Nationwide gasoline chain WOG group owes billionaire fugitive oligarch Dmytro Firtash’s Group DF more than $460 million, the Economichna Pravda website reported on Nov. 1.
WOG was allegedly financed by Firtash from 2011 until 2015. Firtash’s Group DF helped WOG open gas stations, invested more than $200 million and is now owed $460 million, the website said.
WOG is owned by Continuum, a holding company founded by Ihor Yeremeyev and Stepan Ivakhiv.
After the 2015 death of Continuum’s co-owner Yeremeyev, the company ran into severe financial troubles. The company also owes an undisclosed amount of money to billionaire oligarch Rinat Akhmetov’s PUMB bank, and another sum to the state-owned UkrEximbank.
Continuum has restructured its debts with the banks, but the total amount it now owes to all parties is unknown.
Firtash, a major player in Ukraine’s media, energy and industrial sectors, is fighting extradition to the United States from exile in Vienna, Austria. U.S. federal prosecutors have charged him with attempting to bribe Indian officials with $18.5 million to receive titanium production permits in a deal that involved Boeing aircraft manufacturing giant.
Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s interior minister, has stated that if Firtash returns to Ukraine he will be extradited to the United States.
Kyiv Post received an official letter from WOG citing that the company is meeting all obligations to creditors and continuing a business as usual approach.
‘Repayment of loans and interest rates on loans are completed strictly on schedule, and will be paid in full – according to the contracts with financial institutions,” stated WOG’s press-office.
