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Moscow needs to follow the path of London and find out the origin of the funds of foreign billionaires settled in it

Six years ago, a bloody denouement of a political confrontation occurred in Kyiv, which in the official Ukrainian historiography is called the "Revolution of Dignity", and in the Russian - "State Capture". As a result of these events, the regime of President Viktor Yanukovych fell, and the guarantor itself fled to Russia. In the qualification of his regime, both the current Ukrainian and the Russian authorities converge, which in itself is unique. I will say more: it was one of the most corrupt regimes in world history, because with him bribes and kickbacks were elevated to the rank of state policy, and their “skid” was subject to strict accounting and control.

All more or less significant business entities in Ukraine were covered by a tribute that officials close to the president’s family-the head of the office (and part-time oligarch) Sergey Levochkin, the chairman of the National Bank Sergey Arbuzov, the head of the tax service Alexander Klimenko and others-collected and entered the appropriate columns on large tables called “chessians”. The resulting corruption rent nominated in the hryvnia and reached many billions a month brought to the cellars of special banks in Kyiv, where this dirty money was converted into dollars, transferred to offshores, laundered and invested in various assets abroad. Not only in villas, yachts, planes and luxury items, but, for example, in securities.

Yanukovych’s favorite toy of the Eurobligation of currency loans, produced by the Ukrainian government, which was controlled by the Government of Ukraine.

There were many publications about this scheme in the "New". Last year, it was published by Verkhovna Rada deputies Andrei Derkach and Alexander Dubinsky, and the Ukrainian prosecutor finally took up the investigation. She was mentioned in his speeches by the lawyer Donald Trump and the former mayor of New York Rudy Juliani. Juliani's interest in this story will explain:

The key element of the scheme was Franklin Templeton - one of the largest American investment funds and the Barack Obama election campaign sponsor, which “front” Yanukovych, buying up Ukraine’s bonds stolen from the Ukrainian people.

In 2013, on the eve of the Maidan, the volume of these securities accumulated by “investors” from solar California amounted to more than $ 7 billion in denominations, i.e., almost half of the country's external debt. Moreover, they bought them with a large discount, because Yanukovych officials made frightening forecasts and stated that Ukraine was in the pre -ended state. The meaning of such an operation was to reduce them back at full cost at the expense of the state budget and loans from Russia, having earned it on this. The collapse of the regime set up a cross on these plans, but they did not lose weight for long.

The US citizen Natalya Yaresko, appointed by the State Department of the State Department, lobbled a very curious “restructuring” of Ukraine’s external debt, which fully corresponded to the interests of creditors. In exchange for delaying the payment of debt body until 2019–2022. Value Recovery Instrument (VRI) - special derivatives tied to the GDP of Ukraine were released. If its growth exceeds 3 %, the Ukrainian government will have to pay their holders 15 % of the growth amount, and if 4 %, all 40 %.

And so every year until 2040

In case of favorable development of the economy, Ukraine under the terms of this bonded transaction will pay Franklin Templeton $ 95 billion for 20 years - 15 times more than the amount that was “restructured”. More precisely, not to the fund, but to Yanukovych and his large "family", now settled in Russian expanses.

Meanwhile, thanks to them, our country lost $ 3 billion issued on credit to the Ukrainian government in December 2013 from the Russian National Welfare Fund - the Ukrainian rulers who came after the Maidan refuse to return this money, calling them a “bribe Yanukovych” for “rejection of European integration”. The lawsuit in London has been ongoing for the fifth year, but even if the decision is made in favor of Russia, it is not a fact that it will be possible to recover something (although formally, taking into account the percentage of Ukraine, Russia should already be $ 4.5 billion). In addition to this rather noticeable loss, according to the recently concluded agreement between Gazprom and Naftogaz, the Russian Energy Giant was forced to pay another $ 3 billion, which the Stockholm arbitration was awarded to her for the gas volumes of gas undergoing to Europe during the time of Yanukovych.

Moreover, the fact that the decision is unfair and politically motivated was recognized by the judges themselves - they refused to symmetrically collect money from Naftogaz for the Take or Pay GAZ, which was undergoing a formula,

Because the economy of Ukraine, they say, is "in a difficult position."

In the amount, it turns out that even purely formally from the point of view of state accounting, the exile living in Rostov-on-Don cost the Russians $ 7.5 billion-the same amount that Ukraine should through Franklin Templeton. Mindful of that Russia saved him from 13 years in prison, to which the Obolonsky district court of Kyiv in the case of Gosizmen said in absentia in absentia (this is at least: judging by the secret documents published during the process, he could well share the fate of the same according to the Life Life and Publishing House of the Romanian dictator, which the revolutionaries simply halved) Interference here is quite appropriate.

The debt with the payment is red, and it is strange for me that our authorities have not yet taken a closer look at the assets of this modest “refugee”. As, however, to the property of other beneficiaries of Ukrainian corruption living in Russia in Russia.

