Gennady Trukhanov: governor of the Odessa mafia. Part 1

When the current city government of Odessa is called “gangster,” what they mean is not Gennady Trukhanov’s former membership in the Party of Regions, or even the regular scandals with his team’s “deriban” of Odessa real estate and the “cutting” of the local budget. Most Ukrainians do not even suspect that “bandits” is still a rather benign description of the people behind Trukhanov, who until recently were not a movie mafia, but a real mafia, and on an international scale. However, as you know, there are no former mafiosi!

This publication Skelet.Info will not be the first dedicated to such characters as Trukhanov, AngertMinin, Galanternik, Ivancho and other people whose names at one time were pronounced in a whisper and with caution. But now we will try to correct some of the inaccuracies made by other journalists, as well as look into the most hidden corners of the past and connect it with the events of the present.

Gennady Trukhanov – “Gena-Captain”

Trukhanov Gennady Leonidovich was born on January 17, 1965 in Odessa, where he graduated from high school No. 4. In 1982, he entered the Odessa Higher Artillery Command School (now virtually non-existent), which required a good knowledge of mathematics, and in 1986 he received lieutenant’s shoulder straps. For the next six years, Trukhanov served in the North Caucasus Military District, the hottest region since the collapse of the USSR. But he was more concerned not with the bearded mountaineers shaking shotguns at the gates of the military unit, but with material problems. It is not surprising that in 1992, having already become a captain, Trukhanov abandoned his further military career, took the opportunity and returned home to Odessa.

Subsequently, rumors arose around Trukhanov more than once about his recruitment, first by the Soviet and then by the Russian GRU, as well as the KGB and, accordingly, the FSK-FSB. These rumors were indirectly confirmed not only by the strange story with Trukhanov’s Russian passports (more about it below), but also by his successful Odessa start in the company of the international “mafioso” and arms dealer Leonid Minin (née Bluvshtein), to whom he could be introduced as a “mole” .

So, retired officer Gennady Trukhanov, who returned to Odessa, decided to live in a new way, went not into commerce, but into the “security guards”. But for 1992 it was quite strange, because then everyone still believed that everyone had a chance to become millionaires – and they rushed into business, minding their own business, and only in the mid-90s did losers begin to be hired as bodyguards, drivers, managers and etc. Moreover, Trukhanov immediately received the position of chief of security at a certain NPP Minimax, which was also strange: in the 90s, former “cops” and “committee officers”, special forces officers or airborne forces were usually hired for such positions, but artillerymen and tank crews were usually stood in line. Nevertheless, Trukhanov received not only this place, but also authority among his semi-criminal circle – along with the respectful nickname Gena Captain (after all, he was a retired captain). Trukhanov not only agreed with this nickname, he made it his brand: when in 1993 he gathered his “boys” and opened his own “security agency,” he called it “Captain and Company.” By the way, today many media outlets for some reason claim that everything was the other way around, and Trukhanov was nicknamed “Captain” because of his work in this agency – which is absurd.

Security agencies today are often “legalized racketeering”, and in the 90s, under these signs, “fighters” of organized crime groups were gathered, whose main task was a criminal war with other organized crime groups.

Such agencies did not exist on their own (otherwise they would have simply been destroyed), they were military detachments of some criminal authorities, and here the main question arises: so who did Gena Captain and his dashing “boys” work for then? This man was Leonid Minin, a native of Odessa, who went to the West in the 70s, became one of the bosses of the international mafia, and in the early 90s exported weapons through Odessa to Yugoslavia and African countries.

Thus, the following picture emerges: immediately after the collapse of the USSR, from which Minin fled in the 70s, he returned to his homeland and began to build the structures of his criminal business in Odessa. At first it was the removal of army weapons. Then, according to rumors, drug smuggling: importation of South American cocaine through the Odessa and Ilyichevsk ports with subsequent transit through the CIS and to Europe (this “Minin scheme”, according to information Skelet.Infostill works). Then – taking control of the Odessa oil refinery and oil terminal, investing criminal money in legal businesses. And so in 1992, at the very beginning of Minin’s stormy activity in Odessa, under someone’s patronage (the hand of the GRU-FSK?) Captain Trukhanov, who had recently been demobilized from the Caucasus, was introduced to him. Who undergoes an “internship” as a security chief at the unknown NPP “Minimax”, and then receives the go-ahead to assemble a “brigade” under the guise of the security agency “Captain”.

