Chernovetskyi Stepan Leonidovych
Official biography
Place of birth. Education. Born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. In 2003, he graduated from the Law Faculty of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (qualification — specialist in law).
Career.
- He started his career in 1996 as a manager of the customer service department at Pravex-Bank. He headed a number of departments of the bank (including the head of the branch network department, responsible for management, staff training, analysis of economic results and personnel issues), and was a senior vice president.
- In May 2006, he became the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Pravex-Bank.
- In July 2008, the Italian Intesa Sanpaolo Group completed the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of Pravex-Bank.
- On September 5, 2008, the shareholders’ meeting of PRAVEX-Bank decided to resign from the position of the bank’s Supervisory Board Chairman. Silvio Pedrazzi, an Italian citizen who served as First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo S.P.A. (Belgrade), was elected to this position.
- In 2008-2009, he was a member of the Kyiv City Council, a member of the Leonid Chernovetsky Bloc faction. He was a member of the Committee on Budget and Socio-Economic Development. He resigned his deputy powers early. He did not comment on his decision, but those close to Chernovetsky Jr. cited his fatigue from constant accusations and his desire to leave politics and go into business as the reasons for this action.
After leaving the Kyiv City Council, he started organizing boxing tournaments. Chernovetsky’s promotional company Elite-boxing planned to cooperate with K2 East Promotions, which was left by politician and famous boxer Vitali Klitschko.
In December 2015, former Kyiv mayor Leonid Chernovetsky announced his intention to hand over the management of his business to his son Stepan Chernovetsky in order to devote himself fully to politics and take part in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia. Chernovetskyi Investment Group (CIG), an investment company focused on investments in IT projects in e-commerce, infrastructure, healthcare, and the agricultural sector, will be transferred to Chernovetskyi Jr.
Family.
Stepan Chernovetsky is married and has five children. His father is Leonid Chernovetsky, former mayor of Kyiv and former major shareholder of Pravex Bank. His mother is Alina Aivazova, an entrepreneur. Has a sister, Khrystyna (born in 1979).
Hobbies. He is fond of sports (football, running, boxing), gaming, sports cars.
What companies does Leonid Chernovetskyi’s son own?
According to the popular OpenData resource, Stepan Chernivetskyi owns 19 companies.
The Clarity Project resource shows us 44 organizations where Stepan is listed as a founder and/or beneficiary.
Compromising evidence
Chernovetsky’s son and his accomplices laundered about 10 million euros
The son of former Kyiv mayor Stepan Chernovetsky and other detainees detained in Spain on Tuesday laundered about 10 million euros.
This was reported by El Pais, citing law enforcement sources.
According to the newspaper, Chernovetsky and his accomplices bought companies in Spain to launder funds located in other countries, mainly in Cyprus and the Virgin Islands. These funds were then invested in real estate in Spain.
It is worth noting that, according to the publication, Chernovetsky’s son was detained not in Barcelona, but in the elite resort town of S’Agaro on the Costa Brava.
Earlier, another Spanish media outlet, El Mundo, reported that Chernovetsky was detained in Barcelona in a restaurant. The publication cited a video and a photo showing Chernovetsky, among others.
In addition, according to the media outlet, the criminal organization consisted of people “mainly of Ukrainian origin”.
«Global Trend.»
Global Trend is also involved in criminal cases.
“Adventures” with Ukrbud
At the end of 2019, the Delo website published a very frank interview with the new shareholder of Ukrbud, Dmytro Fedotenkov, who explained what the company’s investors’ money was spent on and, as a result, how the largest construction company in Kyiv was on the verge of collapse, and how this situation is related to the presidential election. Mr. Fedotenkov described the details of the scheme to redistribute Ukrbud and the entire construction market in the capital in favor of companies close to the Presidential Office. By the way, the initiator of the same scheme is Serhiy Kucher, the former head of the Kyiv SACC. Kucher, according to Fedotenkov, is a ward of Serhiy Trofimov, the first deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, and was promoted to the post of president of Ukrbud, but it did not work out.
According to the scheme, 40% of the company was to go to Kucher, 20% to entities close to Zelenskyy, and 40% to an investor, who was to be Stepan Chernovetsky at the time.
Chernovetsky’s son sells houses in Barcelona
The son of former mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, Stepan, is selling real estate in Barcelona, Spain. As Vesti found out, he cooperates with former employees of Pravex Bank, and is looking for a Russian-speaking Spanish resident to help him.
