Avramov Ivan Ivanovich
Official biography
Born on September 2, 1965 in Kalcheva village, Bolhrad district, Odesa region.
Education
1983 — graduated from high school;
1988 — graduated from the Odesa Institute of National Economy (National Economy).
Compromising material
How Yuriy Yenakiyevsky’s men seized and are destroying the Stolychnyi market — an investigation
“Stolichnyi, the country’s largest food market, has been held for a year by people from the orbit of Yanukovych’s former wallet, Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, better known as Yura Yenakiyevsky, and is already on the verge of bankruptcy, which will affect both the state and hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs and customers. Find out how Yanukovych’s associate seized the asset and how he is flushing money out of the market in a journalistic investigation aired on Channel 24.
The destruction of the Stolychnyi market is an investigation by journalists:
As the journalists found out, Ivaniushchenko and his partner Ivan Avramov were included in the list of market founders back in 2012, when the owners of Agrarian Marketing Center LLC (the founder of Stolychnyi market) received an offer they could not refuse and sold 35% of their shares to an offshore company Goodlight Capital Ltd, whose beneficiary since 2014 has been a certain Oleksandr Stelmakh, for 44 thousand hryvnias. According to media reports, Goodlight Capital Ltd is owned by Yuriy Ivanyushchenko and his partner Ivan Avramov. Thus, for 44 thousand hryvnias, a company from Ivaniushchenko’s orbit received almost 55% of the ownership of a huge market. Without investing a single penny.
The owners and beneficiaries of Goodlight Capital Ltd:
Until 2019, Ivaniushchenko and Avramov did not interfere in the market’s operations because they left the territory of Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity due to alleged persecution by law enforcement agencies, activists say. After Stolychnyi reached the level of profitability, the asset was expected to attract businessmen. In February 2020, the majority shareholder unexpectedly changed the market’s management. Oleksiy Chumak, a successful manager who built and developed Stolychnyi, was forced to leave. He was replaced by his own man. Illegally, according to the lawyers of the minority shareholders.
— “On February 18, 2020, a meeting of the owners of the Stolychnyi market was held without notifying my client, at which the market director was illegally replaced. On the same day, the new director withdrew all the profits earned in 2019 from the Stolychnyi market’s account. This is about 25 million hryvnias,” says Oleh Musienko, a lawyer at Modern Market Innovations (co-owner of Stolychnyi Market).
In just his first month in office, the new director, Rustam Abdukadyrov, drove the market into huge debts and brought it to the brink of bankruptcy, experts say. In particular, two agreements were signed with unknown Odesa-based companies Elit Trade Company and Nadezhda for the supply of metal structures totaling almost 175 thousand hryvnias. The market did not receive the goods, but the Odesa companies filed lawsuits with commercial courts to recover the debt from the market. Also, on April 8, 2020, Stolychnyi Market purchased questionable investment certificates totaling UAH 98 million from Donbas Coal Company LLC (ultimate owners Yuriy Ivaniushchenko and Ivan Avramov).
According to experts, Abdukadyrov did not stop there. In the fall of 2020, all of Stolychnyi’s operations were transferred to the newly created Food Hub Stolychnyi, a company with an authorized capital of UAH 10,000. Thus, in just two months, almost UAH 300 million of fictitious debts were “put on the market”, all income from operating activities was taken away, and almost all payments were converted into cash, from which no taxes are paid (5 million tax debt as of December 1, 2020), and the money, in particular, can be used to finance the war in the East. The once successful company is now on the verge of bankruptcy.
Today, there are about 20 cases in the Kyiv courts regarding the Stolychnyi market. Even the Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska and his deputy Olha Onishchuk are actively helping Ivaniushchenko and his managers, activists claim. In December 2020, the shareholders of Stolychnyi Market dismissed Rustem Abdukadyrov as director, but Denys Maliuska promptly, in just one day, single-handedly considered Rustem Abdukadyrov’s complaint and reinstated him as director. Also, on January 22, 2021, during off-hours, at 20:46, Denys Maliuska blocked the collection of accounts payable secured by a mortgage, namely the Vegetables and Fruits pavilion, in favor of one of the market’s creditors. The losses incurred by the creditors amounted to UAH 40 million.
Ivanyushchenko’s conflict with Yanukovych
In early 2012, Ivanyushchenko and Abramov left the country after the Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv allowed the tax authorities to check the accounts of their related companies, Focus reported.
According to the publication, the tax authorities were interested in the fact that Investbudservice won a tender for the supply of pipes for the state-owned Ukrgazvydobuvannya for UAH 157 million. The tax authority was also interested in intermediary companies Energo Invest Holding LLC and Macrocom LLC. These companies are not formally related to Ivaniushchenko.
The Main Investigation Department of the State Tax Service has a team of investigators investigating tax evasion by commercial entities in collusion with officials of a number of government ministries and agencies. All of these investigations have one thing in common: the suspected officials were “in relations” with the structures of Yura Yenakiyevsky and Ivan Ivanovich Avramov.
