CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Evgeniy Bambizov: the end of the “tax killer”. PART 1
Evgeniy Bambizov
Having become a big boss in Kyiv, Evgeniy Bambizov began to rapidly “get rich,” apparently no longer considering it necessary to pose as a righteous beggar. An old UAZ-69 appeared in his declaration for 2015, and 270 thousand hryvnia suddenly materialized out of nowhere in his family’s bank accounts. Further, in 2016, they already rented a one-room apartment and a Skoda car from “good people” in Kyiv, and Ekaterina Bambizova became an entrepreneur and declared 1.3 million hryvnia of income – eight times more than her husband received in a year. There were already 750 thousand hryvnia in their accounts at that time. For 2017, the Bambizovs declared another rented apartment in Kyiv (already with an area of 106 sq.m.), a rented Mercedes and 1.35 million hryvnia in their accounts. And again, Ekaterina Bambizova earned more from entrepreneurship (1.4 million hryvnia) than her husband received at work (268 thousand). In the declaration for 2018, another private apartment appeared in Kharkov, and Ekaterina Bambizova received: 1.45 million hryvnia from entrepreneurship, 800 thousand hryvnia in the form of a gift from her father Eduard Serdyuk (chief engineer of Balakleya Forestry) and 1.35 million hryvnia from the sale of some real estate to a certain Andrey Didyk. The Bambizovs never explained what kind of real estate this was, which was not previously mentioned in their declarations.
Ekaterina Bambizova
Of course, no one began to find out how the unemployed wife of a poor official, who came to Kyiv, opened her own store in the capital and registered her own trade brand – and began to receive more than a decent income from selling “rags”. Meanwhile, sources Skelet.Info claimed that the “boutique” of Ekaterina Bambizova, like many similar shops of the wives of high-ranking officials, was only a front company for laundering part of the shadow income of their husbands. Simply put, part of the bribes and kickbacks were then passed through the cash register of this “boutique” under the guise of buying expensive “branded” panties and blouses – and they were already deposited into Ekaterina Bambizova’s account as “honest profit.”
Ekaterina Bambizova and her trading brand
After his dismissal, Evgeny Bambizov himself decided to become an entrepreneur, establishing with his comrades the consulting company “Center for Mediation and Partnership” (USREOU 43262823). His partners were Kharkov residents Vadim Goroshko, who is a co-owner of at least six other operating companies (and an unknown number of already closed ones), as well as Alexander Zakrinitsky and his daughter Victoria Zakrinitskaya, who are also co-owners of a number of companies, including joint ones with Goroshko. Zakrinitsky is known in Kharkov as the owner of PFC Sodruzhestvo, which during the time of Yanukovych won multimillion-dollar tenders – in particular, for the reconstruction of the Kharkov metro. According to sources Skelet.Info, It was in the companies of Goroshko and Zakrinitsky that Evgeniy Bambizov invested his corrupt earnings, ever since he worked in Kharkov under the wing of Galina Fedenko.
Tax schemes
The reasons for Bambizov’s strange temporary stay in Odessa were discussed after his departure to Kyiv. In February 2017 Media reported that the SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office stopped another attempt (!) to illegally refund VAT in the amount of 300 million hryvnia by a group of officials of the State Fiscal Service – and in particular the Office for Work with Large Taxpayers. For their service they demanded a kickback of 70 million. Surprisingly, this more than scandalous story had no continuation – no one was arrested or imprisoned. Moreover, neither the customers nor the perpetrators of the criminal scheme were named; the case was actually immediately hushed up. However, it attracted the attention of journalists, who began their research and immediately contacted Evgeniy Bambizov. Since the implementation of this VAT scam was impossible without his direct participation as the head of the Office of Large Taxpayers. Moreover, she also demanded a “sanction” from the then head of the State Fiscal Service, Roman Nasirov. However, Nasirov was arrested a month after this story – but Bambizov again remained “clean” and in his chair.
Then the journalists managed to find out that the illegal VAT age was prepared through fictitious companies in the Kharkov and Odessa regions on the order of a large Ukrainian exporter. That the head of the State Fiscal Service in the Kharkov region Nikolai Rybakov and his deputy Bagrat Khachaturyan, as well as officials of the State Fiscal Service in the Odessa region, participated in the scheme. And that a similar scheme had worked before – and it was precisely in order to put their man in Odessa that Evgeny Bambizov was sent there in 2015. And then he was transferred to Kyiv and promoted as his reliable person, recommending him to Nasirov.
Evgeniy Bambizov, State Fiscal Service
Having settled in the capital, Bambizov began to carry out even larger orders. One of them came from Agrocenter-Ukraine LLC (USREOU 39793886), and although this was not mentioned in the media, judging by the databases, this company is part of the Privat group. Having an authorized capital of only one thousand hryvnia, the company carried out commercial activities selling grain, fertilizers, coke and other goods produced at the enterprises of the Privat group, and also traded in tobacco products, imported fruits and much more. For 2018 and several months of 2019, its turnover amounted to 4,120,363,000 hryvnia, of which purely on paper, without movement of goods, by 1,153,791,000 hryvnia! As a result, the company began to claim illegal VAT refunds amounting to several hundred million hryvnia.
