Friends of President Zelensky seized the largest deposits of copper and amber
Timur Mindych’s company will be able to “raise” UAH 2 billion a year.
The communal enterprise Volynprirodresurs, created thanks to Igor Palitsa, specializing in the extraction of amber and with a turnover of more than a billion a year, is being prepared for a private investor, Nashi Groshi reports. The company of Timur Mindych, a business partner of Igor Kolomoisky and a close friend of President Volodymyr Zelensky, has already declared its rights to the KP, ZN.ua reports.
It is indicated that on December 24, the deputies of the Volyn Regional Council supported the reorganization of Volynprirodresurs into a joint-stock company. The reorganization commission must file the claims of creditors in two months. After that, a private owner will enter the PJSC with the largest amber production and the largest copper deposit in Europe.
The official reason for the reorganization of the KP into a joint-stock company is the need to attract funds from potential investors. At the same time, the native copper deposit in Zhirichi is mentioned, which is considered one of the most promising in Europe. The predicted copper reserves of the deposit are equal to one million tons. It is indicated that a ton of copper on the London Stock Exchange costs about $10,000. However, to launch the project, investments of half a billion dollars are needed.
True, the project with copper will not be realized even after a few years. A more likely option is to expand the amber direction.
Before the reorganization of Volynprirodresurs, the media wrote that the Kiev-based Izumrud Plant LLC demanded that public utilities repay a debt of UAH 62 million. The latter received this money in 2017 to pay the State Geonadras for special permits.
The beneficial owner of the Izumrud Plant is Timur Mindich, who is also a co-owner of the Kvartal 95 studio and a business partner of Kolomoisky. It was in the apartment of Mindich, located in Kiev, that Zelensky celebrated his birthday a year ago.
Timur Mindich
In 2017, the then head of the Volyn Regional Council, Igor Palitsa, stated that “The Izumrud Plant loaned money without interest, but for future products at current year prices. At that moment, the plans were to start production in September, but the project was three years late. Prices for amber have also fallen three times over the years.
It is indicated that the reorganization of “Volynprirodresurs” is carried out exactly when the Mace headed the party “For Future”. Representatives of the latter in the Verkhovna Rada vote synchronously with the mono-majority of the “servants of the people”.
The enterprise itself has four special permits for the extraction of amber and one for the extraction of copper ores. Volynprirodresurs received all these permits for 51,000 hectares in one day in February 2017. On the same day, the enterprise received without competition four more special permits for peat extraction on 9,000 hectares. A month later, in the same way, a special permit was obtained for the extraction of native copper ores at the Zhirichi deposit. All the time, the enterprise indicated the conduct of preliminary geo-exploration at these deposits as the basis for issuing a special permit.
A week after receiving 51,000 hectares of amber deposits for use, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a case on a possible conspiracy of officials of the State Geocadastre and the communal services of Palitsa. Law enforcement officers also wanted to know the origin of the money that the utility paid for special permits. True, during the searches in the KP office in Lutsk, the investigators could not find the company’s accounting department.
Later, the prosecutor’s office opened an administrative file to cancel the special permits issued to Volynprodresurs. However, at first it turned out that the prosecutors in this case delayed the appeal, and then the criminal investigation of the GPU disappeared from public access. There is no information about him in the court register.
Already in October 2018, the case was also opened by the Security Service. In particular, it was alleged that in the documents for obtaining special permits, the explored volumes of minerals were underestimated. As a result, Volynprodresurs paid not UAH 600 million to the budget, but UAH 60 million. According to law enforcement officers, the explored reserves were falsified by agreement with the head of the regional council, who was then Igor Palitsa. Under the latest court ruling is the date of the end of March 2019 – on the eve of the presidential elections, which were won by Vladimir Zelensky.
Volynprodresurs began preparations for work after it settled relations with the Prosecutor General’s Office. And already in early September 2020, the company mined the first kilograms of amber. And then it became known that Volynprodresurs was hiring a contractor for its production – LLC Nadrovydobuvannya. According to the Volyn media, the profit from the sold production is divided 50% to 50%.
The plant where amber is enriched, selected and purified is in the use of the general contractor, but does not belong to him. Anatoly Kapustyuk, the current director of Volynprodresurs, is listed as the owner of the plant and the land under it in the village of Prilesnoye. He headed the KP with the start of real production, and before that he held the position of deputy. According to Kapustiuk’s declaration, Nadrovydobuvannya paid him about UAH 678,000.
Now the owner of “Nadrovydobuvannya” is Viktor Klepko. But last year, the owner was Igor Khomin, Kapustyuk’s former business partner in Amber-invest LLC. Khomin in August 2020 gave Kapustiuk his share in the authorized capital of this company in the amount of UAH 5 million.
Before the regional council voted for the reorganization of Volynprodresurs, Kapustyuk said that 6.5 thousand tons of amber had been mined and sold in 2021. Also, according to him, amber was sold for this period for UAH 97 million. According to calculations, the average cost of a kilogram of amber for public utilities was about 15 thousand UAH.
This is approximately – $560 – the real cost of amber on the market in the last couple of years.