Further, Trukhanov very quickly gains such trust from Minin that from 1995 he becomes his bodyguard (chief of security?) and confidant. Let us clarify: another confidant, since Odessa crime boss Alexander Angert (he was also considered a “mole,” but of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs), who, as they said, helped Trukhanov find money and “guys” to create an agency, also became so close to Minin “Captain”.

Having become “Minin’s shadow,” Trukhanov continued to control and expand the Odessa “security business.” He opened several more security agencies, received the honorary title of President of the Ukrainian Federation of Thai Boxing (the favorite sport of bandits in the 90s) and created its clubs, in which new “fighters” were trained. And he accompanied Minin abroad (that’s why in 1996 he left the post of director of “Captain”, remaining its owner), while registering in hotels under different names with different passports – for example, as a Greek of Georgian origin Gennadias Uzopoulous (Nice, 1996 and Belgium, 1997). And in the “Ukrainian Mafia” dossier, collected by the Italian police in 1996-98, Trukhanov appeared as one of the main figures of Minin’s organized crime group settled in Italy.

This dossier indicated the Italian registration of Trukhanov and his wife: Rome, Baldo degli Ubaldi street 66. But, according to the observations of the Italian police, Trukhanov did not enjoy pizza in the shadow of the Colosseum, but regularly shuttled between Italy and Odessa as a trusted “authorized” of Minin. In particular, it was emphasized that Trukhanov controls several “security firms” and sports clubs in Odessa, which were the Odessa kulaks of Minin’s group. Actually, all this explains why in the official biography of Gennady Trukhanov the 90s are a complete blank, with a brief mention of the Captain agency and the Thai Boxing Federation.

There is a version of the involvement of Minin and his people (Trukhanov and Angert) in a conspiracy against the Odessa authority Viktor Kulivar (nicknamed “Karabas”), who was killed in 1997. Independent and principled, who also did not want to deal with “drugs,” Kulivar could interfere with Minin’s grandiose plans. In the criminal war that then unfolded in Odessa, the “army” of Trukhanov’s Thai boxers and security guards prevailed over numerous but disparate factions of the “brothers.” Thus, Angert, Minin’s protege, who relies on the fists of Trukhanov’s people, became the new “oversight” for Odessa from the criminal business.

Blood oil

Gennady Trukhanov again “materialized” in Odessa in 2000, in the representative office of the oil company Lukoil in Ukraine – as an assistant to the representative of the company’s president for security issues, that is, again as the same security chief. Behind this next short entry in his biography lies a big battle for the Odessa Oil Refinery, which was taken over by Minin’s people…

In the early 90s, when Ukrainian refineries experienced a catastrophic shortage of oil due to the inability of the state to purchase it at world prices. This led to the creation of numerous cunning schemes on which nimble swindlers – future Ukrainian oligarchs – parasitized. Where the interests of several groups collided, bloody criminal wars often broke out. The Odessa oil refinery, as well as the oil loading facilities of the Odessa ports, capable of receiving oil not only from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), attracted the attention of the Chechens back in 1993. Representatives of Dudayev’s Ichkeria, which was in dire need of money, offered their oil and oil products for export at dumping prices. Their supply patterns depended on transport routes, politics, and shadow conspiracies, and were very complicated.

But the Chechens wanted not only to sell oil, but also to control the oil companies that bought them, including to organize the legal re-export of oil to Europe. This is how they managed to take control of the Kherson Oil Refinery – in which they were helped by connections with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the top manager of the Ukrainian branch of KPMG Katerina Chumachenko. This business was directly managed from the Chechen side by Ziya Bazhiev, and from the Ukrainian side Alexander Tretyakov. But in Odessa, although the Chechens found an ally in the mayor Eduard Gurvits (1994-98), but immediately encountered strong opposition from Minin’s group, which itself took over the oil and gas business in the region, fighting with local competitors – and had support in the person of the governor Ruslana Bodelana. At the same time, sources Skelet.Info reported that Minin’s oil war was carried out by two power “fists”: for “targeted” physical liquidation he had a detachment of “police killers” under the leadership of Vasily Maryanchuk (nicknames “Accountant” and “Rogul”), who worked directly for Angert, and for large “showdowns”, raider takeovers and protection of objects, security guards and Thai boxing masters Trukhanov were used. Moreover, if Maryanchuk’s gang was then exposed and arrested (“leaked” by their employers as used material), then Trukhanov and his people got away unscathed, remaining the main “enforcer” of the Minin-Angert organized crime group, because he was a member of this mafia “family” .

