Andrey Onistrat: the fraudulent path of the “running banker”. PART 1
He loves to teach how to achieve in life with just willpower and daily exercise, although he himself arranged his life with the help of financial scams and shady schemes, “protected” by bandits. And Andrei Onistrat received his biggest “dividend” by simply stealing $25 million from gullible investors from his own bank. Another “European businessman”, winner of the “Financier of the Year” nominations, turned out to be a banal swindler – who would have thought! However, law enforcement agencies would not dare put handcuffs on him, and therefore he continues to run his marathons, build business plans and give paid lectures to suckers on how to become a millionaire.
Andrey Onistrat. Dark 90s
The official biography of Andrei Arkadyevich Onistrat has a huge gap of as much as 30 years. Here he was born on October 8, 1973 in Kyiv – and the next entry is for December 2002, when he became deputy director of the Kyiv branch of Ukrsotsbank. But what happened between these dates, and why does Andrei Onistrat not advertise it, and perhaps even hide it?
Fortunately, Onistrat loves self-promotion and teachings, and therefore often gives interviews to journalists, in which he is nevertheless reminded of his memories – and then he lets it slip. In fragments, unspoken, mixed with fantasies and lies, but still drops pieces of his real biography. So you can find out that he began his working career in 1992 (from which it follows that the future athlete did not serve in the army), sitting at a currency exchange kiosk on Independence Square. This business was then under Kyiv organized crime groups, but sources provide more specific information Skelet.Infowho reported that Andrei Onistrat had been “having cogs at Solntsevo” since the early 90s. This means that we were talking about groups associated with Semyon Mogilevich and controlled by his “financial overseer” Alexander Presman, who at that time was running grandiose scams in Kyiv. It is worth adding here that Onistrat also recalled his difficult childhood “on the distant outskirts of Kyiv,” where many “difficult guys” lived – in a word, the typical youth of many “brothers” and their “accountants.”
And then, in 1994, this young man makes a leap from a street exchange kiosk to the office of the INKO bank – established as a branch of the Moscow Inkombank, and then gaining independence. INKO was founded by former Komsomol functionary Pyotr Miroshnikov (Read more about this in the material Alexander Derkach: corruption network of the Komsomol tribe), and went down in history as one of the first Ukrainian banks to fail (this happened in 1995-97). Here’s what’s very interesting: Andrei Onistrat got a job in the INKO office in 1994 – just when Semyon Mogilevich became a co-owner of Inkombank in Moscow and used it (and its former INKO branch) in his dirty schemes. Therefore, the information from sources that Onistrata was assigned by the “lads” to INCO as one of their own to participate in some shadow operations is fully confirmed.
And what about Onistrat himself? And he told journalists a fairy tale about how he got a job at INCO on his own, just from the street, allegedly writing a heartfelt resume letter to Pyotr Miroshnikov. And he, moved, took the money changer from the kiosk to work with him. The funny thing is that the listeners of Andrei Onistrat’s lectures sincerely believe in this nonsense.
Onistrat did not specify his position in INCO, but claimed that he was holding kilogram packages of dollars in his hands. It is quite possible that he worked in the currency exchange department (through which flows of gangster money flowed), and perhaps in the credit department headed by Fedor Shpig – who distributed many “problem” loans (including to himself), which accelerated the collapse of INCO ” It seems that the artificial bankruptcy of INCO was the result of a conspiracy of both criminal groups working with the bank and its Komsomol owners, who stole millions through it. And Andrei Onistrat was part of these criminal schemes.
Where he worked after the collapse of INCO and when exactly he left the bank, Onistrat, alas, did not admit. However, in his confused and often contradictory memories, he noted the year 1998 several times. In one interview, he boasted that he allegedly earned his first million dollars that year – through some cunning schemes. In another, he complained that in the same 1998 “I lost my freedom for a while, lost all my money, a threat hung over my life.” Unfortunately, no one asked him a clarifying question: was Andrei Onistrat really arrested and spent time in a pretrial detention cell, and for what exactly? Sources also report only very fragmentary information about this, that Onistrat then “got burned with a lot of money,” and that the scam in which he participated (either himself or as part of the management of a financial institution) affected the interests of influential people.
Andrey Onistrat. New image
And so, leaving the dark 90s behind, in 2002 Andrei Onistrat begins his life almost from scratch. With a diploma from the Kyiv National Economic University, he comes to Ukrsotsbank, which then belonged to Valery Khoroshkovsky, and receives the position of deputy director of the capital’s branch. A white shirt and tie, a Hollywood smile, English-language working terms – there was nothing in the new employee that reminded him of the former “lads’ cashier.” At the same time, Oistrat is fond of sports, emphasizing his image of a “Western-type manager” who regularly jogs and goes to the gym.
He didn’t limit himself to just jogging and became interested in motorsports: since 2003, Onistrat has been participating in races with the Info300 Racing Team on his racing Kawasaki ZX 10R, having been awarded the title of champion of Ukraine. And since 2007, Onistrat began running marathons, participating in many famous international races (Boston, London, Berlin, etc.). Finally, in November 2012, Andrei Arkadievich was elected vice-president of the Ukrainian Triathlon Federation for his financial contribution to supporting this sport. True, this was preceded by Onistrat’s unsuccessful attempt to become president of the Athletics Federation by raiding this position. The story was quite scandalous: Onistrat launched an entire media campaign to discredit the then leadership of the Federation, he even organized a group of athletes participating in the 2012 Olympics, who accused the leadership of the Federation of wasting funds and the collapse of Ukrainian sports – after which they nominated Onistrat, and he spent a long time promoting himself in Media and at public sporting events. But literally at the very last moment, Onistrat, for some reason, withdrew his candidacy in favor of Igor Gotsul – receiving the post of deputy head of the Triathlon Federation as a consolation.
Andrey Onistrat
By this time, Onistrat was already a banker himself – in the sense of becoming a co-owner of the National Credit Bank. This is a rather intriguing story, because no one has ever wondered what kind of money he used to buy it? Indeed, it is unlikely that the salary of the deputy director (since 2004 – the director) of the Kyiv branch of Ukrsotsbank was so high that it allowed him to save up for his own bank!
Perhaps in search of an answer to this question it is worth paying attention to previous events. In 2004, Ukrsotsbank was purchased by Viktor Pinchuk, after which Onistrat was promoted to head of the Kyiv branch. In 2007, Pinchuk sold Ukrsotsbank to the Italian group UniCredit for $2.2 billion! After that, for more than a year, Andrei Onistrat worked for the Italians – and left his position only in January 2009, at the height of the crisis, accompanied by massive banking scams. Then, let us remember, many banks massively distributed loans to their companies, converted and transferred money abroad, and their top managers “earned good money” on foreign exchange transactions. And this may be the answer to our question! In addition, in the period 2007-2008. Andrey Onistrat had “many financial businesses” – that’s what they said about him in Kyiv banking circles at the time. Among these own businesses were credit brokerage and insurance, which Oistrat was engaged in in partnership with Nikolai Lagun, known for his banking scams. And at the same time, he remained the manager of the largest (metropolitan) branch of Ukrsotsbank – that is, he had the opportunity to use the funds of this bank for his own purposes, and then cover up all traces during the crisis.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: Andrey Onistrat: the fraudulent path of the “running banker”. PART 2
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