The website of the official bulletin of the Spanish commercial register lists Cherd Investment, a company founded by Stepan Chernovetsky. The company’s capital is 203 thousand euros, and its main activity is the purchase, sale, management and operation of all types of real estate. The company’s office is located in the elite district of Barcelona, on Estivi Terradas Street, where a square meter of housing costs 3200 euros. By the way, the firm is currently looking for a Russian-speaking assistant, with a salary of 1 thousand euros, which is the usual salary for such work in Barcelona. “Assistant with knowledge of Russian, EU, Spanish citizen or immigrant with the right to work,” the ad reads. We sent our resume there, but have not yet received a response.
Stepan Chernovetsky’s company is also associated with Arm and Step (they are listed as joint ventures in the same register), which appeared only in March of this year. This firm is also involved in real estate, and former managers of Pravex Bank, such as former deputy chairman Roman Valesyuk, work there. We got through to him, but when we asked him about Stepan Chernovetsky, he answered: “I’m sorry, but I have no right to tell you anything or comment on it.”
How Chernovetsky and his family live
As Vesti found out, Stepan still has a boxing club in Kyiv. Although, according to his friends, he hasn’t been there recently. In October 2015, he was in the news as a promoter of the official WBC world title challenger Viktor Postol. The same Roman Valesiuk is listed as the club’s general manager. Yesterday afternoon, the boxing club’s website disappeared information about the managers’ phone numbers, and no one answers the phone. “Stepan has always been passionate about working with this club, but after moving to Barcelona, he practically retired from business. He rented it out, although the club is still his. Stepan himself is in Kyiv very rarely — he comes on business related to his property in Kyiv,” the source told us.
According to him, Stepan’s mother, the former wife of the ex-mayor, Alina Aivazova, who lived in the United States for several years after the divorce, is already in Europe. “She lives either in Barcelona, where her son is with his wife and four children, or in Moscow with her daughter Kristina. She also visits Kyiv, though her visits are not very public,” a source close to the Chernovetsky family told us.
Chernovetsky’s daughter Khrystyna carefully conceals her life. It is known that she and her husband, the son of former National Bank official Sergei Yanchukov, live in Moscow and are raising four children, three of whom are from her first marriage.
Russian media report that Yanchukov’s career has skyrocketed since marrying Chernovetsky’s daughter. He is now the head of the Mangazeya company, which is engaged in gold mining. In February of this year, the businessman got into trouble in Russia and was accused of tax evasion. But now this scandal has been hushed up. Khrystyna is also mentioned in one of the scandals related to charity. She and her husband volunteered to sponsor an Orthodox boarding school in the Moscow region. However, they promised to provide assistance in exchange for all employees of the institution taking a polygraph. The teachers wrote complaints to Patriarch Kirill, and after that the most active of them had to resign.
“Memoranda” and “conceptual agreements”
In June 2020, Chernovetsky became a subject of an investigation by the Bihus.Info project. MP Geo Leros handed journalists copies of documents that “could have been on the computer of the office of Denys Komarnytskyi, a former associate of Chernovetskyi’s father, where security forces conducted searches in October 2019.
The documents include “memoranda” and “conceptual agreements”. These are agreements between “respectable people” regarding certain business matters. These agreements have no legal weight and are governed solely by the authority of the signatories. The “conceptual agreements” concerned the sale of certain construction projects in Kyiv.
One of the documents, a draft of a «concept» prepared in May 2018, refers to 230 hectares near the Pirogovo Museum in Kyiv, which are planned to be built up with residential complexes. Among the parties to the agreement are Andriy Ivanov, a business partner of the well-known businessman and developer Vasyl Khmelnytsky, Chernovetsky, and the former «gray cardinal» of Kyiv, MP from the OPFL Vadym Stolar. The «concept» was that Ivanov and Chernovetsky planned to build on this land plot, and Stolar was to help resolve issues with all authorities: «Ensure that the Kyiv City Council adopts a detailed plan of the territory by the end of the year; Ensure that the Kyiv City Council decides to allow the construction of high-rise buildings (at least 9 floors); Ensure that urban planning conditions are issued; Approve reduced land rents.» For these services, Stolar was allegedly offered 15000000 dollars.