ZN.UA has obtained a decision of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv dated January 30, 2012, which shows that the tax police exposed a large-scale and audacious criminal scheme to monopolize imports of a whole group of goods by one commercial company in collusion with customs officials and directly with Tetyana B., the general of the Customs Service of Ukraine, who in February-December 2011 was the head of the country’s largest customs office, the Southern Customs.
Excerpt from the tax police investigation:
(In the court ruling below, she appears under the pseudonym PERSON_4).
According to the publication’s sources, tax investigators are not privy to the schemes of the Ukrspirt concern, the purchase of pipes by Naftogaz, and the import of consumer goods and food.
According to the available document, investigator for especially important cases Volodymyr Pasyukov, in agreement with First Deputy Prosecutor General Yevhen Blazhivskyi, sent a request to conduct a search at the apartment where an official of the USRRC JV LLC lives in the framework of criminal case No. 69-140. “Ukrainian Eastern Fish Company is the largest fish importer.
The tax authorities intended to seize data storage devices, valuables and money obtained by criminal means from its management. The investigator’s submission confirms all the accusations that various businessmen have repeatedly made against the Security Service and State Customs officers over the past year. According to the investigators, this is how illegal imports covered by groups linked to criminal organizations and government officials have been operating for more than a year.
Reading the investigator’s submission, it should be recalled that on August 20, 2011, the Security Service of Ukraine launched a special anti-smuggling operation at the Southern Customs, which continues to this day. As the publication wrote, the fight against smuggling in the form of total “seizure” of containers of “uncooperative” businessmen has led to nothing but the creation of controlled import flows. Judging by the scheme, work in other areas of imports to Ukraine can be organized in the same way. Therefore, sorry for the long quote, the most striking and explosive thing about the above text is that, judging by the text, these accusations are properly documented as criminal case materials, and are not journalistic frills.
The first step in defense of shadow imports and high-ranking defendants was taken by the Shevchenkivskyi Court of Kyiv. Despite all of the above arguments, Judge Andriy Trubnikov (the same judge who judged Tymoshenko in her jail cell) found the investigation’s arguments… insufficient and refused to conduct a search of the accused’s apartment.
According to ZN.UA, the SBU did not initiate an investigation under the article “fight against corruption” and did not open a case against Tetyana B.
As a reminder, the tax authorities raised these issues only as part of the tax evasion case.
The very fact that the investigation is being conducted by the tax service, which is not directly responsible for controlling customs, shows that Viktor Yanukovych’s team, represented by the group of Oleksandr Yanukovych and Serhiy Arbuzov, intends to make controlled those financial flows that the group of Yuriy Yenakiyevsky and his deputy for customs, Ivan Ivanovych, has been carefully hiding in the shadows for two years.
ZN.UA addressed the State Customs Service with a question: what conclusions have been drawn after the criminal case was initiated, which disclosed facts indicating the alleged involvement of General Tetyana B. in corruption? We received an official response: “No evidence has been provided so far of any involvement of Tetiana B. in any offenses. No official inquiries regarding the activities of the officials of the Southern Customs have been received from the investigating authorities on this topic.”
Currently, Tetiana B. works as a deputy director of the organizational and administrative department of the customs office. This means one thing: despite the lawsuits, the amounts and schemes have not changed as a result of the change in official additions.
The “watchdog” for Odesa region
Many observers call Ivan Abramov a “watchdog” for Odesa region. And despite the fact that the positions of him and his partner Yuriy Ivanyushchenko have been slightly shaken, Abramov has a fairly powerful lobby in local government.
For example, former Vice Mayor of Odesa Oleksandr Orlov was called Avramov’s protege. On the sidelines of the city council, it is said that Orlov was once the main lobbyist for one of the projects of the Odesa General Plan, which legalized the spot development of slopes and parks. But the difficulties Avramov and Ivanyushchenko faced in early 2012 disrupted this plan: while the businessmen were abroad, the mayor of Odesa fired Orlov at the suggestion of the governor.
Kompromat1 also reported that Ivan Avramov paid Arseniy Yatsenyuk $50 million for his immunity:
Vice Mayor Kyrylo Shalamay is also considered to be a “lookout” for the region. In many ways, it was thanks to his alliance with Shalamay and his patrons that Oleksiy Kostusev managed to take control of the Odesa City Council, defeating his political opponent, MP Gennadiy Trukhanov.
In addition, a significant number of city council members are also guided by Ivan Avramov, such as the head of the city council’s land commission, Dmytro Kot. The Odesa Regional Council also often acts in the interests of Avramov and Ivanyushchenko: according to media reports, they are behind the Kyiv-based company Spetsvodobud, which leased 13 square kilometers of the Gulf of Odesa in December 2011 and plans to organize sand mining there.
Avramov also has a very serious influence on the Odesa Regional State Administration — the governor of Odesa region, Eduard Matviychuk, is very sensitive to the opinion of such an “authoritative” person.
