A Kyiv judge froze a PrivatBank-linked account last week as part of an investigation into allegations that Privatbank officials stole more than Hr 19 billion ($765 million) in post-EuroMaidan refinancing funds.
According to a July 29 Pechersk district court
ruling, investigating magistrate Volodymyr Karaban froze a bank account
suspected of being used to siphon the money out of oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky’s
bank and into related offshores.
The move comes as part of a criminal
investigation opened by the General Prosecutor’s Office in November 2014 into
the matter. Prosecutors say in the court filing that they have established that
the Hr 19 billion was stolen, and go on to list a series of companies through
which they claim the money was siphoned.
PrivatBank spokesman Oleg Serga told the Kyiv
Post that the information is “groundless,” asserting that the money was only
used to replace mass withdrawals during the 2014 bank run.
In the filing, prosecutors named a number of
offshores that they say received the refinancing from Privat-affiliated
Ukrainian companies.
One offshore named in the ruling, Milbert
Ventures Inc., was nearly named the sole proprietor of the Odesa-Brody oil
pipeline in August 2008. Public outcry over the company’s ties to Privat group
led to state-owned but Kolomoisky-controlled Ukrnafta taking over the pipeline
instead.
Another company on the list, the UK-registered
Trade Point Agro Limited, lists a Cypriot man named Michalakis Tsitsekkos as
its director. Tsitsekkos served as the nominee owner of Alstrom Business Corp,
an offshore used in a 2009 media deal, while Kolomoisky was the beneficiary,
according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The organization whose accounts the judge
ordered seized is called ZAO Ukrtransitservice Ltd, a British Virgin
Islands-registered firm with a bank account in Privatbank’s Cyprus branch. The
money would have then remained under Privatbank’s control while being
transferred to one of its foreign operations.