Interestingly, Chernovetsky’s entourage tried to bring this land plot for construction back in 2007. At that time, the Kyiv City Council gave the land to a number of fictitious cooperatives, but the decision was challenged in court and the land was returned to the city. Six months after the “conceptual agreement” between Stolar, Chernovetsky, and Ivanov appeared, in December 2018, the Kyiv City State Administration’s Urban Development Department issued urban planning conditions, a document that gives the go-ahead for construction in Kyiv, for one of the plots within these 230 hectares. It was this plot that was listed first in the “conceptualization” as the first in the queue for withdrawal. Moreover, the height of the future construction specified in the MOU coincided with the “wish” in the “concept” — approximately 9 floors.
One of the “concept notes” found by journalists also states that Komarnitsky and Stolitsa Group co-founder Vlada Molchanova are allegedly agreeing on a joint purchase and future development of the Kommash plant in Kyiv. The territory of the plant is about 4 hectares near the city center. The draft of this document states that the parties will finance the project 50-50, and Molchanova, as a representative of Stolitsa Group, is offered to become the general developer and even receive a “leverage”.
Later, in May 2018, a signed version of this “concept” appeared. Molchanova remains there, but Komarnitsky is replaced by Stepan Chernovetsky. The authors of the investigation claim that a number of other documents from the archive may indicate that it was Chernovetskyi who actively, but not publicly, invested significant funds in various construction projects in the city.
Komarnitsky and Kucher squeeze Obolon land to rob people
For several years, Stepan Chernovetskyi, together with the former head of the State Architectural and Construction Inspectorate Serhiy Kucher and the Intersport company, have been trying to deprive Kyiv of a unique building, the former Chaika sports and recreation complex. It is now the Aquarium fitness center. They want to build a residential complex in its place. For this purpose, the land managers entered into an agreement with the main schemers and withdrew the land from the ownership of the territorial community of the Obolon district of Kyiv.
Chernovetsky’s son is not publicly investing in Kyiv real estate
Stepan Chernovetskyi, president of Chernovetskyi Investment Group and son of the former mayor of Kyiv, is actively but not publicly investing in the primary real estate market of the Ukrainian capital.
This is stated in an article on Ekonomichna Pravda.
In particular, Chernovetsky owns a land plot in Vynohradar near the future Mostytska metro station, where the Dibrova Park residential complex is being built. The developer of the project is IB Alliance.
Chernovetsky also actively cooperated with KAN Development. In addition to financing the construction of Comfort Town, as previously described by KAN owner Ihor Nikonov, the former mayor’s son invested in the construction of two more KAN Development residential complexes — Tetris Hall and Central Park — but not on his own, but with the help of “professional asset managers.”
The receptionist of Stepan Chernovetsky told the EP that he does not personally invest in real estate.
Chernovetsky’s son buys NTV-Mir in Ukraine
Kyiv’s Batkivshchyna is completely captured by mafia watchdog Denys Komarnitsky: party members are leaving the organization
The head of the Obolon branch of the Batkivshchyna party, Kyiv City Council member Olha Veremeienko, has written a letter of resignation from the party.
She claims that the decision was forced, as the Kyiv party organization was finally taken over by the capital’s construction lobby. Open sources claim that this party branch is now controlled by Denys Komarnytskyi, the “supervisor” of Kyiv, and the son of the former mayor, Stepan Chernovetskyi.
Olha Veremeienko published her statement of resignation from the party and noted that she had been a member of the Batkivshchyna party for almost 20 years and that her decision to leave was forced.
“Bass, Chernovetsky, Komarnitsky”: journalist names owners of construction project that cut off half of Kyiv’s road
Let’s continue with the topic of scandalous construction right on the capital’s Kurbas Avenue, which brazenly occupied 1 of the 3 rows of the roadway.
The majority owner of the shopping center “April”, which is being built over the light rail stop, is Denis Bass.
In the past, he was the first deputy chairman of Pravex Bank.
He is a close friend of Stepan Chernovetsky, who first saved him from drug addiction and then from a term in Spain. You can continue the logical line yourself: Bass, Chernovetsky, Komarnitsky.
The fight in “Ibiza”
In 2006, a scandal erupted in the press: allegedly, on the night of July 1 to 2, the son of Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, Stepan, with a group of friends and bodyguards, got into a fight with the security of Ibiza.
Some media outlets, citing eyewitnesses, reported that Chernovetsky’s company, in response to the guards’ remarks about their bad behavior, beat them and even shot at the ceiling.
Later it turned out that there was no evidence of the incident, and many of the media outlets that reported on the scandal claimed compensation for moral damages from Stepan Chernovetsky.
