Gribov Yakov: how the vodka king became a grain raider. PART 2

CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Yakov Gribov: how the vodka king became a grain raider. PART 1

In 2004, first the Vinnitsa Regional Tax Office, and then the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, accused Nemiroff of a number of violations, including the creation of fictitious unprofitable schemes for tax evasion (total amount of 95 million hryvnia). So, for example, with the company’s gross income for 2003 being 890 million hryvnia, it declared losses of 221 million hryvnia! In addition, Yakov Gribov created export schemes for various products (including fictitious exports), which allowed companies to evade paying VAT. It got to the point that in the fall of 2004, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against the company under Articles 364-3, 366-2, 212-3 and 229-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and arrested the company’s accounts – but a week later Gribov unblocked them through the Economic Court of Kyiv . The media reported that this was one of the reasons why Stepan Glus decided to play the card of supporting the “orange” opposition: he supported Yushchenko and the first Maidan, contributed about 10 million to the Batkivshchyna coffers, and became a member of BYuT. Thanks to this, since 2005, all attacks on Nemiroff have stopped.

Meanwhile, “Nemirov” had big problems at customs – both Ukrainian and Russian. However, Gribov did not want to lose the Russian market; it was always so important to him that in 2013, at the congress of the Ukrainian Choice party (created by Viktor Medvedchuk), Gribov campaigned for Ukraine to join the Customs Union.

Chronicle of the Vodka War

But, despite all this, the production of Nemiroff products grew rapidly – along with the value of the company. In 2005, Nemiroff bought its Polish distributor, Legro. In 2007, an offer was made through Deutsche Bank to sell Nemiroff for $800 million, but it was rejected by Yakov Gribov, who claimed that the company was worth more than a billion. At that time, Gribov’s personal capital was estimated at 280 million, and in 2008, all of 540 million dollars, of which the bulk came from Nemiroff shares. But a year later, after the crisis, his capital “blown away” to 200 million, and for “Nemiroff” they offered only 380 million – it was the Russian Standard company of Rustam Tariko. This amount did not suit Yakov Gribov and Anatoly Kipish, who had serious financial problems: in particular, Kipish’s plant for the production of plastic containers, Hekro Pet Ltd., owed almost $16 million in loans to Ukrainian and European banks. In addition, Gribov and his sister Bella Finkelstein (who worked as the financial director of Nemiroff), bypassing Glusey, withdrew $17 million from the company’s turnover and transferred $17 million to their accounts – and this shortfall had to be somehow explained or compensated. Instead, Gribov and Kipish decided to completely ditch their companions Glusya.

From that moment their war began, the goal of which Gribov set to completely oust the Glusey family from their common business. This was relatively easy, since Glusya had only 25%, and according to the company’s charter, all decisions were made by the majority of shareholders (Yakov Gribov, his sister Bella Finkelstein and Anatoly Kipish). However, the Glusi firmly retained the main asset of the company – the Nemirovsky Distillery (director Alla Glus), for which the battle unfolded. Here are its main events:

• 2010-2011: Russian Standard entered into an agreement to purchase Nemiroff for $350+30 million. Stepan and Alexander Glusi expected to receive 95 million for 25% of the shares.
• At the beginning of 2011, Yakov Gribov violated the contract by demanding that the sales value of the company be increased to 400 million. The deal was suspended and then terminated. Then Gribov invited the Glusys to sell him their share for 65 million, hinting that “there will be even less in the future.”
• In February 2011, Yakov Gribov and Anatoly Kipish initiated the resignation of Alexander Glus from the post of General Director of the Nemiroff company. However, due to the legal “cushion” created by the Glusi (a number of agreements that make it difficult to fire the general director), this attempt was not successful.
• On April 15, 2011, unknown persons attacked the house of Stepan and Alla Glus, who were not there at that time. According to Alexander Glus, the attack was organized by Yakov Gribov.
• On May 15, 2011, the Nemirovsky distillery was captured by “titushki” hired by Gribov and Kipish. The production of alcoholic beverages was suspended.