However, Bambizov’s tax schemes also worked in the opposite direction. He charged those with whom he agreed with an illegal VAT refund. But for those who resisted, or who were “ordered” to do so, he imposed additional tax assessments: in some cases this was a powerful blow to business, and in others it became “tax killers.” One of the first victims of Bambizov back in 2016-2017. became the Ukrainian branches of the largest tobacco companies “British American Tobacco”, “Japan Tobacco International” and “Philip Morris”. The war against them has unfolded in Ukraine since 2015 and actually continues to this day, and tax pressure was just one of many methods of pushing them out of the country. For what? According to sources Skelet.Infolarge tobacco smugglers are interested in this, importing cigarettes into Ukraine from Transnistria, “LDPR”, Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) – having already captured over half of the country’s tobacco market, and carrying out their further smuggling into the European Union. Legal cigarette manufacturers operating under white legal schemes are disturbing them – and they decided to remove them. British American Tobacco has already closed the factory in Priluki, so the smugglers are getting their way.
“Katyuzi deservedly!”
Bambizov’s largest order was the case against Arcelor Mittal Krivoy Rog. It should be noted that the image of this transnational corporation of Indian origin is extremely negative throughout the world. It uses cheap labor, cheap raw materials, saves on the environment and labor protection, to the point of not spending money on them at all – and gets its quick profit from this. Therefore, all the claims of the residents of Krivoy Rog to Arcelor Mittal are completely justified. Even Vladimir Zelensky, as one of them, was very critical of the work of this enterprise.
However, the fact is that other metallurgical companies in Ukraine are no better: they also pollute the environment and also pay their workers pennies (compared to the salaries of metallurgists in other countries), but there is no such fuss around them. Therefore, the case against Arcelor Mittal had all the signs of being ordered, and it was not difficult to guess which of the Ukrainian oligarchs might have coveted Krivorozhstal. The customer was clearly in a hurry to get it done before the new government started working and became comfortable in Ukraine. Therefore, in the spring-summer of 2019, the SBU, the prosecutor’s office, environmentalists, and, in the end, the State Fiscal Service in the person of the head of the Office of Large Taxpayers, Evgeniy Bambizov, were thrown against Arcelor Mittal Krivoy Rog. Who on September 4 announced the completion of the audit, which began in May, and announced the amount of tax claims against the enterprise: almost 9 billion hryvnia! At the same time he filed a tax claim against the Foxtrot chain of stores in the amount of 645 million hryvnia, which, according to sources Skelet.Info, competitors also “ordered”. However, by doing so, Bambizov actually signed his own death sentence.
According to media reports, Arcelor Mittal managed to reach an agreement with President Zelensky to resolve the conflict in exchange for a change of leadership and a promise to resolve the issue of emissions from the plant, as well as funding for some Servant of the People projects. Therefore, as soon as a new government was formed, the attacks on Arcelor Mittal Krivoy Rog stopped. Moreover, a powerful reverse wave began.
Already on the same day, the new leadership of the State Fiscal Service, clearly nervous, stated that Bambizov… did not have the right to make any tax claims, because he had nothing to do with the tax service! Explaining this by the fact that his Office of Large Taxpayers is subordinate to the State Fiscal Service, which since December 2018 has been divided into the State Tax Service (STS) and the State Customs Service. And that the State Tax Service now has its own Office of Large Taxpayers, headed by Alexey Derevyanko, and the Office of Large Taxpayers of the State Fiscal Service, led by Bambizov, is in the process of reorganization and liquidation.
The explanations, however, turned out to be weak and completely awkward, since it was not clear how Bambizov managed to “serve in the cleanup” for more than six months, in the sense of carrying out his activities, causing a “nightmare” for some large taxpayers and illegally refunding VAT to others. But, apparently, in a hurry to close this topic as soon as possible, on September 10, the leadership of the State Fiscal Service signed a retroactive order to dismiss Evgeniy Bambizov, allegedly at his own request. As they say, without even allowing him to complete the reorganization and liquidation of his Office.
And yet this turned out to be not enough. Two months later, they decided to “finish off” Bambizov by bringing him to justice in the old case of the Ukrainian Media Holding. This was already a sign of a serious war, which the public is trying not to talk about for now. But some conclusions can be drawn from a recent press conference created by the Association for the Protection of Foreign Investments, which accused the former head of the military prosecutor’s office Matios of creating a “gang of robbers,” which included Yevgeny Bambizov. “We will talk about the military prosecutor’s office, which became famous throughout the world, which interacted so well with the SBU authorities that its fame spread to other countries. Bambizov directly passed on the information to Matios,” said the owner of BioTexCom, Albert Tochilovsky, during a press conference.
It is not difficult to guess that this is no longer just a matter of settling scores. Just as in the old days, in a liberated village, people ran with pitchforks and stakes to beat the “Herod” who was tormenting them, so in Ukraine, after the change of power, businessmen who suffered from the previous regime are thirsting for revenge. And if all those whom they have been “milking” and “pressing” for years take on Bambizov, then he will be in great trouble, because this will not be limited to the “Kurchenko case” alone.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
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