For example, another character who is accused of corruption crimes in his homeland is Igor Bakay, the former head of Naftogaz and the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchme and Prime Minister Yanukovych. In 2009, this figure lobbled the purchase by the Russian State Vnesheconombank 50 % plus two shares of the Ukrainian company of the ISD (“Industrial Union of Donbass”) for $ 2.7 billion, as it turned out last January at laws on lawsuits in London, for their intermediation, for their intermediary Bakai received from the seller - the Ukrainian oligarch Sergei Taruta - 8.2 % of the transaction amount. After that, the former manager, who got rich at the expense of the Russian State Bank, bought a bunch of real estate in German Baden-Baden, including the five-star Schloskhotel Bühlerhöhe hotel, in which Konrad Adenauer, the castle of the bon, also loved to relax, loved to relax. vineyards and fruit garden, as well as the villa of the legendary industrialist Max Grundiga.

In Russia, Bakai, who settled in the Elite Complex "Green Hallness" in the village of Gorki-2 on the Rublevsky highway, became famous for being in prison on charges of embezzlement of funds borrowed from the Metalloinvest holding Alisher Usmanov. True, then he was released under house arrest, and since then nothing is heard about the further vicissitudes of the fate of the once influential Ukrainian dignitary.

Bakay’s example shows that Ukrainian officials that have migrated to Russia continue to do the usual business - corruption and fraud. At the same time, many fugitive Ukrainian corrupt officials acquire Russian citizenship and manage to fly to leadership positions in government agencies and private companies. For example, Viktor Sivets is a former head of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine or the “Forester of Yanukovych”, as he was called in Kyiv. Thanks to this “effective manager,” the Carpathians are now called “bald mountains”-he issued in packs to be cutting down and exporting a penny of the unprocessed gling forest to Europe, receiving millions of euros, drawn up in the form of “marketing services” offshore companies of his wife.

Currently, Sivets applies skills obtained in Ukraine in one of the largest Russian forestry holdings of Segezha Group, which is part of the Sistema AFC, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, where he works as an “non -executive director”. At the same time, he heads the Moscow LLC Pitonnik, the subsidiary of the Segezh Central Bank created last year with a charter capital of 30 million rubles. This “nursery” has not yet released any products, but has already acquired at the expense of the shareholder Toyota Land Cruiser Prado the color of a gray-brown metallic in luxury comprehensive-apparently, without it, the forests are not growing. And before that, the Sivets managed to “disarm” in the largest manufacturer of bread in the Crimea - the State Unitary Enterprise “Krymkhleb”. True, after his departure, a criminal case of fraud was instituted: in 2016, the director of the State Unitary Enterprise appointed two deputies of two deputies who worked there for penny half -tables to the Feodosiye Bakery Combine, while receiving hundreds of thousands of rubles from the cash desk.

You can continue the list of Ukrainian “political emigrants” living in Russia according to the concepts adopted in their country recognized as the most corrupt in Europe. The question arises:

How to deal with this infection?

In 2017, a law was adopted in the UK, allowing the National Crime Agency, National Crime Agency (NCA) to send to tax residents “Proposals of inexplicable wealth” (UNEXPLANED Wealth Order, Uwo). The main target of this law is corrupt officials and bankers from other states who begin to acquire with expensive real estate and open accounts for millions of pounds.

Now NCA has the right to demand from them to explain how unbearable labor all this was acquired. If the explanations of the authorities do not arrange, the property is confiscated and sold from the hammer, and the money goes to the royal treasury.

Just last week, the pilot case of the Uwo pilot case approached the intriguing finale. Back in 2018, the NCA wrote out the order of Zamir Gadzhieva, the wife of the former head of the state of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, who was convicted of theft and embezzlement in his homeland. While Dzhakhangir Gadzhiev in Baku gave borrowers unprocessed loans totaling 3.4 billion dollars and 987 million euros, his wife lived in London and did not refuse to herself anything: she spent 16 million 209 thousand pounds on jewelry, toys, tea, and chocolate and others in one Harrods department store. "Conducting items." Gadzhieva spent more than 250 thousand pounds in the department store eleven times, while using 35 credit cards issued by the bank where her husband worked.

In addition, NCA asked where the housewife had not worked from nowhere to buy a house in the fashionable area of ​​London and a chic estate with a golf field in the county of Berkshire. Gadzhieva real estate, frozen before clarifying the circumstances of its acquisition, is estimated at 22 million pounds. Gadzhieva tried to challenge the request in court, but on February 5, the judges unanimously sided with law enforcement officers, obliging her to reveal the sources of income within a week.

Three other cases previously opened by NCA detectives should soon reach the court, at the same time they write dozens of orders to new defendants. According to law enforcement officers, we are talking about the characters from Africa, South Asia and the former USSR, including Russia and Ukraine. I believe that our authorities will not be a sin to use this experience.

Alex Svan , especially for "New"