Ukraine’s youngest billionaire Serhiy Kurchenko, who amassed his fortune in just over a year’s time by acquiring some of the country’s key assets, evacuated his company VETEK after the regime of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych fell on Feb. 22.
The whereabouts of Kurchenko are
unknown. He has long been suspected of being a front man for the Yanukovych family,
but in previous interviews denied the claim.
The 28-year-old owner of
Eastern European Fuel and Energy Company (VETEK) left behind some clues,
including 30 trash bags filled with destroyed documents and business cards of
VETEK employees. These items were found by journalists on Feb. 24 in a parking
lot near Arena City entertainment center, which used to host the company’s
office.
On the same day, VETEK’s
official statement appeared on the corporate website and mentioned that the “group’s
companies continue to work as normal and fulfill all the obligations within home
and foreign contracts.”
The Kyiv Post found the doors
of the VETEK office in Arena City closed. The rooms visible through the glass
were obviously empty with almost no furniture or equipment.
“VETEK employees started
leaving the office and evacuating the equipment on Feb. 17,” one of the Arena
City guards told the Kyiv Post.
Usually around 20 employees
including the top managers were coming daily to work at the conglomerate’s
headquarters.
Further signs that Kurchenko
was covering his tracks also came on Feb. 24, when Yuriy Syrotyuk, a Svoboda Party
lawmaker, reported that Kurchenko’s managers were trying to unload the entities
used to store counterfeit oil products.
These are Naftoprodukt and
Zovnishtransgaz in Kyiv Oblast, Armada and Alyans Impeks in Kirovohrad Oblast,
Anna LTD in Khmelnytsky. The Kyiv Post tried to reach these companies but was
unsuccessful. Only Alyans Impeks was found in the state register of private
companies and no one answered its phone.
On Feb. 23, deputy Inna
Bogoslovska, a former member of Party of Regions faction, called on for an investigation
into whether Kurchenko’s companies were involved in selling 100,000 tons of the
counterfeit oil products. The Interior Ministry has already started investigating
Kurchenko’s Odesa Oil Refinery.
The Kyiv Post tried several
times to contact VETEK’s office, but phone calls and email messages were left
unanswered.
However, Yuriy Rovensky, chief
executive officer of VETEK-Media, the entity in charge of Kurchenko’s media holdings,
agreed to talk. He did not answer a question on Kurchenko’s whereabouts, saying
“I’m not interested to know where is Mr. Kurchenko.”
VETEK’s owner provided the
instructions for Rovensky regarding the media business strategy in advance,
meaning Kurchenko must have planned own escape early.
Rovensky informed that Boris
Tymonkin, who manages VETEK’s banking business, currently stays in France. “He
is going through medical treatment there,” added the media manager.
Journalists who have
extensively investigated Kurchenko’s activity say they believe the businessman
fled the country in January, transferring his money to foreign banks.
Dispelling reports in local media, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko
said on Feb. 23 that Kurchenko had not been on the country’s territory.
Serhiy Kurchenko’s circle
In their investigations,
journalists have connected Kurchenko to the so called “family” – Yanukovych’s
inner circle that includes members of his actual family, as well as former
acting prime minister Serhiy Arbuzov, former acting interior minister Vitaliy
Zakharchenko and former acting finance minister Yuriy Kolobov.
Several investigations have
raised the question of whether Kurchenko is the actual owner of VETEK, or
merely a manager working for Oleksandr Yanukovych, the former president’s older
son.
Kurchenko was mentioned in the documents found in former Prosecutor General
Viktor Pshonka’s archive. One of them informs about the debt of Hr 95 million
within the Liquified Gas program that Kurchenko refuses to repay referring to
the instructions received from Pshonka meaning these two may be allies.
Performance of VETEK
businesses
Korrespondent magazine
estimates Kurchenko’s wealth at $2.4 billion. VETEK is a conglomerate which
manages businesses in energy, banking, media and sports sectors. Odesa Oil
Refinery, Brokbiznesbank, Real Bank, Ukrainian Media Holding and Metalist
football club are major VETEK assets.
The company is a major player
in the Ukrainian gasoline and liquid natural gas market. VETEK has been
purchasing almost all liquid gas provided by state enterprise
Ukrgazvydobuvannya through the auctions during last two years.
Besides, Kurchenko owns
several entities abroad, such as Sparschwein gas station company in Germany.
Some of Kurchenko’s businesses
have been less successful than others. He purchased Odesa Oil Refinery from
Russian oil company Lukoil in Feb. 2013, but the plant only began producing oil
in Jan. 2014, when Lukoil started providing small portions of oil to the plant.
Kurchenko’s Brokbiznesbank,
Ukraine’s 18th largest bank, nearly went bankrupt in February, as
deposit withdrawals spiked due to political instability in the country. The
National Bank of Ukraine had to provide Hr 1 billion of refinancing to
Brokbiznesbank, with the promise of the same amount of financial help to come
in the future.
One of the documents found in
a trash bag near the VETEK office mentions that in Dec. 2013 Brokbiznesbank
provided a $77 million loan for Virtus XXI, firm with straw men as directors
and owners and no employees, Business New Europe reports. Previously tax police
filed criminal charges against Virtus XXI for large-scale embezzlement. BNE
assumes Kurchenko looted $1.5 billion from Brokbiznesbank through money
laundering firms.
Kurchenko’s Real Bank, 44th
Ukrainian bank by the assets, shuttered offices in Kyiv on Feb. 21.
There have been numerous
reports of censorship in the publications within Ukrainian Media Holding, a
Kurchenko asset. Prominent journalists from Forbes and Korrespondent left en
masse in November because of changes in editorial policy.
On Feb. 24, Myron Markevych,
the head coach of Kurchenko’s Metalist football club, resigned. He had led the
team to second place in the Ukrainian Premier League in 2013 – best result in
the team’s history. He said he had left as to “not to be a witness to the
team’s collapse.” What’s worse, Metalist players have not been paid for almost
three months.
Kyiv Post
associate business editor Ivan Verstyuk can be reached at [email protected].