Son of fugitive ex-mayor Chernovetsky makes money on food delivery during quarantine
Leonid Chernovetskyi’s firm Chernovetskyi Investment Group, run by his son Stepan, made a good investment in Zakaz.ua, the largest food and grocery delivery service, on the eve of the quarantine, when the prospect of mass isolation and self-isolation of citizens was aroused.
While they used to be co-owners of Zakaz.ua, giving $2.5 million for its promotion in 2014, in early March they actually bought the service outright for $5 million. The costs will be recouped quickly, as Zakaz.ua’s turnover has increased several times since the quarantine was tightened.
Chernovetsky also has a stake in Eda.ua, a ready-to-eat restaurant delivery service run by Armenians from Yerevan (Vahan Kerobyan’s company), but the volume is not comparable to Zakaz.ua.
Prior to that, Chernovetsky Jr. invested in the KAN Development projects of Igor Nikonov, who is close to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. Nikonov built the Comfort Town residential complex on Chernovetsky’s land (the territory of the former Vulcan plant) and jointly owned the 101 Tower business center under the same scheme: the land belonged to Chernovetsky, the building was his.
But before the quarantine was imposed, Ihor Nikonov and Stepan Chernovetsky reached an agreement with Tomas Fiala to sell the company that owned the skyscraper to Dragon Capital, George Soros’ main partner in Ukraine.
Soros gave Fiala $200 million to buy assets this year. They spent a third of it on buying out (h) Poland’s Idea Bank from Leszek Czarnecki, a Soros associate, Polish billionaire, former sponsor of Solidarity, and friend of Walesa, Kwasniewski, and Komorowski.
The rest of the money was used to buy 101 Tower from Chernovetsky and Nikonov. After the deal is completed, Chernovetsky Sr. will have a large resource to “invest” in closing the criminal cases against him, and then he will finally be able to come home.
The list of “Servant of the People” candidates for the Kyiv City Council is formed from Klitschko and Chernovetsky’s people
The list of the Servant of the People party, which will run in the Kyiv City Council elections, is being formed by Stepan Chernovetsky (son of the former mayor of the capital) and Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The connecting link in this process is the former co-chairman of the Leonid Chernovetsky Bloc faction, Denys Komarnitsky, who works at the Servant of the People’s Kyiv headquarters at the invitation of Mykola Tyshchenko, a majoritarian from Sviatoshyn.
KV learned about this from a post on the Dark Knight Telegram channel, which is associated with majoritarian MPs from the Servant of the People party, Oleksandr Dubinsky (94th constituency, Vasylkiv, Obukhiv and the corresponding districts of Kyiv region) and Maksym Buzhansky (25th constituency, Dnipro).
“Mykola Tyshchenko (219th constituency, Sviatoshyno — KV), who was appointed as the curator of the capital (in the local elections to be held on October 25, 2016 — KV), hired Denys Komarnytskyi (former co-chair of the Leonid Chernovetskyi Bloc faction in the Kyiv City Council — KV), who shares an office with (the son of the former mayor of Kyiv — KV) Stepan Chernovetskyi in the IQ Business Center. The Chernovetsky’s are the main sponsor of Tyshchenko’s election campaign in Kyiv and for this they put half of their people on the list,” TG channel reported.
Mykytas, Kucher and Chernovetsky Jr. signed an unofficial memorandum on the development of Pechersk.
Scandalous developer Maksym Mykytas, corrupt official Serhiy Kucher and the son of the odious Kyiv mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, Stepan, have signed a so-called “notion” — an unofficial memorandum on the construction of an apartment complex in Pechersk.
The document was made available to the editorial office by a source who wished to remain anonymous.
Chernovetsky Jr. spotted in Monaco at Vadym Stolar’s birthday party
Leonid Chernovetsky: My son was extorted for the absence of stories about him on 1+1 TV channel
The ex-mayor said he was outraged by the 1+1 TV channel’s report on his son Stepan Chernovetskyi’s mafia activities.
“I declare with full responsibility that before the previous report was shown, Kolomoisky’s henchman, Tkachenko, extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from my son through a straw man in order not to show the information shameful for my son on his TV channel. Most likely, Kolomoisky is doing the same thing with Yanukovych and his henchmen!