«Each region has its own person who deals with this issue. The person in charge of the Odesa region and the one who deals with the issue is Ivan Ivanovich Avramov, a businessman known in Odesa and Kyiv. I’ve known him probably since I was 14-15 years old, when Avramov was still a businessman of the «Odesa spill». Then he became a businessman of the ‘Donetsk spill’,» said Volodymyr Nemyrovsky, an Odesa businessman, owner of the Odesa plant Stalkanat-Silur, who once headed the regional organization of the Front for Change party. Perhaps he was even successful. As far as I know, he later began to cooperate with Donetsk guys: coal schemes, coke schemes.»
On the eve of Avramov’s departure due to tax inspections of the accounts of his related companies, he met with a Forbes correspondent in his office at 4 Rylsky Lane (where Yuriy Ivanyushchenko’s office is located). During the meeting, the businessman denied the accusations of Volodymyr Nemyrovsky, the owner of the Odesa-based Silur-Stalkanat plant, that Avramov was seizing the plant with the help of law enforcement agencies. Ivanyushchenko also told a journalist over the phone that it was “complete nonsense” to talk about how he had allegedly taken a share of Nibulon shares from its owner, Oleksiy Vadatursky.
Deprivation of the title of honorary consul
In December 2018, the Bulgarian government deprived businessman Ivan Avramenko of the title of honorary consul. The Bulgarian authorities made this decision regarding the Ukrainian businessman on the grounds that Avramov does not act in the interests of Ukraine, which, in turn, negatively affects the image of Bulgaria. This was stated by Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov.
The official noted that Ivan Avramov cannot remain an honorary consul of their country because he supports separatists in eastern Ukraine and is a member of a criminal oligarchic structure (the so-called “Family”), whose leader (Viktor Yanukovych) has been removed from power.
As noted in one Bulgarian publication, the Ukrainian diplomat was among the 50 richest Ukrainians (his wealth was estimated by experts at approximately $352 million). In addition, he had close business relations with the “Family”, which controlled the movement of alcohol smuggling, owned the Donbasholding coal corporation and several coal enrichment plants, and also managed a gas company in Luhansk.
Based on all this information, the Bulgarian government decided to release Ivan Avramov from the duties and rights of the Honorary Consul of Bulgaria, which, in turn, lifted the diplomat’s immunity and opened the door for the Ukrainian authorities to conduct a full investigation and bring the businessman to justice.
Wealth and sources of income
In 2012, Avramov was included in the “Golden Hundred” of Ukrainian rich people according to the Korrespondent magazine, ranking 97th in the rating. His fortune was estimated at $46 million. By 2013, the oligarch had become significantly richer: according to Focus magazine, experts estimated the businessman’s capital at more than $350 million, putting him at 45th place on the list of the most influential people in Ukraine.
Ivanyushchenko and Avramov’s assets:
Heavy metal
According to scant information from various Skeleton.Info sources, Ivan Avramov became interested in commerce (fartsovka) as a student, as Odesa had long been the southern gateway to the USSR for imported consumer goods (both legal and smuggled). At the same time, the clever young man realized that it was much more profitable to sell domestic valuables for dollars rather than overseas “stuff” for Soviet rubles, albeit at speculative prices. However, he did not have access to the Odesa flow of smuggled goods (antiques, icons, jewelry).
But he was helped by the “wind of change” that blew in the country. Immediately after graduation, Ivan Avramov started “cooperating”, looking for channels to export Soviet raw materials through various joint ventures. And by the early 90s, Ivan Avramov had found his niche — he started exporting non-ferrous scrap metal, and then larger consignments of ferrous metals. It was here that he made his business acquaintance with Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, a criminal mastermind from Yenakiyevo, then known as Yurets Maly, and later as Yura Yenikiyevsky. By the way, even then Anatoliy Zuev, Viktor Yanukovych’s godfather, was already a member of Ivaniushchenko’s “brigade”.
Ivanyushchenko also got involved in metals: there were plenty of steel mills in Donbas, but sales of their products slowed down in the early 1990s. Looking for a way to reach foreign buyers, Ivanyushchenko found a common language with Ivan Avramov: as the saying goes, we have the goods, you have the merchant! Avramov’s services proved to be so useful that Ivanyushchenko immediately made him his business partner and later his most trusted person. For Ivanyushchenko, who does not understand the intricacies of economics, he began to play the role of a kind of accountant partner, who is primarily involved in “black accounting” and intricate schemes. That’s how their duo formed.
But it was not all about metal. The “shadow” Odesa of the first half of the 90s was a huge communal apartment in “five dimensions” — that is, there were purely thieves’ Odesa, smuggling Odesa, semi-legal business Odesa, corrupt Odesa, etc. And each was divided between dozens of “princes” who were supervised by successive “overseers.” That is why there have always been several such “overseers” in Odesa: criminals had their own “overseer” for the criminal world, those who covered smuggling and the shadow business of organized crime groups had their own “overseers”, and the corrupt authorities had their own “overseers”. And Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, who had just broken with the Yenakiyevo group of the Dolidze brothers, who had started a war with the Donetsk group of Alik Grek, began to look at Odesa as a new region of his influence. He was primarily interested in the smuggling that was going on through Odesa and was becoming increasingly widespread.
