CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Denis Fudashkin: the eminence grise of tax schemes. PART 1
Denis Fudashkin
What kind of money do Jaguars buy for?
After Maidan 2004, Viktor Pinzenyk, then considered a luminary of the market economy, returned to the new Cabinet of Ministers. And already in March 2005, he accepted Denis Fudashnik to the position of director of the Department of Tax and Customs Policy of his ministry. Regular sponsorship of the Reform and Order party was not forgotten
Sergei Chekashkin, who had experience in civil service in the State Property Fund, the Ministry of Finance and the State Tax Administration, was then appointed as Fudashkin’s deputy. Chekashkin also had extensive experience in corruption schemes, with the proceeds from which he indulged in his favorite hobby: expensive sports foreign cars, in which he participated in illegal night races through the streets of Kyiv together with the same high-ranking rakes. This was his undoing: on the night of September 24, 2012, Sergei Chekashkin, who at that time served as head of the Financial Policy Department of the Ministry of Economic Development, rolled over and died during a race along Bazhan Avenue in his Dodge Viper (worth one hundred thousand dollars).
Sergei Chekashkin, Moron from birth
Denis Fudashkin is not such a risky person, so he does not participate in auto racing. However, he also loves expensive cars. One day, journalists captured his white Jaguar XJ, the cost of which starts at 115 thousand dollars. Fudashkin tried not to show him off, and for commuting to work he bought himself a more modest Toyota Camry, costing “only” 30 thousand dollars. He also registered two apartments in Kyiv for his mother: a three-room apartment on Vvedenskaya Street and a penthouse on Druzhby Narodov.
“Jaguar XJ” by Denis Fudashkin
During his work in the Department of Tax and Customs Policy, Fudashkin mastered the method of lobbying for the introduction and abolition of custom taxes and duties. It’s simple: even when Fudashkin was creating a family alcohol business in Crimea, he himself needed some “adjustment” of tax and excise policy. Having become the head of the Department, he received the levers of this mechanism into his hands – and happily accepted orders and wishes from others. Whoever “put in” called the tune, but that is why tax policy under Fudashkin was so chaotic: he advocated a sharp increase in one thing and a sharp decrease or abolition of another, and all this was completely unsystematic, just pouring from empty to empty.
He worked big. In particular, it was through Fudashkin in 2005 that tax benefits for “special economic zones” (SEZ) were abolished, he was the main ideologist of this idea. His “justifications” sounded beautiful: to create equal conditions for all investors, to close SEZs as breeding grounds for corruption, to increase budget revenues, etc. But what was hidden behind this? You won’t believe it, but the closure of the SEZ through Fudashkin was lobbied by oligarchs who had mastered offshore schemes that were new for that time. It’s simple: those who had already brought their business to Cyprus, the Virgin Islands and Panama received an advantage over those whose business was registered in Ukrainian SEZs that were closing. Some oligarchs won, others lost – and Fudashkin and Pinzenik received their “commissions”.
In addition, Fudashkin, according to Skelet.Info, He also mastered another rich field – personnel policy, ensuring that appointments in the Tax Service and Customs took place only after his “consultations”.
Fortunately, this did not last long: in September 2006, when the Yanukovych government was formed and the Donetsk people pushed everyone else away from the “feeding trough,” Fudashkin was forced to resign and was officially unemployed for a year and a half. With the elections of 2007, as well as earlier with the elections of 2006, he was unlucky: Fudashkin got an impassable place on the BYuT list, although his friend and partner Sobolev worked very hard for him. But in December 2007, when Tymoshenko’s government was formed and Pinzenik returned to the post of Minister of Finance, Fudashkin was appointed his deputy. And then he turned around again, but now government bonds and bills of the Ministry of Finance became his strong point. Their mass release to fill the treasury has always been the favorite method of Pinzenik, who understood economics only from an accounting point of view. Fudashkin helped him discover his own benefits, which can be obtained through schemes for resale and repayment of these debt securities.
The basic scheme was simple, and was then used in 2014-2015. (when Fudashkin also worked in the Ministry of Finance). The state generously sold bonds and issued bills, but when the time came for their repayment, it turned out that getting “real” money for them was not so easy. Those holders of securities who urgently needed finance were forced to sell them to intermediary buyers for 90%, or even 75-50% of their nominal value. They gave especially little for them during the 2008 crisis, when some lost and others “gained” billions on bonds. And then these intermediary firms repaid the purchased bonds and bills at par. Only the most “initiated” firms participated in this highly profitable “business”, among them were Valeria Gontareva and Petro Poroshenko And, according to Skelet.Info, Fudashkin, along with other top officials of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy and the National Bank, was the operator of these schemes.
Finally, in 2008-2009 Denis Fudashkin began lobbying for the gaming business. At first he opposed moving gaming establishments outside of cities, arguing that they are serious fillers for the treasury (he remained silent about these fillings with crime and grief). At the same time, Fudashkin lobbied for an increase in the cost of a gaming business license – in the interests of large Kyiv casinos and lottery operators who wanted to get rid of competition.
All this did not go unnoticed. In February 2009, a number of deputies of the Verkhovna Rada turned to Prime Minister Tymoshenko with a whole list charges against Fudashkinin which they mentioned a lot: his clumsy tax policy (in particular, the tax on small cars was increased, which was beneficial to the “Ukrainian automakers” Vasadze and Poroshenko), the creation of corruption schemes on bonds, as well as his raider actions in Crimea. However, although Viktor Pinzenik was dismissed in April 2009 (he never returned to managing the economy), his deputy Fudashkin continued to work under the acting. Finance Minister Igor Umansky, and was fired only in the spring of 2010.
Igor Umansky
But at the beginning of 2015, Fudashkin “did not work well” with the new minister Natalya Yaresko. Immediately after his dismissal, he began to offer his services as an expert on tax schemes in the competition for the head of the State Fiscal Service. As you know, the scandalous Roman Nasirov won, but “a fisherman sees a fisherman from afar,” and Nasirov did not leave such a valuable shot on the street as Fudashkin. The media reported that Fudashkin became a supervisor of personnel appointments under Nasirov (he also did this under Pinzenik), as well as a consultant on tax schemes. Moreover, he survived Nasirov’s temporary “disgrace” quite calmly, but it taught Fudashkin to stay away in the shadows. And since 2016, he simply disappeared from the attention of the media, just as information about his past and even declarations of income and property disappeared somewhere.
Well, this is understandable: Fudashkin is probably looking forward to the formation of a new government in order to once again offer him his “professional experience.” And to do this, he desperately needs everyone to forget who he really is.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
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