In the previous part of the journalistic investigation into the activity of an organized criminal group under the alleged leadership of the former UBOZ member Oleksiy Savchenko, we promised to tell you about the facts of the multimillion-dollar embezzlement of funds by members of the said group.
Let’s begin our story with a description of the main actors.
The nominal beneficiary of all the robbed banks of the group is Oleksiy Yuriyovych Savchenko;
Lebedev Veniamin Oleksiyovych is always listed as the nominal manager;
The criminal “chain” is completed by the “eternal” treasurer – Yevhenii Hermanovych Bevs.
The scheme of “management” of banks that were owned by a criminal group is always the same: the shares of the financial institution are issued to offshore companies, the chairman of the supervisory board is Lebedev, the chairman of the board is Bevs, Moroz is responsible for the protection and destruction of papers, “conceptual” control is exercised by Savchenko, who takes the final decision on the need to “put down” another bank by seizing depositors’ funds.
According to the scheme described above and with the participation of the participants mentioned by us, at least 2 commercial banks were robbed, namely: Citicomersbank and Avant-Bank.
In particular: let’s start with how Veniamin Lebedev cleaned out Conversebank for a million dollars. The former head of the board of Citicommercebank and Avant-Bank Veniamin Lebedev is involved in the theft of more than a million dollars from Conversebank, which after being sold to a group of its managers became called Citicommercebank, and as a result came under the control of Reinis Tumovs, which also owned “Professional Financing Bank” (ProFinBank).
All banks mentioned in the list have already been liquidated. And even “Avant-Bank”, known for many years as a “laundry” with “murky shareholders”, headed by Veniamin Lebedev, was quietly liquidated by the National Bank of Ukraine, and the bank’s owners and management escaped criminal charges. As follows from the statement of the liquidator of CitiCommerceBank from the Individual Deposit Guarantee Fund, Andriy Ryazantsev, Veniamin Lebedev, while occupying leadership positions in Conversebank, showed enviable zeal for the purpose of issuing a known irrecoverable loan in the amount of 9.3 million hryvnias to a dummy company secured by “air”.
On June 30, 2011, PJSC “Conversbank” (subsequently renamed PJSC “City Commercial Bank”) in the person of the chairman of the board Veniamin Oleksiyovych Lebedev and PE “Decor Trans Service” (borrower) in the person of the director of Nevroda Yury Lvovich signed a loan agreement No. 758 / 980 -UO, in accordance with the terms of which the Bank provides the borrower with UAH 9,365,000.00, starting from 06/30/2011 to 06/29/2012,” said the statement of the liquidator of CityCommerceBank to the head of the Department of Internal Affairs in Kyiv, Tereshchuk, dated 18 December 2014. On the same day, according to the document available to the editors, “Decor Trans Service” receives all the money from the credit line on the basis of Lebedev’s written order.
At first glance, this is an ordinary credit transaction. But what is the rush? As it turned out, all services of Conversbank were against issuing this loan: underwriters, appraisers, economists. In the form of a pledge, the documents indicated goods in circulation – “clothes of world brands” with a total value of almost UAH 47 million. Such collateral did not want to accept the bank’s assessment, citing the fact that “clothes of world brands” may turn out to be illiquid due to the volatility of fashion and the arrival of new collections.
Lebedev ignores these warnings, and “Dekor Trans Service” instantly receives its 9.3 million loans. But further – more fun. It turned out that the annex to the loan agreement with the bank contains the details of the agreement, on the basis of which the “clothing of world brands” was purchased, but building materials, linoleum, furniture and floor coverings.
Even before considering the loan application of “Decor Trans Service”, the credit examination unit of Conversbank indicates that the borrower is dubious: the company has an outstanding debt to the bank, the borrower has not provided documents on payment for the goods, nor documents confirming the transfer of ownership of the goods offered to the bank in pledge Even on the only bank account of “Decor Trans Service”, which was in Conversebank, during the entire existence of the company, there was practically no noticeable movement of money, which indicates that this company is a pacifier, and does not operate with money in such volumes.
However, Veniamin Lebedev not only signs the order for the transfer of loan funds to the “butterfly clerk”, but also signs the document on acceptance of collateral. Until now, the loan has not been repaid, the amount of the debt, including interest, has reached almost 18 million hryvnias. And those involved in the conspiracy on the part of the bank face from 5 to 12 years with confiscation.
It is noteworthy that Veniamin Lebedev pushed for the issuance of this deliberately irreversible loan at the very moment when the owner of Conversbank, Oleksiy Savchenko, was handing it over to a new shareholder – international financier Volodymyr Antonov. Later, Savchenko will appoint Lebedev as the head of his new bank – Avant, which they also drowned and avoided criminal prosecution.
And that’s how it happened…
Withdrawal of funds from PJSC “AVANT-BANK”, on the eve of its recognition as insolvent, took place through lending schemes to persons connected with the bank. The embezzlement of assets was carried out by the borrowers according to a prior agreement with the officials of PJSC “AVANT-BANK”. In order to hide the criminal activities of the debtors and their accomplices in the bank, bank documents were stolen and deliberately destroyed, and the borrowers themselves were declared bankrupt.
