Ruslan Zhurilo and corruption around OGCC
Corrupt state officials and their high political patrons, swindlers in the leadership of state companies, the sale of strategic raw materials to Russian defense industry enterprises in circumvention of sanctions, long-term offshore schemes and billions in damages, years of investigation, dozens of defendants and volumes of criminal cases, writes Ukrrudprom.
No, this is not about the recently promoted “Sennichenko Gate“. We are talking about, perhaps, one of the most promising and still not brought to court anti-corruption investigations – the case of ex-top managers of the OGCC R. Zhurilo and Y. Pertsev.
If, in their sensational investigation, NABU and SAPO revealed in the activities of “members of a criminal organization” D. Sennichenko and A. Somov abuses at the OGCC in the amount of about UAH 113 million, then the amount of non-return of funds by companies alone Defessa Trans FZE and Bollwerk Finanzierungs- und Industriemanagement AG from the offshore empire of Zhurilo-Pertsev is 38 million dollars. + 2 mln. running foam. Those. 3.5 times more than the total damage in the entire “Sennichenko case” and 15 times more than in his episodes with the OGCC.
Despite the fact that the case of abuses at OGCC in the period of 2020-2021 has not yet reached the court and it is too early to put an end to it, we can already say that its scale is not even close to corrupt creativity ex-head of OGCC R. Zhurilo and his former deputy for commerce Yu. Pertsev. In short, according to the materials of the NABU investigation, in the period from 2015 to 2019, the state-owned enterprise operated a well-established system for pumping out and washing out financial resources by understating selling prices for products, selling them to affiliated companies and servicing all economic and economic activities of the state enterprise by related companies. Offshore companies, their accounts and all transactions were managed directly from the offices of OGCC, and the office of the state-owned company itself served as the back office of the corrupt empire of R. Zhurilo and Y. Pertsev. In particular, the members of this criminal group only in 2016 and only through the company Bollwerk Finanzierungs- und Industriemanagement AG sold titanium-containing raw materials at reduced prices in the amount over 68 million dollars and caused damage to the state, i.e. appropriated in the form of corruption rent, about 11 million dollars. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of such episodes in this case.
Why is the case of non-return of 38 million dollars. Defessa and Bollwerk are under wraps and have not yet come to a criminal investigation, if evidence of the illegal activities of the scandalous ex-top managers of OGCC was collected and presented to the public the same NABU back in 2015-2017?!
What is the difference between harm inflicted in 2020-2021 by Belanto Trade sro, which, according to the investigation, may be associated with an adviser to the head of the State Property Fund, from even larger amounts damage to companies Defessa Trans FZE, Bollwerk Finanzierungs- und Industriemanagement AG, Adelis LLP, Gidrospetsservis, Imeks, etc., owned by proxies of the head Ruslan Zhurilo and deputy director of the mining and chemical state company Yuri Pertsev?!
How did it happen that in the presence of several criminal cases at once, a wide public outcry and increased attention from law enforcement officers, the companies of Zhurilo and Pertsev continued to export OGCC products until mid-2020, and the “criminal group” of Sennichenko and Somov, knowing about the NABU investigations, still not afraid to continue what her predecessors started up to layoffs in 2021?
By the way, Defessa Trans FZE, Bollwerk Finanzierungs- und Industriemanagement AG, as other companies involved in corruption scandals at UMCC, are successfully operating to this day.
Defessa is a supplier of ilmenite from Vietnam and Mozambique for VSMPO-Avisma, which is well known not only to journalists, but also to law enforcement officers.
British Grover metalloys LTD and Austrian Osttor Beteiligungs- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH, where Y. Pertsev is the owner, and his wife – Director, back in 2022, actively purchased products from the Demurinsky GOK and freely shipped them to Russian and Iranian consumers through Turkey, Hungary and the UAE.
Svetlana Iltio – figurant NABU investigations, nominee director and owner of a number of offshore companies and manager of key financial transactions in the Zhurilo-Pertsev case – in early 2023, she was the main opponent of the Ministry of Justice in the VAKS and tried to withdraw from sanctions and nationalization Demurinsky GOK.
And a citizen of Ukraine Yuriy Pertsev, through Osttor Beteiligungs- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH and still having in front of OGCC unpaid multi-million dollar debt of Defessa Trans FZE continued throughout 2022 supply titanium raw materials for the Russian LLC Avisma-Spetsremont.
Law enforcement officers, as well as the court, it seems, too, none of them are particularly afraid.
There are still no criminal proceedings on multimillion-dollar debts of Defessa Trans FZE and Bollwerk Finanzierungs- und Industriemanagement AG to OGCC.
Case No. 760/18987/18 on the abuses of the accused Ruslan Zhurilo and Yuri Pertsev on the events of 2015-2016. filed with the court back in 2018 and has been lying motionless for 4 years. VAKS has not been able to make any decision so far due to the systematic absence of lawyers and the delay in the process. The next hearing will take place on 04/26/2023 if both defendants do not start avoiding justice again. Earlier, R. Zhurilo was prevented from participating in court hearings by her service as part of a volunteer formation of one of the settlement territorial communities of the Kirovograd region. And Yu. Pertsev could not “escape” from abroad due to the lack of regular flights between Vienna and Kiev, as well as the fuel crisis. Moreover, everything said is not a joke.
And in another matter No. 761/8826/19 Ruslan Zhurilo and ex-People’s Deputy Mykola Martynenko, the court since 2018 cannot make a decision for the same reasons. They are accused of embezzlement of the funds of the State Enterprise “VostGOK” in the amount of 17.28 million dollars, as well as 6.4 million euros of the funds of “Energoatom” in 2014-2016. Consideration is constantly postponed due to the systematic absence of lawyers and challenges of judges. In 2021, the defendants, together with their defense lawyers, did not attend 7 court hearings for various legal reasons, in 2022 – by 8. The next hearing in VAKS will be held on 03/29/2023
Of course, like all concerned observers, we look forward to fair justice in the case of Sennichenko-Somov and Co., and also wish SAP and NABU success in their future work. However, according to many participants in the titanium market, any new exposure of abuses at UMCC will be a “pale shadow” and one of the few fragments of those large-scale abuses by Zhurilo and Pertsev that took place at the enterprise in 2015-2019. and which, one gets the impression, while everyone got away with it. The bar for ingenuity, scope and cynicism was raised too high.
And, it seems, certain representatives of the law enforcement system touched the bottom too deeply. It is probably no coincidence that the mother of the former deputy head of the SAPO Vladimir Krivenko Tatyana Sakhanova received a share in one of the companies involved in the case of embezzlement at OGCC and, probably, this is not the only such “barter” in this whole sensational case.
The main problem in the fight against TOP corruption in Ukraine is still not the lack of colorful mask shows, hastily launched criminal proceedings and high-profile accusations in the media, but the almost complete absence of successfully completed trials on landmark investigations for the state.
Alexey Todorov
DOSSIER: Sennichenko Dmitry: how to plunder the remnants of Ukraine. PART 2
