Andrey Puzichuk: Family clan of construction swindlers of Kyiv. PART 1

Everyone knows that apartments in Kyiv are very expensive, and buying them is associated with the risk of fraud. But not everyone knows that the greatest risk comes not from fraudulent realtors, but from presentable, in appearance, developer companies. Especially if they have a strong “roof” in the Kyiv City State Administration and the Verkhovna Rada, making them invulnerable to the law and allowing them to ignore public indignation. For example, like the capital’s “Fundament”, the owner of which is Andriy Puzichuk and his family. For several years, this company fooled and fed with promises the shareholders of the residential complex “Privitniy Kvartal”, and in the meantime carried out large-scale scams and covered their tracks …

Andrey Puzichuk: Schemes of one deception

If you happen to be in the Bortnichi district of the capital, pay attention to the gloomy gray “unfinished building” located at 55 Kharchenko Street (former Lenin Street). This is the same residential complex “Privitniy Kvartal” that will never be completed! And it’s not even that the money paid for the future apartments has long been squandered and taken offshore. It is simply physically impossible to complete this construction, since the plant that produced reinforced concrete panels for it has gone bankrupt and stopped. Therefore, today there are only two questions on the agenda: will the deceived people get their money back, and who will dismantle these “ruins”?

This sad story began back in 2005, when the Kyiv City Council by its decision No. 110/3574 transferred this site to the disposal of Apteka-Biokon LLC (EDRPOU 30263519) for the expansion of the nearby medical warehouse complex (it can be seen in the video below). A year later This area was privatizedbut did not use it for its intended purpose and expand the warehouse, “Apteka-Biokon”, having found a more profitable use for it in a commercial residential construction project. However, the 2008 crisis ruined these plans, so they were postponed. And so in 2013, by the decision of the Kyiv City Council dated 23.10.2013, signed by its secretary Galina Gerega, this site was allowed to be used for the construction of residential buildings. This was illegal, but such “trifles” were ignored – after all, “Apteka-Biokon”, registered to a Cypriot company, is controlled by her friend Irene Kilchitskaya.

Then the construction plans were again slowed down by another crisis, but in 2018 things got moving. Apteka-Biokon acted as the customer for the construction, and the designer and general contractor were the companies of the Fundament construction group.

The media began a powerful advertisement of the future residential complex “Privitniy Kvartal”, promising not very expensive (because economy class) apartments in four nice panel multi-story buildings. And soon clients began to come – mostly simple and poor people who earned their money by honest work. And it was them who were deceived by the construction swindlers Puziychuks!

It should be said that the first suspicions should have been aroused by the strange system of payment for future apartments. The clients deposited money for them into the account not of the construction customer, and not of Fundament, but of PJSC Venture Corporate Investment Fund Hunter (38901468), owned by the Cypriot company Kotryna Holding Ltd. Moreover, according to the documents, they did not buy apartments, but some “securities”, which they were then promised to exchange for apartments. A scam? Yes, and what a scam! But the fact is that a similar scheme of payments through venture funds, allowing tax evasion, has long been used by many Kyiv developers. Therefore, they have already gotten used to it – they say, it’s like this everywhere. By the way, over all these years, neither the prosecutor’s office nor NABU have shown any interest in these schemes.

The contractor was supposed to commission the first stage of the housing complex in the second quarter of 2020. But by the specified date, only the bare walls of one house (out of four) were built, up to the level of 6-8 floors – with a design of 18-26. Worried people began to ask questions, and Fundament reassured them: supposedly, it was all because of the quarantine, workers of the building materials plant (DSK-3) could not get to work, now the quarantine is over and the construction will resume. But this was a cynical lie, because the construction, according to Skeleton.Infostopped before the pandemic began. This can be seen by comparing two videos: the first was filmed in August 2019, the second in June 2020 (before the project was officially frozen).

Then it became known that DSK-3 itself had stopped at the end of 2019 due to bankruptcy, since the Puzichuks who controlled it simply did not transfer money to the enterprise, deliberately ruining the enterprise. And they transferred the last of the panels it produced to complete other construction projects: the Welcome Home residential complex and the La-La-Land residential complex. The buyers of apartments in the Privitniy Kvartal residential complex were simply “cheated”, without even getting their money back. All the Hunter employees unanimously went to “remote work”, and the Fundament notaries, with whom the contracts were signed, simply hid from outraged clients.

