the campaign, Smart & Safe Florida. FMNN found no record of Curaleaf giving to any committee that opposed the measure, or to Hope Florida.

The state fought back. Then-Attorney General Ashley Moody asked the Florida Supreme Court to keep Amendment 3 off the ballot, and lost 5–2. That fall, $10 million from the state's $67 million Medicaid overbilling settlement with Centene went to the Hope Florida Foundation, the charity tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis's initiative. The foundation gave $5 million each to two nonprofits. Within two weeks, those nonprofits sent about $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, the committee fighting Amendment 3, chaired by James Uthmeier, then DeSantis's chief of staff and now attorney general. The amendment won 56% of the vote, short of the 60% it needed.

A Leon County grand jury found in January 2026 that the $10 million had been "misappropriated" but brought no charges. According to the sealed report, as described by CBS News Miami, Moody "authorized" her chief deputy to sign the settlement. Moody has said the attorney general's office "had no knowledge of how funds would be spent." Uthmeier calls the affair a politically motivated hoax and has not been charged. On Oct. 7, the 1st District Court of Appeal ordered the grand jury report expunged, ruling the settlement was legal and that the money was not "diverted." Moody is now a U.S. senator on the November ballot. (FMNN has endorsed her opponent, Angie Nixon.)

Back in Riverview

Analysis. Florida's attorney general tried to keep legal marijuana off the ballot, and $8.5 million that passed through the Hope Florida Foundation ended up with the committee fighting it. A grand jury called that misappropriation; an appeals court has since ruled the settlement lawful. Either way, the state put real effort into the question of who may buy marijuana. FMNN found no public record of the state asking where the money behind one of its largest sellers came from. The new store on U.S. 301 is fully legal, and the loans behind the company were repaid years ago. But the question Massachusetts answered in public in 2023 has never been answered in public in Florida, the state where Curaleaf has more stores than anywhere else.

FMNN asked Curaleaf, Boris Jordan, Trulieve, Kim Rivers, J.T. Burnette, Halsey Beshears, the Florida Department of Health, Sen. Moody, Attorney General Uthmeier, the governor's office and the Hope Florida Foundation for comment before publication. None responded by publication time. Responses will be added here if they arrive.

How we reported this: This story was drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed below and checked against them by an editor before publication.

Sources

Curaleaf Holdings, Annual Information Form FY2020 (SEC Exhibit 99.1) — Cetus loans; PalliaTech Florida/MHC purchase; Compassionate Sciences
Curaleaf / PR Newswire, Aug. 7, 2024 — Curaleaf Announces CEO Transition
Curaleaf — Board of Directors (Boris Jordan biography)
Cannabis Business Times, Sept. 4, 2026 — Curaleaf opens Florida dispensary in Riverview
Forensic News, Scott Stedman & Matt Bernardini, Dec. 22, 2022 — Roman Abramovich Secretly Funded World's Largest Marijuana Company
Bloomberg News, Tiffany Kary, Dec. 23, 2022 — Curaleaf Chairman Confirms Abramovich Provided Early Funding
VICE, Max Daly, Feb. 16, 2023 — Leaked Files Show How a Putin Ally Bankrolled the US Weed Industry
Court of Justice of the EU, Press Release 195/23, Dec. 20, 2023 — General Court upholds Abramovich listing
Global Affairs Canada, Dec. 19, 2022 — Canada starts first process to seize assets of sanctioned Russian oligarch
OpenSanctions — Roman Abramovich sanctions listings
Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, Aug. 10, 2023 — Public meeting minutes
CT News Junkie, Jan. 30, 2023 — State Looking Into Loans Made To Curaleaf By Russian Billionaire's Companies
Talking Joints Memo, Zack Huffman, Aug. 14, 2023 — Mass Cannabis Regulators Clear Company After Investigating Oligarch Ties
VTDigger, Dec. 1, 2023 — Zenbarn Farms buys Curaleaf cannabis dispensaries in Vermont
CRB Monitor, Zack Huffman, Mar. 9, 2023 — Curaleaf's Undisclosed Ties to Sanctioned Oligarch Spur Regulatory Scrutiny
Florida Statutes s. 381.986 — Medical use of marijuana
Florida Statutes s. 287.138 — Contracting with entities of foreign countries of concern
The Newsground, Scott Stedman, Aug. 11, 2026 — FBI records on Curaleaf grand jury probes
The Newsground, Aug. 24, 2026 — Sanctioned Russian bank and Curaleaf shares
InsiderNJ, Chris Goldstein, Feb. 22, 2023 — CuraLeaf's Cannabis Connection to Russia Started in New Jersey (opinion)
NJ Department of Health, June 29, 2015 — Compassionate Sciences cultivation permit
Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan Hefler, June 23, 2015 — Medical marijuana process slows to a crawl in N.J.
Laws of Florida ch. 2014-157 — Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014
Florida Department of Health, Nov. 23, 2015 — Hackney Nursery dispensing organization approval
MJBizDaily, Jeff Smith, Aug. 12, 2021 — Bribery trial: Husband of Trulieve CEO bragged about medical cannabis pull
IRS Criminal Investigation — John Thomas Burnette convicted of five counts
U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, No. 21-13990, Apr. 11, 2023 — United States v. Burnette
Cannabis Business Times, Tony Lange, Apr. 12, 2024 — New Data Shows How Much 6 Florida MSOs Contributed to Cannabis Legalization Campaign
WUSF / Health News Florida, Sept. 2024 — Marijuana companies donate another $6 million to promote Amendment 3
CBS News Miami, Jim DeFede, Aug. 26, 2026 — Grand jury finds DeSantis administration 'misappropriated' $10 million
CBS News Miami, Aug. 27, 2026 — Grand jury report on Moody's role
WGCU / Florida Trident, Aug. 26, 2026 — Sealed for seven months: grand jury found $10 million misappropriated
WLRN / News Service of Florida, Oct. 8, 2026 — An appeals court expunges the Hope Florida grand jury report
RFE/RL, Jan. 17, 2003 — Gazprom-Media fires NTV head Boris Jordan
Algemeiner / Reuters, Mar. 10, 2022 — UK imposes asset freezes on Roman Abramovich
Kyiv Independent, Mar. 23, 2022 — WSJ: Zelensky asked Biden not to sanction Abramovich yet
GBH News, Tori Bedford, Mar. 22, 2023 — Cannabis regulators putting out a series of fires
Florida Politics, Phil Ammann — Halsey Beshears tangled up in Charlotte's Web (citing the Miami Herald)
MJBizDaily, Aug. 17, 2021 — Trulieve reiterates support of marijuana CEO amid husband's conviction
Florida Phoenix, Apr. 1, 2024 — Supreme Court ruling: Voters in November will decide on recreational weed
WUSF / Health News Florida, Nov. 4, 2024 — Trulieve's support of Florida's marijuana amendment tops $144 million
NBC Miami, Nov. 5, 2024 — Florida voters reject Amendment 3

Updates and corrections

No corrections as of publication.

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Joseph Jackson