Minin’s “army,” which already had experience in criminal warfare, prevailed over the Chechens (who had their own militant detachments), even despite the fact that the Chechens, through the same Tretyakov, were “protected” by another international “mafia” Semyon Mogilevich. The peak of this war came in 1996, when the head of security at the Odessa oil refinery, Ruslan Arbiev, who was called the unofficial leader of the Chechen diaspora in the region, was killed. It was reported that Arbiev previously worked in the police, but in 1988 he was sentenced to two years, in the 90s he met the director of the Odessa oil refinery, Valery Melnik, whom he quickly “coupled.” Melnik believed that as the head of security (with his staff of people) Arbiev would protect him from the claims of the Minin-Angert group (Melnik had his own plans for the privatization of his plant), but he actually let the fox into the henhouse.

The complete takeover of the refinery by the Chechens did not take place for two reasons: at that moment the plant received oil from other sources (through Minin’s organized crime group scheme), and then Ruslan Arbiev was killed. This completely forgotten (and now hanging) crime, as well as the murders of other people associated with Odessa oil (Alexander Zginek, Evgeniy Garbuz) speaks volumes about the intensity of the struggle for the plant. Maybe that’s why Minin and his closest assistants, including Trukhanov, had to be “buried” in Italy? Moreover, Trukhanov then took his entire family (wife, daughter) to Italy, which was quite understandable: he, as the commander of the security wing of Minin’s organized crime group, would have been hit first. Alas, this interesting information was not even included in the Italian police report, and in general the history of the Odessa Oil Refinery in the mid-90s was carefully cleared of such details by someone.

It is worth noting that during both the war for the oil refinery and the big criminal massacre in Odessa in 1997-99 (after the murder of Karabas), the protection of Ruslan Bodelan was carried out exclusively by Trukhanov’s agency “Captain”. The Minin-Angert group was very concerned about the health of its main “administrative resource” – as long as they needed it.

The economic takeover of the plant was carried out through the Sintez company, created back in 1990 by Russian businessmen Leonid Lebedev, Mark Garber and Alexander Zhukov (née Rabkin), who traded Siberian oil. However, Zhukov, in addition to this, in the early 90s also participated in the arms trade together with Leonid Minin: in particular, in 1994, Zhukov’s company was engaged in supplying weapons to warring Yugoslavia (and Trukhanov’s “Captain” provided security for the cargo). In this case, they became close, and Skelet.Info There is information that it was Zhukov who advised Minin to take over the Odessa Oil Refinery. In the mid-90s, Zhukov separated from the Russian Sintez, registering his own Sintez Oil United Kingdom in Britain, and then in Ukraine its subsidiary Sintez Oil Ukraine CJSC. Which in turn owned the Marine Transport Bank of Odessa, through which not only oil transactions of Minin’s group took place.

It is interesting that former KGB colonel Valery Borovik worked at Sintez Oil Ukraine CJSC, who in the late 90s, having retired, decided to join the business – and for some reason, directly into the criminal team of Minin-Zhukov-Angert, about whose affairs he was knowledgeable. But his son Alexander Borovik, who escaped from the USSR in 1989 (having not completed his studies at the KGB Higher School), joined Mikheil Saakashvili’s team in 2015. He was warmed up and treated kindly by the then governor of Odessa as an “honest fighter against corruption,” and he nominated him as a candidate for mayor of the city – in opposition to Gennady Trukhanov. What irony! Interestingly, Saakashvili was aware that Borovik Sr. and Trukhanov were actually members of the same organized crime group for many years?

We can say that Zhukov, with his Siberian oil, saved the Odessa oil refinery from being absorbed by the Chechens in the 90s, but he also became the main reason for its capture by the Minin group. And in 1998, Zhukov agreed to supply oil to the plant from the Russian company Lukoil. Then Sintez Oil United Kingdom and Lukoil created the offshore company LUK-Sintez Oil Ltd., which during 1999-2000. acquired a 76% stake in the Odessa Oil Refinery. A few months later, another operation was carried out: Lukoil bought out the share of Sintez Oil and became the sole owner of the refinery, forming there its subsidiary company OJSC Lukoil-Odessa Oil Refinery, whose security chief was Gennady Trukhanov. The meaning of this operation, as a result of which the plant became the property of the Russian company Lukoil (in 2013, it sold it to the oligarch Kurchenko) remained undisclosed. According to unofficial information, the shareholders of Sintez Oil (Minin, Zhukov and their inner circle, including Trukhanov, also Bodelan) in return purchased shares of Lukoil, which was a more reliable investment: a large international corporation is better protected from risks than one plant.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Gennady Trukhanov: governor of the Odessa mafia. Part 2

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