You will not see any gang members on his TV channel. They most likely paid off tens of millions of dollars to stop appearing in expository reports on Ukraine’s leading TV channel! Except, of course, for those who do not pay… And most of the well-known media oligarchs demanded money from me, except, perhaps, Channel 5 and one or two others!” Chernovetsky wrote.
He said he would go to court: “Of course, I will file a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the scoundrels, but I regret to say that nothing will change in the country!”
Journalists published a list of wealth owned by the son of the former mayor of Kyiv, Stepan Chernovetsky.
The publication emphasized that on the eve of his arrest, the son of the former Kyiv mayor spent the night at the five-star Villa Magna hotel in the center of Madrid. The cost of a room in this hotel is about 1500 euros per day. In addition, he flew from Kyiv by private jet.
The media added that Stepan later returned to Kyiv in a Porsche Spyder worth 850 thousand euros. It is noted that his promotional company Elite Boxing Promotion is located in the capital of Ukraine.
In addition, Spanish journalists claim that Stepan Chernovetsky rented a mansion in Gerona near Barcelona, where he was detained by law enforcement. The rental price for two summer months is 174 thousand euros. Eight servants and four security guards worked in this mansion.
According to media reports, the son of the former mayor of Kyiv owns 24 cars, including Mercedes, Ferrari and Porsche. Jewelry worth 1 million euros and 13 bags of branded items were also found in his wife’s house. In Stepan Chernovetsky’s house, law enforcement officers found 32 pairs of exclusive watches, five of which are worth 1.5 million euros.
Stepan Chernovetsky was among the bidders for the Dnipro Hotel
Among the bidders for the Dnipro Hotel in Kyiv were representatives of the business establishment, including Stepan Chernovetsky, Tomas Fiala, Vadym Novynsky, Serhiy Tihipko and others. This was reported by Ekonomichna Pravda.
“The auction brought together many representatives of the business establishment. Many of them were ready to pay UAH 250-400 million for the hotel. Almost none of them raised the initial bids and were not ready to raise the bids significantly.
Among these participants were Stepan Chernovetskyi, the son of former Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi, founder of the Chernovetskyi Investment Group, and one of the investors in the Kyiv residential complex Comfort Town, the article says.
“The auction was attended by Vadym Stolar, a deputy from the OPFL faction and a scandalous developer who was called the “gray cardinal” of Kyiv during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko.
Stepan Chernovetsky hid the cost of a Porsche from the traffic police
Not so long ago, Leonid Chernovetsky’s son added a new car to the family fleet — Stepan Chernovetsky purchased a Porsche Carrera GT worth about $500,000. Given that the value of the Chernovetsky family garage is steadily approaching the $10,000,000 mark, there is nothing surprising about such a purchase. But it turned out that things were not so simple: Stepan Chernovetsky had his Porsche Carrera GT customs cleared as a cheaper Carrera S, as it was written in the inspection certificate. A Porsche Carrera S can be bought for $100,000, but a Carrera GT is clearly not cheaper than half a million dollars.
This only shows that the son of the mayor of Kyiv did his best to pay less taxes. During the journalistic investigation, it turned out that the technical passport says that the car is indeed registered to Chernovetsky’s son, and indeed as a Carrera S, not a Carrera GT. But most importantly, we managed to get a customs declaration showing all the money Stepan paid for the car: Customs duties — 10%, which translated into UAH 143,820. VAT — 20%, which is equal to UAH 357,307.99. 3 euros for each cubic centimeter of engine — UAH 204,519.95. Total: UAH 706,000.
Chernovetsky’s son was courting Nastia Kamenskykh while married
The son of Kyiv mayor Stepan Chernovetsky was courting Nastia Kamenskykh while he was married. The singer Kati Osadchiy told about this at the fifth annual award ceremony for the winners of the Viva! The Most Beautiful People in Ukraine” nomination.
“Well, Stepan Chernovetsky looked after everyone,” the singer said, ”I guess it won’t be a secret anymore. She explained her refusal to accept Kamensky’s advances by the fact that Stepan is short.
“And I like tall men,” she said categorically. According to the artist, Chernovetsky Jr. gave her a bottle of champagne. “I think it’s not original at all,” she said, ”You could have come up with something by now.”
Summary
As the saying goes, “an apple does not fall far from the tree…” . Stepan Chernovetsky, who skillfully launders money through real estate, learned how to do it from his father. But, unfortunately, he was not properly punished for this, and now Kyiv, and Barcelona, have suffered at the hands of Chernovetsky Jr.