• On July 2, 2011, the plant’s security, subordinate to Alla Glus, as well as police special forces, recaptured the enterprise from Gribov’s “titushki”. The workers who returned to the workshops found a terrible mess there, created by Gribov’s raiders. Vodka production at the enterprise has resumed. It was reported that the revenge was facilitated by Stepan Glus’s appeal for help to Governor Nikolai Dzhiga (former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yuri Kravchenko, a person involved in the Gongadze case, one of the police “gray cardinals”). It was because of this that Stepan Glus was forced to move from BYuT to the PR faction.

• In the summer of 2011, Yakov Gribov and Anatoly Kipish carry out a raider seizure of the Russian representative office of the company – the Moscow Trading House “Nemiroff”. They appoint their protege Vladimir Zheleznov to head it. After this, $14.7 million worth of products were sold from the Russian warehouses of the Nemiroff trading house, which Gribov illegally took out of circulation and simply stole.
• During 2011-2012. Cypriot and British courts upheld the Gluseys’ claims and prohibited any changes in the structure and management of the Nemiroff company until the dispute between the parties was resolved. The London court also prohibited the Russian company Nemiroff Vodka Rus, founded by Kipish outside the Nemiroff company, from producing products under this brand.
• In 2012, Yakov Gribov illegally launched the production of Nemiroff vodka at United Penza Vodka Factories LLC. The media reported on the terrible quality of this vodka, more reminiscent of counterfeit.
• In 2013, during a series of decisions by courts in Ukraine, Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), Cyprus and Britain, the Glusey family fully defended their positions, retaining key positions and control in the Nemiroff company. Russian courts also reinstated the former director of the Nemiroff trading house and ordered him to return the $14.7 million stolen by Gribov.
• On March 19, 2014, literally a month after the Maidan, armed “titushki” hired by Gribov, who called themselves “activists” and “Right Sector”, staged a new raider seizure of the Nemirovsky distillery. In this case, bladed weapons and stun grenades were used. The Ministry of Internal Affairs workers who were present only observed the events, which allowed Gribov to take control of the plant again.

Further struggle continued again in the courts, and now Gribov-Kipish’s team won them. First, they finally succeeded in depriving Glusey of the right to block decisions, which allowed Gribov, Finkelstein and Kipish to completely deprive Glusey of all positions in the company and all control over enterprises and offices. Then it was the turn to “squeeze” the shares: since the Glusi did not want to sell them, Gribov and Finkelstein launched a series of lawsuits against the Glusi as former managers, accusing them of waste and losses amounting to 250 million hryvnia! After which, the final decision was to “confiscate” their shares to cover these losses. Thus ended the six-year war, and only three shareholders of Nemiroff remained: Yakov Gribov and Bella Finkelstein (53.36%) and Anatoly Kipish (46.64%).

But here’s the strange thing: right after this convincing victory, Yakov Gribov for some reason left Ukraine for Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). And as Ukrainian media report, he has still not officially returned to his homeland (the border service does not have such data). Why? This is unknown. However, this does not in the least prevent Gribov from continuing to organize his raider attacks in Ukraine.

Oligarchs steal bread

After the second Maidan, in the wake of imitation of the American law enforcement system, many new structures were created in Ukraine designed to fight crime. Among them was the Asset Tracing and Management Agency (ARMA), designed to search for and return to Ukraine the assets of thieving oligarchs and corrupt officials. It would seem that this is a very useful and simply necessary department, which has no end of work on its profile! But instead, she herself became involved in corrupt activities, starting to help… the raiders. For example, directly participating in the scandalous attack on Rostock-Holding.

If you dig into the origins of this conflict, you can see many analogies with Gribov’s seizure of the Nemiroff asset from the Glusey family. But if there was an open war between two groups of shareholders, here everything is much more complicated, and you won’t even understand who stands on whom. To begin with, it should be noted that raider Yakov Gribov and businessman Viktor Kupavtsev, who suffered from his actions, according to the latter, have known each other for twenty years and have been business partners for ten years. Perhaps they were connected by Zernotrade LLC, of ​​which Gribov was a co-owner, and Kupavtsev held the position of director there.