However, the middle and second half of the 90s were marked by a series of violent criminal showdowns both in Odesa itself (the murder of Viktor Kulivar “Karabas”) and in the Donetsk region (the murder of Alik Grek and Grigory Dolidze). It was during this period that Ivan Avramov left Odesa and moved in with Yuriy Yenakiyevsky, and then the two of them “went into hiding” — there are no details about their activities during this period. But once Ivanyushchenko himself said about Avramov: “He has a very bright head. It is incredibly difficult for a person from Odesa to deal with mines, but he did it.” It was in 1994 that Ivaniushchenko became a co-owner of the Yenakiieve Coke Plant (where, according to his official biography, he allegedly worked in the 1980s), which participated in the coal-coke-metal-export scheme, and he needed his own mines to minimize the cost of coal. During this period (1996-2005), Ivanyushchenko was listed as the president of Alvi-Invest, a company that traded in everything from coke to shoes, but next to him loomed the figure of an unnamed deputy for economics, shrouded in gray fog. It is believed that this was Ivan Avramov.
Ivan Avramov. Coal baron, alcohol king
It was only in 2004 that Ivan Avramov made his first open appearance on the public stage of the Ukrainian economy as a modest and little-known president of Luhansk Coal Company CJSC (incidentally, this is why he was often mistakenly called a Luhansk resident). This CJSC is 50% owned by LLC “Financial Company”, which in turn is half owned by Ivan Avramov. According to official information, Ivan Ivanyushchenko owns controlling stakes in only a few of the companies and firms related to Ivanyushchenko and Avramov, while in the rest he is only a co-owner who manages them. The other co-owner of these companies is Yuriy Ivanyushchenko or his relatives (children). The names of the other shareholders are not explicitly mentioned, and only fragmentary information suggests that they are Serhiy Avramov (how can you leave your brother without income!), as well as several other business partners of Avramov and Ivanyushchenko, such as Luhansk businessmen Ihor Antimonov and Kostyantyn Khvorostyanyi. Thus, the scheme of business relations between Ivan Avramov and Yuriy Ivanyushchenko is an almost equal partnership (at least in terms of the number of shares), in which Avramov took over the management of the business, and Ivanyushchenko provided “protection”. However, given that Ivanyushchenko’s fortune in 2012 was estimated at $756 million, and Ivan Avramov’s “only” at $252 million (plus a certain share of his brother Serhiy), it is clear that not all of Ivanyushchenko’s business was divided exactly in half with Avramov. In addition, Yuriy Yenakiyevsky had many other sources of income, in which Ivan Avramov’s participation remained unknown.
Journalist Yuriy Butusov wrote a post on Facebook about Avramov:
But let’s get back to Luhansk Coal Company CJSC. Together with Antimonov, it owned OJSC Luhansk Repair and Mechanical Plant, while Ivan Avramov had another share (17%) in it through Odesa-based Ukragrocomp LLC. Luhansk Coal Company also owns 51.77% of Donbasholding CJSC, which, in turn, owned stakes in Yanivske CJSC (formerly Yanivska Central Processing Plant), Mykhailivska Group Processing Plant LLC, Nagolchanska Central Processing Plant, and Bilorichenska Group Processing Plant. Antimonov and Khvorostyanoy had stakes in them, but it was reported that they were going to sell their stakes to Ivan Avramov, who was thus concentrating control over the coal enterprises of their joint business with Ivanyushchenko.
Among other companies owned by Ivan Avramov, it is worth highlighting:
Grand LLC, (Donetsk region) — co-owner of the Bolhrad winery
Stavr LLC — co-owner of Yenakiieve Coke Plant
Rodon PE (Odesa) — co-owner of the Bolgrad Winery
Rukan LLC
Yenakiieve Transportation Company LLC
Depas Ltd (Odesa)
PE “Donbas-Odesa”
“Parrox Corporation Ltd (UK) — the owner of a stake in Promtovarnyi Rynok LLC (Odesa’s 7th Kilometer).
It is worth noting that Avramov’s schemes often use a clever technique where the companies he manages own shares in each other — a kind of “snake chewing on its own tail”. Why? Perhaps to make these tails (ends) harder to find?
In 2010, Avramov and Ivanyushchenko began to take over Odesa. By this point, their power had reached its maximum. Thanks to Ivanyushchenko’s personal relationship with the Yanukovych family (Viktor Fedorovych and his son Oleksandr, nicknamed Sasha the Dentist), he was able to get the powers of “overseer” over most regions of Ukraine from the presidential family. It should be clarified here: Ukrainian “supervisors” from presidents (not only from Yanukovych) mainly “covered” corruption in government and law enforcement agencies, shadow business, redistribution and raider seizures, and played the role of a shadow court of appeal. The task of a “smotryach” is to keep abreast of dark deeds and corruption schemes in his region, to make sure that the locals “do not hound” (respect the center and share profits), to resolve conflicts, and to use his power to destroy some businessmen or officials and to save others from being attacked for a reward. In other words, these are not classical “lookouts” of the criminal world, but something like unofficial representatives of the president with a lot of unofficial powers and opportunities.