Puzichuk’s lie about the “quarantine” was exposed by another blatant fact: for many years their family literally bathed in money taken out of “Hunter”. In declarations MP Andriy Puzichuk can be seen to have regularly received hundreds of thousands of “income from entrepreneurial activity” and millions from real estate transactions from Hunter. His common-law wife Yulia Radchenko also received seven-figure sums from Hunter. And what do you think? such a publication:

About this criminal case The media reported in the same 2018and even specified the amount of unpaid taxes: 6.6 million hryvnia. And this is only for the scheme of withdrawing money from enterprises through “tax liability minimization centers” and fictitious firms. But the schemes for selling apartments through the purchase and sale of “securities” diverted taxes by an order of magnitude larger amounts! And Andrey Puzichuk and his family are swimming in these millions, stolen from the pockets of defrauded equity holders and diverted from payment to the budget…

How the “Foundation” was built

Puziychuk Andrey Viktorovich was born on June 13, 1978 in a small but very ancient town of Malin, in the Zhitomir region. His father Viktor Vladimirovich Puziychuk (1951), uncle Nikolay Vladimirovich Puziychuk (1948), brother Vitaliy Puziychuk (1982) and cousins ​​Igor (1971) and Sergey Puziychuk (1983) were also born there.

Surprisingly, there is practically no information about this large and friendly family, as well as their family photos. Even the biography of MP Andriy Puziychuk is indecently short. There is only the date of birth, allegedly having a higher education (but it is not indicated where, when and what he studied), as well as a mention of the fact that in 2001 he became the founder of Kiev Construction Company LLC (EDRPOU 31413855), which in 2005 he transferred to his father (or his father transferred it to himself). By the way, the media often confuse this company, closed back in 2008, with another firm of the Puziychuks, which has a similar name: UKB Kiev Housing and Construction Company LLC (33631796), founded in 2006. And they also call Vitaliy Puziychuk the eldest of the brothers, although he is four years younger than Andriy.

In general, the history of this family is covered in thick fog. The Puziychuks are not open about how they moved from Malin to Kyiv and started a construction business there. Perhaps these blank spots could be filled in by Alexander Petrovich Yarosh – a very long-time partner, manager and friend of the Puzichuk family, currently heading their firms “UKB KZhSK” and “Fundament”. However, he also prefers to keep quiet, otherwise he would not be their most trusted person!

Alexander Yarosh

And yet Skeleton.Info we managed to find out the following. Viktor Puzijchuk and his son Andriy Puzijchuk settled in Kyiv by the end of the 90s, and already then they had at their disposal PJSC “Subpodryad” (01354450), which was engaged in everything in a row (sorry for the pun) – from trading from stalls to “property exploitation”. There is even unconfirmed information that this “cooperative” was founded under the “roof” of one of the Kyiv organized crime groups, to which Andriy Puzijchuk allegedly had ties. But these are just rumors. But here are the facts: at the same time, the Puzijchuks became close to a group of apartment corruptors consisting of Vyacheslav Nepop, Mikhail Golitsa, Viktor Bilych and Nikolay Tolmachev. Having started with the MZhK, this group developed well: with the help of the Surkis family, they pushed Golitsa to the post of deputy head of the housing department of the Kyiv City Executive Committee, and in 2001 they lobbied for the creation of the Zhitloinvestbud-UKB municipal enterprise. And although this enterprise is 100% owned by the Kyiv City Council, all these years it was managed by its “eternal director” (from 2001 to 2018) Vyacheslav Nepop, who turned the municipal enterprise into his personal fiefdom. Nepop “outlived” many mayors (from Omelchenko to post-Maidan “governors”) without any problems, and under Klitschko he became deputy mayor for architecture, construction and land resources – that is, in fact, the fox was appointed to guard the henhouse!