Contrary to the interests of the bank and without a real analysis of the borrowers’ creditworthiness, the officials of PJSC “AVANT-BANK” issued loans to 12 companies in the amount of UAH 601.95 million. Thus, in violation of the obvious and basic principles of crediting, loans were issued to: LLC “SPORTCOM-UKRAINE”, LLC “BIZNESKREDITINVEST”, LLC “INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE”, LLC “AMIS CREATIV”, LLC “TRADING UNIFIED RESOURCE KS”, LLC “BUDPROMTECH” -1″, “STROYKAPITAL” LLC, “LOER COMPANY” LLC, “GOODWIN GROUP” LLC, “VECTOR” LLC, “BUDMETAL TRADE” LLC, MPP “AVTOSN”.
In order to give the appearance of legality to their illegal activities, the officials of the specified enterprises partly paid off the debt with the funds received under the next tranches of credit lines, and later initiated the bankruptcy procedure altogether. Subsequently, in order to hide the crime, bank officials facilitated the theft of bank documents related to lending to the aforementioned enterprises. The commercial court of the Kyiv region rejected the appeal of PJSC “AVANT-BANK” to recognize the bank’s monetary claims for the amount of the debt and include them in the registers of claims of bankrupt creditors. The court justified its decision by the fact that the bank does not have original documents that would confirm the existence of debt. As of April 12, 2017, the debt for the specified loans amounted to UAH 1,141.37 million.
The authorized person of FGVFD notified the law enforcement authorities about the detected offenses committed by the officials of PJSC “AVANT-BANK” and sent the corresponding statements in June 2016 to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine and on August 22, 2016 to the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, State Fiscal Service of the State Federal Tax Service in Kyiv. on the facts of bringing the bank to bankruptcy by the officials of PJSC “AVANT-BANK” and persons connected with the bank, the embezzlement of the bank’s assets and the lack of property of the financial institution. According to the stated facts, where only the credit debt for unsecured loans amounts to more than UAH 862.89 million, the investigative department of financial investigations of the DPI in the Dnipro district of the Main Directorate of the State Fiscal Service in Kyiv is conducting a pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings, according to the signs of Art. 218-1 and 219 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
In the same year, on August 10, an application was sent to the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, State Fiscal Service of Ukraine in Kyiv, regarding the facts of illegal activities of officials of AMIS CREATIVE LLC, SPORTCOM-Ukraine LLC, BIZNESKREDITINVEST LLC, and TORGOVY YEDINY RESURS KS LLC. “, LLC “BUDPROMTECH-1”, LLC “INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE” and others, which caused losses to the bank of more than UAH 500,000,000. According to the indicated facts, the Investigative Department of Financial Investigations of the DPI in the Dnipro district of the Main Department of the State Fiscal Service in Kyiv registered criminal proceedings on August 15, 2016, based on Art. 219 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
On August 31, 2016, a statement was sent to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine with a notification about the theft of official documents of PJSC “AVANT-BANK” and bringing the bank to insolvency.
According to the stated statements, in order to conceal criminal activities that compromised bank officials, the originals of credit files and their appendices were stolen, including those of SPORTCOM-Ukraine LLC, BIZNESKREDITINVEST LLC, INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE LLC, LLC ” AMIS KREATIV”, LLC “TRADING UNIFIED RESOURCE KS”, “BUDPROMTECH-1” LLC, “GRAY SYSTEMS” LLC, “Spetsservicebudprom” LLC, “Novobud” LLC, “FC Marco Polo” LLC, “Spetsoptorg” LLC, “Modul” LLC M.K.-P”, “Prosperity Fiors” LLC, “Kalyna Trade” LLC, “M.V.I.” LLC Colsalting”. The originals of part of the deposit contracts, the original minutes of the Credit Committee – 298 pieces, the original minutes of the Management Board for the period of activity from 2009 to 2015 – 273 pieces, the original minutes of the Supervisory Board – 106 pieces, the minutes of the meetings of the general meetings of the bank’s shareholders were also stolen. According to the indicated facts, the investigative department of the Solomyansk Police Department of the National Security Service in Kyiv is conducting a pre-trial investigation in two criminal proceedings.
“Ah, what was Mr. Savchenko doing at this time?” You will ask..
And Mr. Savchenko flees to Cyprus at the time of the robberies, from where he directs the actions of his subordinates, at the same time feigning health problems. This is the scheme.
Taking into account the above-mentioned facts and multimillion-dollar losses, the UA2DAY editorial office sends relevant journalistic inquiries regarding the status of the investigation of the criminal proceedings initiated based on the specified facts, as well as regarding the resumption of the pre-trial investigation in the case of the murder of Valery Pryshchyk and the probable involvement of the persons indicated in the investigation materials.
Author: human rights defender Kostyantyn Kryvopust