In turn, Ivanyushchenko appointed Ivan Avramov as his “lookout” in Odesa region. However, Ivan Ivanovych and his mysterious brother Serhiy Ivanovych already had enough personal connections. Thus, through Ivanyushchenko, they became close to the Yanukovych family, and especially to Oleksandr, with whom they shared a hobby of wild boar hunting. But the main thing that connected them was the coal business. When the media wrote about the mines and “diggings” of Sasha Stomatologist and Yura Yenakiyevsky, they were somewhat mistaken: Ivan Avramov was a “bright head” who was a partner in Alexander Yanukovych’s coal schemes, and it was he who worked with them — but he habitually gave all the “glory” to his companion Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, who got all the bumps in the road. That’s why Avramov’s name was hardly ever mentioned in public coal scandals later on — he modestly remained in the shadows.
Avramov brothers and Oleksandr Yanukovych
So, in 2010, Ivan Avramov had already thoroughly settled down in his native Odesa, first of all, taking over the Southern Customs. Few people knew the true breadth of their plans, as the customs office offered enormous opportunities, but Avramov and Ivanyushchenko got burned, so to speak, on little. First, they established their full control over the only monopoly producer and seller of ethyl alcohol in Ukraine, the State Concern “Ukrspirt”, by imposing their schemes on it.
Then they used the capabilities of the Southern Customs for its intended purpose to block the supply of smuggled alcohol to Ukraine from Transnistria, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Georgia, leaving all producers of “burnt” alcohol products without raw materials. After that, they offered them to buy “left-handed” alcohol from them (in particular, produced by their Bolgrad plant). And Avramov-Ivanushchenko bought some of this “left-handed” alcohol themselves abroad and smuggled it through their personal channel through the Southern Customs. The customs was also used to import duty-free fuel into Ukraine (the losses to the state budget were estimated at billions of hryvnias), and Avramov and Ivanyushchenko’s partners in this business were Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Kliuyev and former Minister of Ecology Mykola Zlochevsky).
Avramov brothers and Oleksandr Yanukovych on a joint hunt:
It was on fuel that they burned: Kyiv was angry that Kliuyev and Ivanyushchenko had “lost their edge,” and they had plenty of enemies among Akhmetov’s team and local Odesa “barons,” not to mention the opposition, which was constantly looking for the government’s mistakes.
Since then, Ivanyushchenko’s rapid rise has slowed down, he had a conflict with the presidential family, the SBU became interested in Ukrspyrt, and in early 2012 Ivanyushchenko and Avramov even temporarily left Ukraine, fearing serious trouble, generously paying off Ukrainian websites for removing information about them. However, they escaped, and although Ivanyushchenko’s influence in Odesa fell sharply after that (he was pushed aside), and Avramov was “taken away” from the Southern Customs, they continued to “hoe up” the city. It was said that personal and business ties between Avramov and Oleksandr Yanukovych, who had a better relationship with the compliant fat man Ivan Ivanovych than with the tough “Uncle Yura,” helped.
In 2012, through Avramov’s efforts, he and Ivaniushchenko’s company Parrox Corporation Ltd. began to increase its stake in Promtovarnyi Rynok LLC, becoming the main owner of the 7th Kilometer (they literally “squeezed” the first 27% stake from businessman Viktor Dobriansky in 2011). Control over one of the largest markets in Ukraine, through which the flow of wholesale trade in consumer goods was going on, promised good dividends, and in the form of uncontrolled “black cash.” However, part of it had to be given to the needs of the Party of Regions — this was one of the conditions of the presidential “family” that allowed Avramov-Ivanushchenko to “conquer” the market. And they began to mercilessly rob the 7th Kilometer.
Sources reported that Ivan Avramov, through his proxy Oleh Hres and market director Borys Melnychuk, imposed new fees on traders: for space, rent, the right to trade, security, utilities, and an additional unofficial service — protection from visits by sanitary and fire inspectors. In addition, at the end of 2013, with the start of Euromaidan, when the Donetsk market smelled something fried, it stopped paying fees to the budget and to related companies (Oblenergo, water utility), which led to its scandalous bankruptcy.
Ivan Avramov. Maidan, Anti-Maidan and Girkin
Another old acquaintance of Ivan Avramov and Yuriy Ivanyushchenko is Armen Sargsyan from Horlivka. His father, Nagapet Sargsyan, was a highly respected person in the city’s Armenian diaspora, but his son formed an organized crime group in the 1990s, which had an interesting debut: just before the old Horlivka gangs were defeated by the organized crime group (headed by Yuriy Shrubyanets).
So Sargsyan’s “brigade” actually came to a cleared place, immediately crushing first the entire shadow economy of the city, then the economy in general, and at the same time law enforcement agencies. So why did the “cops” who destroyed the Horlivka organized crime groups of the early 90s suddenly cower before Sargsyan? Because he made such influential friends as Yuriy Ivanyushchenko and Gennadiy Uzbek (former leader of the Donetsk “luxury” organized crime group, now the honorary president of the Union Boxing Promotion), who made Sarkisyan the “lookout” for Horlivka.
