Firtash and criminal Semyon Mogilevich pumped billions on Turkmen gas

Dmitry Firtash’s assets are being taken away, while his ex-partner Mogilevich continues to receive billions

The court of Cyprus seized almost $46 million of all movable and immovable property of Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash. At the same time, according to Kommersant, interim measures also affected the head company of the oligarch Group DF Holdings Limited, which actually manages all of Mr. Firtash’s business. The reason was the lawsuit of the Russian bank VTB, which was owed by two structures of the businessman – PJSC Ukrainian Chemical Products and Titanium Investments LLC, which own a number of plants in the Crimea. The total amount of debt is more than 2.5 billion rubles. These are not Firtash’s first problems with Russia. In the Russian Federation, he is better known as an active participant in the “gas” schemes of the 90s. His partner then was the “authority” Semyon Mogilevich (Don Simeon, Seva Kyiv). The latter has not even now got off the “feeding trough”, which allows him to receive state billions. As rucriminal.info has repeatedly told, Mogilevich is an unspoken co-owner of the Mercator company, which will supply cleaning equipment. Every year, the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, primarily Moscow, buy equipment from it for hundreds, and sometimes billions of rubles. However, in this publication we will return to history and talk about how Mogilevich and Firtash “stuck” into the gas business.

This can be understood from the documents of Interpol and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Back in the early 1990s, the Hungarian police recorded that the people of Mogilevich had obtained Gazprom securities from somewhere, which they, as they say, were scrolling through. The papers were placed in the bank as a deposit, on this basis loans were obtained. The money was put into the development of a profitable criminal business, and then the shares were bought back. Where did they come from the representatives of Seva Kievsky managed to find out the Russian operatives. At that point in time, Mogilevich established relations with the former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, who served as an adviser to the head of Gazprom, Rem Vyakhirev. It was he who helped the gangsters to receive and scroll through the shares. However, this cooperation was not limited to this. According to Interpol data, which is at the disposal of rucriminal.info, in 1996 a meeting was held in Switzerland, in which Mogilevich, Kuznetsov, the shady businessman Birshtein and several other people took part. It was there that schemes were developed for the supply of Russian and Turkmen natural gas to Ukraine. In Russia, the developed plan was supported by Vyakhirev and his friend Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. In Ukraine, he was supported by Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko. It was the least of all problems to come to an agreement with him – Mogilevich’s “right hand” Igor Fisherman served as an adviser to Lazarenko. Seva Kievsky’s other closest aide was Stanislav Nikolaev, the current head of Mercator.

The meaning of the scheme, if you do not go into technical details, boiled down to the following: gas from Russia and Turkmenistan (it was purchased in Turkmenistan by both the structures of Mogilevich and Gazprom) first went to a transit company controlled by Seva Kievsky and other interested parties. There it was mixed, and only then sent to Ukraine. Part of the settlements between the countries went through transit companies. The appearance of such mediators in relations between the two countries was explained simply. If Russia and Ukraine worked directly, it would be difficult to steal budget money. And when there are transit companies, this is much easier to do. Moreover, their activities were controlled by Mogilevich, who knows all the nuances of the work of financial institutions in the West, knows how to launder the stolen money and where to invest it later with profit. Rusukrenergo became the main such transit country. 50% of its shares belonged to Gazprom, and the other half was officially owned by Ukrainian businessmen Dmitry Firtash and Ivan Fursin, people closely associated with Mogilevich. According to rucriminal.info, since 2000 Firtash owned the offshore company Highrock Holdings, which was established by Seva Kievsky’s next wife, Olga Schneider. Even earlier, Firtash was the official representative of Eural Trans Gas in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Eural Trans Gas was created in Hungary and was completely controlled by Mogilevich. She was also one of the gas transit countries and mainly worked with Turkmenistan.

As a result, the scheme built by Gazprom, Mogilevich, Firtash and corrupt representatives of the governments of the two countries successfully started working. Gas money flowed like a river, part of it was sawn by Seva Kievsky and divided between interested parties. The heads of Gazprom, the state gas companies of Ukraine, the chairmen of the governments of the two countries changed, and the transit companies controlled by Mogilevich and Firtash continued to work and suited everyone. Nothing has changed even when Mogilevich actually became an outcast in the whole world.

In 2007, the authorities of Ukraine and Russia faced a long-awaited question: why do they actually need an intermediary in gas deals in the form of Mogilevich and Firtash, who, moreover, has long been unable to seriously influence financial flows in the West. There were no problems with seizing Seva Kievsky’s stake in Rusukrenergo – half of the company belonged to Gazprom, and Firtash immediately stated that he was not familiar with Seva Kievsky. But taking Eural Trans Gas away from Mogilevich turned out to be a difficult task. The company, which was an important “link” in the supply of gas from Central Asia, was completely controlled by Kievsky and he was not going to part with this asset. When it was not possible to agree in a good way, the special services were involved. rucriminal.info will tell about this in the next publication.