Dmitry Kryuchkov and Leonid Kryuchkov: “jackals” of Ukrainian raiding. PART 2

CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Leonid Kryuchkov and Dmitry Kryuchkov: “jackals” of Ukrainian raiding. PART 1

Dmitry Kryuchkov and Leonid Kryuchkov. Raider Brothers

While serving as deputy governor of the Rivne region, Dmitry Kryuchkov took aim, no less, at the Rivne nuclear power plant! It started with the fact that the former director of the Rivne NPP Construction Management OJSC, Vasily Ogorodnik, came to him and asked Kryuchkov to help him be reinstated in his position. The deputy governor demanded a “gift” – and officially, according to the gift agreement, this was 13 thousand shares of the enterprise (4% stake) for a total of 637,900 hryvnia. A few days later, Dmitry Kryuchkov arranged a corresponding decision of the Gorodok district court of the Lvov region, with which two dozen Berkut officers and employees of a private security company burst into the enterprise, who took Vasily Ogorodnik to the office and read out to the frightened staff there a resolution on his reinstatement.

Almost simultaneously with this, Dmitry Kryuchkov, as well as the governor’s assistant for economics, Igor Golod, and Rivne businessman Andrey Ostapchuk, seized the Khmelnitsky NPP Construction Administration OJSC. They bought 22% of the company’s shares and captured it in the same way with the help of the Berkut and the private security company. The interest of the Kryuchkov family in these enterprises was obvious: they wanted to subordinate them to their companies in order to monopolize contracts for construction work at these nuclear power plants. But in 2005, these raider attacks ended scandalously: in Rivne, the regional organization of Our Ukraine supported the current director of the enterprise, Mikhail Semkiv, a share donation agreement was published – and soon Dmitry Kryuchkov was fired from the post of deputy chairman of the Regional State Administration. But a criminal case was opened regarding the attempt to seize the Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant Construction Department – and again Dmitry Kryuchkov excused himself from the investigation, turning all the arrows on Igor Golod.

But Dmitry Kryuchkov is distinguished by his vindictive obstinacy. And in 2007, he continued the raider attack on the Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant Construction Department – exactly 40 days after its director Igor Shevtsov died. This time the Kryuchkovs acted alone, buying up the necessary stake in the enterprise through their Kievrekonstruktsiya. The office was seized again (for this they brought “titushki” from Brovary), there were court decisions again, and the brothers still managed to place their man Igor Biryukov in the chair of the director of the enterprise.

In 2006, the Kryuchkovs set their sights on the “Ukrainian House of Industrial and Workwear Models” (Kyiv, Pechersk, Anishchenko Street 17). Taking advantage of the fact that in the spring of 2006 this enterprise was transformed from a collective into an OJSC, the Kryuchkovs bought up part of its shares (1.5%), after which they corrected the necessary court decision in Krivoy Rog, and with the help of “titushki”, as well as the Kievreconstruction crane “(to seize the premises through the windows) broke into the enterprise. By the way, at that time Dmitry Kryuchkov was already elected as a people’s deputy (No. 71 on the BYuT list), so he managed to hide behind a mandate well. On the wall of the captured building, he immediately erected a sign “Public Reception of the People’s Deputy,” which was supposed to protect it from possible counter-raider attacks. The fate of the former enterprise turned out to be sad: judging by the fact that this building is now for sale (real estate in Pechersk is expensive), the Kryuchkovs left Ukraine without its own developer of workwear.

Among the companies of the Kryuchkov family listed above is PJSC Neftegazstroy. The Kryuchkovs began to establish control over it back in 2004, having acquired a stake. And the trick is that Neftegazstroy, together with NJSC Naftogaz, are co-owners of CJSC Ukrneftegazstroy, which united many design, construction and installation enterprises. Taking advantage of the non-resistance of Naftogaz, which was tormented by everyone and everything, the Kryuchkovs twice (in 2007 and 2008) initiated an additional issue of shares of Ukrneftegazstroy, gradually concentrating 99% in their hands. And then they gutted his property in the same way as they previously gutted the Kyivreconstruction State Enterprise. At the same time, through the same additional issue, the Kryuchkovs increased their stake in Neftegazstroy to 75%.

New times

The media reported that in 2006-2010. The Kryuchkovs had a reliable “roof” in the person of the Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Kudryavtsev, through whom the brothers managed to make many other useful contacts in the Prosecutor General’s Office. And when he was replaced by Viktor Pshonka in 2010, the Kryuchkovs found an approach to his son Artem Pshonka. This helped out Dmitry Kryuchkov, who in 2011 again found himself accused of yet another fraud and spent several months in a pre-trial detention center.