Thus, he received the nickname Armen Horlivskyi, became the vice president of the Donetsk Boxing Federation, the owner of the Gostiny Dvor restaurant (which became his headquarters), the owner of the Red Army Machine-Building Plant, the best friend of the head of the Horlivka Police Department Pavlo Panasyuk (now former), etc., etc.
By the way, back in 2013, on Armen’s initiative, Horlivka underwent a small “decommunization”: Klockov Street (a Bolshevik who was an active participant in the events of 1917) was renamed Nagapet Sargsyan Street. This is how a grateful son decided to immortalize his father’s memory. Moreover, when Skelet.Info colleagues asked the residents of the renamed street whether they approved of the surprise, they only nodded in fright, saying they had nothing against it, leave us alone! And this is understandable: people were simply panicked by the omnipotent and cruel “watcher.”
Armen Sargsyan
When Euromaidan began, Sargsyan’s men (athletes and tough guys with criminal records) were “mobilized”. However, they did not sit in Mariinsky Park with other “titushky” but participated in “special operations,” including criminal ones. In particular, on January 19, 2014, they organized a hooligan attack on Donetsk’s Maidan, during which they beat its participants. One of the leaders of the attackers, Eduard Polepkin (Sargsyan’s business partner), also broke the pole with the national flags of Ukraine on his knee. On January 26, Sargsyan’s men, together with the “boys from Avdiivka” who had arrived, and with the participation of some dressed Cossacks, staged an attempt to seize the regional state administration in Donetsk, during which… peaceful supporters of Yanukovych who were quietly rallying nearby were beaten.
And on the night of February 18-19, in Kyiv, as later officially stated by representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine, it was Sargsyan’s men who participated in the attacks near Mykhailivska Square, during which 5 people were killed, including Vesti correspondent Vyacheslav Veremiy. So, witnesses noted that at that time Sargsyan’s men were regularly seen near Ivanyushchenko-Avramov’s Kyiv office (4 Rylskoho Lane), where they had a kind of base and a gathering point. And here’s the interesting thing: there was information that Ivanyushchenko was no longer in Kyiv on February 18-19, 2014, and he had “made his way” much earlier. That is, Ivan Avramov was in the office on those days — who, it turns out, could have coordinated the “work” of this gang of killers. Moreover, immediately after these high-profile crimes, on February 20, Ivan Avramov hastily left Ukraine for two weeks. We emphasize that the escape of Yanukovych and his entourage began only on January 22.
But the most interesting thing happened later. On March 6, Ivan Avramov returned to Kyiv, and the media directly reported that the reason for his visit was concern about the risk of “looting” Avramov-Ivanushchenko’s business in Ukraine. Two weeks later, the media reported that the office at 4 Rylskoho Street was still open, and that it was being carefully guarded against a possible pogrom by overzealous revolutionaries. The journalists found out that the new security guards at Avramov’s office were presented as “Maidan self-defense” and were in fact either people from the Konstantinovsky brothers’ groups, who specialized in protecting offices and boutiques from pogroms during Euromaidan, or specially selected people of Igor Kryvetsky, who was the main creator and curator of the “Self-Defense”. This news shocked the idealists: Euromaidan activists guarding the office of their murderers! But the pragmatists saw nothing strange in the fact that the “supervisor” from Yuriy Yenakiyevsky received protection from the “Karamazov brothers” (former henchmen of the Ukrainian-American mafia leader Alik Magadan) or the Lviv criminal authority Pups. It was the underside of the Maidan — disgusting, stinking of salesmanship, lies and thieves’ “agreements.”
But the story of Armen Sargsyan did not end there. In April 2014, his men, according to witnesses, took part in the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in Donetsk and the proclamation of the DPR, and then joined the group of Igor Strelkov (Girkin), who captured Sloviansk. When the militants decided to retreat from Sloviansk, Sargsyan’s men did not go to Donetsk with the others, but were transferred to Ukrainian territory under the guise of refugees, and then, according to the source, headed to Odesa. Where they settled down and were put at the full disposal of Ivan Avramov to carry out specific instructions from Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, the “overseer” of Odesa’s business.
And here’s another little-known fact from Skelet.Info’s informed sources: during May-July 2014, when Sargsyan’s “boys” were fighting in Sloviansk against Ukrainian security forces, Avramov’s business structures were financing them. According to unconfirmed information, another militant leader, Igor Bezler “Imp” — the former head of Artur Gerasimov’s security — received a “salary” from them for several months.
Interestingly, Gerasimov, who now heads the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction in the Verkhovna Rada, ran for election in 2012 as part of the “Sergei Shakhov team.” And in 2015, Shakhov and Avramov became the main details of the unofficial presidential project Nash Krai.
Ivan Avramov. The return of the “watcher”
Founded in 2011 by Odesa businessman Anton Kisse, the Nash Krai party had been rotting on the political margins for several years, until suddenly in 2015, President Petro Poroshenko’s team took notice. It needed a counterweight to the Opposition Bloc, the most intractable fragment of the Party of Regions, which threatened to take an absolute majority of seats in local councils in Southeastern Ukraine in the 2015 elections.