Vitali Klitschko and Vyacheslav Nepop

From the very moment of its creation, Zhitloinvestbud has essentially been a complete corruption scam: the company itself does not build anything, being only a customer and hiring private construction firms at the expense of the budget. Who was hired and how much was “sawing up” was decided by Vyacheslav Nepop and his shadow patrons. So, one of the very first contractors of Zhitloinvestbud was the “Kiev Construction Company” of the Puziychuks, specially created for this purpose, where the aforementioned Alexander Yarosh was already the chief engineer. Then, after this company pocketed too much and brazenly, it was quietly closed, and right on the eve of the 2008 crisis. And contracts from Nepop began to be received by its subsidiary OOO “UKB KZhSK”, where Alexander Yarosh also worked first as the chief engineer and then as the director. And now, as the media reports, in the period 2008-2012 alone, she received contracts worth more than half a billion hryvnia (63 million dollars at the exchange rate at the time) from Nepop’s Zhitloinvestbud and Golitsa’s Kyivgorstroy. And by 2018, all of the Puziychuk firms had mastered about three billion from the capital’s budget, through Zhitloinvestbud contracts (larger sums were also mentioned).

In order to keep as much budget money as possible in his pockets, Andriy Puzichuk decided to acquire his own construction base and production of building materials. During this process of “localization of production” they made two new successful acquisitions. The first was the former Kyiv Specialized Directorate No. 580, which in 1993 its then director Genrikh Shpigel turned into a private CJSC “Fundament”. At first, the company, having developments and specialists from Soviet times, earned well, but in the “noughties” it fell out of the favorites of new schemes of Kyiv construction. In 2008, “Fundament” was on the verge of bankruptcy, and under the pretext of “saving it from a hostile takeover” Nepop took it under his control, re-registering it as PJSC “Fundament” (01416332). After which Shpigel was pushed aside to the position of advisor to the new CEO, Alexander Yarosh, and the new shareholders of the enterprise became Nepop’s relatives and partners: Viktor Bilych, Nikolai Negrich (Golitsa’s son-in-law), Viktor Puzichuk and Valeriy Puzichuk, Anzhelika Kovaleva (Nepop’s accountant), and later Nepop’s daughter Maria. “Fundament”, according to sources Skeleton.Infobecame the main company of the Puzichuks and the basis for the creation of subsidiaries: Fundament-Auto (35198874), Fundament-Project (38657646), Fundament-Development (38077923), DSK Fundament (40048603) and others.

Heinrich Spiegel

The second useful acquisition of the Puzichuks was PJSC DSK-3 (04012773), also known as the Kiev House-Building Plant No. 3. Since Soviet times, the enterprise specialized in the production of panels for so-called economy class residential buildings, which can be built quickly and cheaply (no hassle with expensive high-strength structures). For construction swindlers, “foisting” expensive apartments on people in the capitals, it was irreplaceable! Until 2010, 56% of DSK-3 belonged to Kyivgorstroy. Then Mykhailo Golitsa became the head of Kyivgorstroy, and a certain Mykhailo Petrovich Puzichuk, a native of the village of Rubezhovka in the Zhitomir region, became the head of the finance and economics department – possibly a relative of the Puzichuks. After that, another 26% of the shares of the house-building plant were distributed to “their own people”, and its new co-owner was the Cypriot company “Roycap Trading Limited”, controlled by the Puziychuk family (they later removed this information from all databases). And the supervisory board of PJSC “DSK-3” then included Viktor Vlasenko (director of “BK KZhSK”), Nikolai Doychev (son of Evgeniy Doychev, director of PJSC “Subpodryad”), Vadim Chumachenko (director of “”Roycap”).

There is another key company in the Puzichuks’ “construction empire” – the construction company “Azur Group” (37312682). It was founded in 2010 by a certain Marina Zapalskaya and Lyudmila Mazur, and then the company “KZhSK” became the new owner – and immediately after that “Azur Group” began to receive multimillion-dollar contracts from “Zhitloinvestbud”.

The Puziychuk family also created temporary companies for the construction of individual facilities, such as the Pozniaky Office Center LLC (EDRPOU 38077991), established in 2012 by Vitaliy Puziychuk. This company became “famous” for its scandalous construction in Pozniaky, which became the embodiment of the machinations taking place in the construction sector of the Kyiv City State Administration. The site was allocated for one purpose, and they are building something completely different on it, with gross violations and without many permits, with a risk to the buildings standing nearby.

Mikhail Shpolyansky, Skelet.Info

CONTINUATION: Puzichuk Andrey: everything will be “Fundament” and “Azur-Group”! PART 2

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