Then things got better for the brothers, of course. It was reported that Leonid Kryuchkov was seen quite often in the office of Artem Pshonka – known in those years as the “alternative Prosecutor General’s Office”, that he became his partner in companies involved in the export of weapons (more precisely, scams with the export of weapons). Perhaps that is why, soon after power changed again in Ukraine, in September 2014, Leonid Kryuchkov was appointed acting. Ukrspetsexport is the leading Ukrainian arms exporter. But not for long, because he himself wisely left this post, moving to the place of deputy head of Ukrinmash (a subsidiary of Ukrspetsexport). Just then, its former director Anatoly Mayboroda was fired with a loud scandal: he thought of starting a sale of small arms on the domestic market of Ukraine, including the RPG-7 and the Fagot ATGM, and these weapons were immediately snatched up by incomprehensible structures (maybe volunteers, maybe separatists, maybe just an organized crime group). Against the backdrop of this scandal, Mayboroda was replaced by Vladimir Omelyanchuk (who worked in the Ministry of Defense under Yanukovych), and Leonid Kryuchkov became his deputy. And he immediately marked himself with a new scam: it was Kryuchkov who ordered from Britain the notorious batch of old Saxon armored cars, suitable only for intimidating the African Zulus.

Taking advantage of the fact that Ukrninmash now imported rather than exported weapons, Leonid Kryuchkov prepared a contract with ATN Corporation – allegedly an American company that turned out to be a shell. Registered in the United States, it sold Soviet, Russian and Ukrainian weapons to Ukraine – sometimes items that had previously been exported from the country. And in May 2015, Kryuchkov and Omelchenko prepared a fictitious contract with the British company Fuerteventura Inter LP in the amount of $1.9 million, allegedly for mediation in the export of a batch of Ukrainian 23-mm anti-aircraft shells to the UAE. How did I find out? Skelet.Info, Fuerteventura Inter LP did not provide any services, and was generally registered just before the contract was drawn up. But by that time, Leonid Kryuchkov had already run away from Ukprinmash, having found a new source of income for himself – seaports. So, together with the Deputy National Police Igor Kupranets, through the Portoservice-Ukraine company, he began to control the Nikolaev seaport.

But his brother Dmitry is now going through not the best of times: since the summer of 2016 he has been wanted! He is accused of damage in the amount of 346 million hryvnia, which he caused as a result of a major fraud in the energy sector.

It all started in April 2014, when the former Sunny Beach company was renamed Energomerezha Holding, and the brother of Energy Minister Yuri Prodan joined its supervisory board. The remaining members of the supervisory board were: Alexey Bespaly (Grigorishin’s person), Andrey Mayorov, Diana Ishchenko, Valeria Shevchenko and Vladimir Kapustin (Surkis’ people). Dmitry Kryuchkov took over the leadership of Energomerezhi. To begin with, in 2014, Energomerezha and DTEK Akhmetova received a license to export electricity from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) to Ukraine (what about “aggression”?).

But it was probably boring for hereditary swindlers to make money by importing and reselling electricity. And starting from the end of 2014, Energomerezha began a rather strange business: this company was assigned the debts of an enterprise in the Zaporozhye and Cherkasy regions to their regional power companies, so that it would then collect arrears from them and deposit the money into the account of the State Enterprise Energorynok (a company that collects payments for electricity throughout Ukraine). It is worth clarifying that Zaporozhyeoblenergo and Cherkassyoblenergo were not yet fully privatized companies, which the Surkises, Grigorishin, and other oligarchs had long been “licking their lips” at. Thus, this scheme immediately aroused suspicion. And they were justified when Energomerezha did not transfer the promised money to Energorynok in the amount of 346 million hryvnia.

Instead, Energomerezha forgave part of the debt to enterprises (among them was the Zaporozhye titanium-magnesium plant owned by Firtash), and took part of it in money, which it then transferred to some “left” accounts. And this happened not only in the Zaporozhye region: Cherkassyoblenergo assigned debts to Energomerezh in the amount of 300 million (out of 23 million for Firtash’s Azot), they tried to launch a similar scheme in Kharkov. When the Ministry of Internal Affairs became interested in this case, the media claimed that the total amount of the scam reached 950 million hryvnia. However, on July 27, 2015, Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin closed the criminal case “due to the absence of an offense.” As we see, under any power, the Kryuchkovs have a reliable “roof” in the Prosecutor General’s Office!” And only a year later, a new case was opened by NABU, which has so far managed to prove only part of the episodes of this grandiose scam. But by that time, the traces of Dmitry Kryuchkov had already been lost, but his brother Leonid began to often visit Bankovaya, apparently trying to remove this matter as well.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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