And so in July 2018, a citizen with a passport in the name of Yakov Gribov applied to the court of the town of Pokatilovka, Kharkov region. Why exactly there (Gribov has nothing to do with Pokatilovka), and how did he manage to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border without the border guards having any mark about it? Nobody was looking for the answer to these questions! The court accepted a statement from citizen Gribov in which he accused Viktor Kupavtsev of fraud. On July 17, criminal proceedings were opened, investigative actions began, but for some reason they “forgot” to inform the direct suspect, that is, Kupavtsev. Investigators worked only with the “victim” Gribov, and not in Kharkov (at the place where the application was filed), but in Kyiv. By the way, after this Gribov mysteriously disappeared again. Crossed the border illegally again?

Then, on September 4, 2018, the Virginia company Samoran Investments Limited (co-owner of the Danish Best Grain K/S) also filed a fraud complaint against the shareholders Viktor Kupavtsev and the second shareholder of Rostock-Holding LLC Viktor Kiyanovsky. “Viktor Kupavtsev, being a co-owner and operating manager of the Danish company Best Grain K/S, fraudulently withdrew funds through the company SIA Latexport controlled by him. And with their help, and with the assistance of his partner in the agro-industrial business, Viktor Kiyanovsky, he created Rostok Holding in 2010,” said lawyer Konstantin Likarchuk, who represented the interests of Samoran Investments. He did not name the names of the plaintiffs, but announced the amount of the claims: $20 million. This was just the beginning, and then a whole raiding scheme began to work.

In this scheme, many interesting characters are intricately intertwined, among whom everyone immediately singled out the notorious “queen of agrarian raiders” Lesya Sofienko. Former common-law wife of murdered criminal “authority” Alexander Pstyga, former lover of businessman Evgeniy Sukhin (she “ordered” his creditor Sergei Yushta), former close associate of ex-Minister of Agrarian Policy Nikolai Prisyazhnyuk, friend of Vladimir Didukh (Vova Morda) and Alexander Nalekreshvili (Narik) . It is not surprising that the very name of Lesya Sofienko makes many Ukrainian farmers sweat!

According to the claim of Yakov Gribov, judge of the Kharkov District Court Yaroslav Shinkarchuk twice seized the property and assets of Rostock-Holding. Since October 2018, law enforcement officials began blocking the collection and shipment of crops in the fields leased by the holding (as a result, a fifth of the crop simply died). At the same time, the police and the SBU conducted searches at all Rostock-Holding enterprises. And then the same Kharkov district court makes a decision to transfer all assets of Rostock-Holding to the disposal of ARMA. But the matter did not stop there, and ARMA immediately transferred them to the management of the company I&U Group Ukraine (USREOU 42266497).

• Gribov Yakov: how the vodka king became a grain raider. PART 2

• Gribov Yakov: how the vodka king became a grain raider. PART 2

According to multiple sources Skelet.Infofor this transfer of assets, ARMA management allegedly received a kickback of 30%. So much for the fight against corruption! But the fact is that the owner of I&Y Group Ukraine is Sergei Tarasov – another “agrarian baron”, founder of the company “Agrospetsservice” and several dozen other enterprises, a long-time competitor and enemy of Kupavtsev, who is also a long-time friend and business partner of Yakov Gribov!

Sergei Tarasov is well known in the Odessa and Kirovograd regions, where he has a dark reputation as an agricultural raider. “Gribov and Tarasov are long-time partners. Gribov provides Tarasov with cover from law enforcement agencies and uses his connections in the criminal environment. Every time Tarasov needs to “squeeze” something from someone, he does it with the help of local criminals. And the criminals enjoy full assistance from law enforcement agencies thanks to Gribov,” this is how they were told to journalists in the Odessa Regional Council. Well, Gribov himself at one time boasted of his close acquaintance with the generals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Thus, it becomes clear why Kupavtsev declares that his Rostock-Holding is being squeezed out of him by order of Tarasov!

“Authoritative marukha”, lawyers, mediators, corrupt judges and prosecutors, ARMA and SBU, armed “titushki” in office corridors and even mining crops – this is the arsenal of such modern raiders as Yakov Gribov! It is impossible not to notice that since the time of Yanukovych’s “anti-people regime” it has become much wider and more diverse, and no one even disguises the close connection between crime, corrupt officials and law enforcement officers. What should Ukrainians expect next?

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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