Was it a coincidence that the choice fell on Anton Kisse’s Nash Krai? And why did Ivan Avramov, who enthusiastically took on this assignment as if it were a condition for his rehabilitation before the new government, become its main unofficial curator, or even its “watcher”?
Interestingly, along with Ivan Avramov’s success in the field of the presidential project “Nash Krai,” information immediately appeared that Yuriy Yenakiyevsky’s “supervisor” was doing everything to protect their joint Odesa business. And it was not just the conflict over the 7th Kilometer, which Viktor Dobriansky began to reclaim.
Well, it seems that Avramov turned out to be indispensable for Bankova. Judge for yourself: despite the fact that Kissé was once a member of the Verkhovna Rada, he remained a provincial Odesa oligarch, and his old connections (Lytvyn, Brodsky) had lost their influence by 2015. It is unlikely that such a person would have coped with the task of quickly promoting his pocket party to the state level. But here comes Ivan Avramov, out of breath from working hard. And the first thing he does is immediately organize branches of Nash Krai in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, where he has extensive connections and acquaintances. This alone helped the party become one of the favorites in the elections. Kisse’s gratitude knew no bounds, especially since the “party genius” immediately had some joint business in Odesa.
And in 2016, as the head of the Association of Bulgarian National and Cultural Societies and Organizations of Ukraine (which he simply turned into a pocket organization), Kissé petitioned the Bulgarian government to grant Ivan Avramov… honorary Bulgarian citizenship! By the way, Kissé has long had his own Bulgarian passport. And it seems that the leaders of “Nash Krai” do not care about such open disregard for the laws of Ukraine.
Skeleton.Info is not surprised that the Kharkiv branch of Nash Krai is headed by oligarch Oleksandr Feldman. It is worth recalling 2011, when numerous rumors emerged that Yuriy Ivanyushchenko wanted to take over not only the 7th Kilometer, but also Feldman’s Barabashovo in Kharkiv. And then witnesses reported a meeting between Feldman and Ivan Avramov, which ended very amicably, apparently because the parties found common interest and understanding. After that, Feldman personally called the rumors about Ivanyushchenko’s possible seizure of Barabashovo nonsense, and the latter, in turn, no longer showed any interest in him. Thus, Ivan Ivanyushchenko brought his “good friend” into the party.
Meanwhile, in 2015 and 2016, Avramov-Ivanushchenko’s structures, including the Nagolchanskaya CPF LLC, re-registered in Kyiv, continued to work in the LPR, not only paying salaries to their employees but also taxes to the “republic’s” treasury, which were used to finance the separatists. But Avramov was not even scolded for this.
He also got away with the epic with the 7th kilometer. It was only by the fall of 2016 that the Prosecutor General’s Office was again closely involved in the case of Yuriy Ivanyushchenko and Ivan Avramov over the raider seizure of market shares in 2011. In this regard, Avramov even left Ukraine for a while, apparently realizing that even a dozen medics would not be able to carry him into the court building on a stretcher. However, in early 2017, serious negotiators intervened in the case: one of them was Hryhoriy Surkis, and the other was presidential adviser Boris Lozhkin. Both negotiators had common business interests with the Avramov-Ivanushchenko duo, and Lozhkin’s interests overlapped with Ukrspyrt — he was called the next “curator” of this enterprise after Avramov, so one could initiate the other into very interesting schemes.
And here’s the result: initially, the political hype around this case was reduced to the personality of Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, who was too well known to Ukrainians. Instead, the name of Ivan Avramov was hardly mentioned in this context, his past was forgotten, and they did not even think to put Avramov on the wanted list.
And then in February 2017, the Supreme Court ruled to close the criminal cases against Ivanyushchenko and Avramov. It is clear that in the case of Ivanyushchenko, this decision only exempts his foreign property from seizure, but such an odious figure will not be able to appear in Ukraine for the time being, as he will be immediately reminded of other cases.
But Ivan Ivanovich can now safely return home again and continue his hard work, perhaps even preparing for new elections.
Pivdennyi Bank was involved in Ivanyushchenko’s “schemes”
The Odesa-based bank has surfaced in the case file on the large-scale embezzlement of Kyoto funds during Yanukovych’s time.
The fugitive former Party of Regions member Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, who is desperately trying to whitewash himself, has a new cause for concern. The Prosecutor General’s Office has recently obtained a court order to seize the bank documents of Interoffice Limited, a company that has a reputation as one of the key structures of a former member of Viktor Yanukovych’s inner circle. It is registered to the venture investment fund New Technologies, which, as OLIGARCH previously reported, was created to manage the assets of Ivanyushchenko and his significant partner Ivan Avramov.
In particular, the founders of New Technologies are two companies from the UK — Industry East Europe Investments Ltd and Production Investment Managerent Ltd, whose roots lead to London-based Pallace Ltd, which was fully owned by Ivan Avramov, and Rollexa Ltd, owned by Iryna Ivanyushchenko (80%) and Diana Ivanyushchenko (20%), the wife and daughter of Yuriy Yenakiyevsky.
However, according to Oleh Nedava, the former head of New Technologies and current MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, who recently voiced this during a so-called “briefing,” Yuriy Ivanyushchenko allegedly had nothing to do with this scheme, as he had divorced Iryna Ivanyushchenko in the mid-2000s. This, to put it mildly, does not seem to be true, since, for example, in his 2011 declaration, personally drawn up and signed by him, he listed Iryna Ivanyushchenko as his current wife. And in 2012. Forbes Ukraine published a list of companies owned by Ivaniushchenko and Avramov, which Avramov personally handed over to the publication.
Among other things, Avramov included both New Technologies and the company Karpatybudinvest, a related fund, which also employed Ivaniushchenko’s tireless defense lawyer, Oleh Nedava.
Now, according to the papers, Ivaniushchenko and Avramov have no relation to these companies — they list South African residents as their beneficiaries, among whom Willem Martinus de Beer stands out. He appeared as a “beneficiary” not only in New Technologies, Karpatybudinvest and Interoffice Limited, but also in the Tri O company, which owns the scandalous Gulliver mixed-use development in Kyiv.” However, there is little doubt that the South African lawyers are simply a front for Ivanyushchenko and Avramov, who are currently on the wanted list.
Both Karpatybudinvest and Interoffice Limited appear in the materials of criminal proceedings No. 32013110090000107 of the Prosecutor General’s Office on the fact of embezzlement of state budget funds in 2012-2014 by officials of the State Enterprise Derzekoinvest in collusion with a number of private entities (mainly from Odesa), which were considered close to Ivaniushchenko and Avramov.
According to OLIGARCH, during the pre-trial investigation, the PGO received data from the State Financial Monitoring Service based on information from the Latvian authorities.
According to this information, the money from the entities that entered into contracts with the State Enterprise Derzekoinvest was transferred to the accounts of non-resident companies Industry East Europe Investments Ltd, Production Investment Management Ltd and Imex Provider Ltd opened in Regionala Investiciju Banka AS (Latvia). The latter does not hide its connection with Yuriy Rodin, the founder of Odesa-based Pivdennyi Bank. Moreover, the investigation found that funds from the account of Imex Provider Ltd were subsequently transferred as loans to Pivdenny Bank.
The connection between Pivdennyi and Ivanyushchenko’s group has been reported by the media on numerous occasions. In 2011, Censor even cited its sources as saying that Ivanyushchenko had become the owner of Pivdennyi Bank. Until recently, no evidence of this was provided, but now, in light of the data obtained with the help of Latvian law enforcement agencies, such assumptions no longer look unfounded.
GlobalMoney
On September 3, following numerous protests by ATO veterans, Renaissance Business Center terminated its lease agreement with Globalmoney. Earlier, on August 27, it became known that the National Police suspected GlobalMoney of money laundering and withdrawal of funds to Russia, and therefore called on the NBU to cancel the registration of GlobalMoney’s international payment service in Ukraine.
Protests by ATO veterans:
On July 27, the media published the news that Vkontakte had launched a Global24 page (Globalmoney e-wallet). In the comments, a representative of GlobalMoney answered clients’ questions that the payment system works with “any bank” in the Russian Federation. The Global24 page on Vkontakte advertised a joint project between Globalmoney and the Russian state-owned VTB bank, VTB24. Big Advantage”. Media outlets found an advertisement on Vkontakte for the so-called LPR financial institution First Commercial Center, which offered the possibility of withdrawing funds from Global24 wallets in occupied Luhansk. Later, the media of the so-called “LPR” stood up for Globalmoney, calling the scandal around the company a “witch hunt.”
Danylo Turchyn, the head of the NGO “Sorry to be Alive,” wrote more about the incident on his Facebook page:
«The Russian-Separatist company GlobalMoney, which transferred billions to Russia, worked with Russian banks and financed the Luhansk «burning», has shamefully fled from its location in the Renaissance Business Center. They were afraid of Ukrainian soldiers, just as they were afraid of us during the war. We know that now separatists from GlobalMoney are looking for a new lair on Ukrainian soil.
You can run away from the business center, but you cannot run away from the Ukrainian people. ATO veterans put separatist and FSB accomplices from GlobalMoney on the civilian wanted list! The names of the criminals: Yuri Ivanyushchenko-Yenakievsky, Ivan Avramov, Oleg Mishchenko, Vyacheslav Strelkovsky. Special signs of the criminals: hands in blood, laundering criminal money, sending it to Russia, financing militias in the LDNR,” said Danylo Turchyn, head of the NGO ‘Sorry to be Alive’.
Resume
Ivan Avramov is a Yanukovych-era overseer of Odesa region. He bought his immunity for $50 million, and together with Yuriy Yenakiyevsky, he was involved in money fraud and smuggling. He was put on the wanted list, but after a while he managed to get out of the situation and return to Ukraine.