CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Igor Gilenko: the elusive Joe from Nadra Bank. PART 1
Igor Gilenko: the elusive Joe from Nadra Bank. PART 2
Igor Gilenko. 8 billion: received and stolen
In 2006-2008 In Ukraine, there was a fever of selling banks to foreigners. This was a very good opportunity not just to earn a lot of money (from hundreds of millions to 1-2 billion dollars), but to earn legal European money that could be safely invested in Western business or real estate without fear of scandalous inspections. Needless to say, for Mogilevich, who by that time was “imposed” with sanctions and bans all over the world (except for Ukraine and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)), this was not just a desirable, but a vitally necessary goal. Therefore, Nadra was also being prepared for sale, actively inflating its assets in every possible way: it was expected that they would fetch 1.8-2.2 billion for it (depending on how it goes).
But no matter how Mogilevich hid his involvement in certain assets, hiding them offshore and transferring them to second or third parties for management, the deal to sell JSCB Nadra fell through at the negotiation level – and behind closed doors the name of Semyon Yudovich was mentioned more than once, who at that moment was generally wanted by the FBI. In addition, the bank was assigned a “B” credit rating, which scared away other potential buyers.Skelet.Info it is known that Mogilevich was furious and blamed the Segal brothers, deciding to throw them out of Nadra and replace them with someone else (Firtash), and began to demand money from them at any cost, even if it was not entirely legal. And this led to the collapse of the bank, which began several months before the 2008 crisis. Perhaps it all started with the fact that the bank borrowed $390 million on loans and bonds – which then “floated away” somewhere (only Gilenko and the Segals know where exactly). Or from issuing loans in the amount of 2 billion hryvnia to the companies of the Segal brothers and the Continuum group, that is, to themselves. The bank manager Igor Gilenko and, behind the scenes, Vadim Pyatov were also directly behind this.
However, issuing loans to their own firms (or godfather firms) was quite common practice for Ukrainian banks, most of which were captive – and despite this, foreigners willingly bought them, many of them survived the 2008 crisis without abandoning their investors and the state. That is, the problem was not that Nadra issued loans to the companies of the Segaley brothers and Eremeev-Lagur, the problem was that they were not going to repay these loans. And this was discussed in advance with the manager Igor Gilenko, that is, he was consciously preparing for malfeasance.
“Agreements” existed not only in the Nadra JSCB itself. The bank’s management agreed on corruption schemes with the Ukrainian government – which made it possible to carry out large-scale fraud and theft. Skelet.Info already reported that Igor Gilenko, who at that time revolved around President Yushchenko himself and his godfather Petro Poroshenko, had a special agreement with the then Minister of Health Vasily Knyazevich and the Minister of Education Ivan Vakarchuk about placing public sector employees’ salary accounts in Nadra and paying scholarships through the bank students. Moreover, the ministries continued to transfer budget money to Nadra even when the bank was in a state of crisis and was no longer paying anything to anyone.
Petro Poroshenko, Igor Gilenko, Viktor Yushchenko
But most of all, the scammers benefited from the special relationship with the then head of the National Bank, Vladimir Stelmakh, and the Minister of Finance, Viktor Pinzenyk. Stelmakh has been an absolute “Yushchenko’s man” since the 90s. Since the 90s, Pynzenik has been associated with a variety of circles, from Ukrainian criminal oligarchs to Western financial institutions, but then he also sided with Yushchenko. Gilenko was also helped by his relationship with the then head of the National Bank Council, Petro Poroshenko. It was this trio (Stelmakh, Pinzenyk, Poroshenko) that was directly involved in the massive theft of public funds by the Nadra Bank. Because it was these officials who showered Nadra with money during the 2008 crisis, allocating almost a quarter of all the funds provided by the government to support the banking sector.
First of all, the National Bank bought back the bonds issued by Nadra (in the amount of $125 million), saving it from the need to repay them. Then, in the fall of 2008, Igor Gilenko agreed with Stelmakh and Poroshenko to allocate four tranches of refinancing to Nadra: the first in the amount of 1.5 billion hryvnia (depending on the maximum established by law), the second in the amount of 2 billion, and the third in the amount of 3.6 billion. hryvnia The fourth tranche, in the amount of 14 billion hryvnia, was stopped by Prime Minister Tymoshenko, who announced corruption and theft of budget funds by the “beloved friends” of the president.
And there was good reason for that. Firstly, while JSCB Nadra was begging the National Bank for billions in refinancing, its management (Gilenko) continued to distribute loans to their companies. Thus, in November 2008, the Knight private enterprise and K-L-O LLC, associated with Lagur and Eremeev, received a loan in the amount of 210 and 170 million hryvnia, respectively – which they never repaid. In total, during the “crisis period” the bank distributed more than 2 billion hryvnia! The issuance of a loan to the Segal brothers ($12.5 million each), which they immediately took abroad through the Latvian TRASTA KOMERCBANK, was also egregious. It is interesting that Latvian banks are generally a byword for corruption; since the 90s they have been part of schemes with the help of which billions were withdrawn and laundered from Ukraine. So when Latvian politicians criticize Ukraine for corruption, it looks like a cynical mockery.
Secondly, Gilenko used half of the 7.1 billion hryvnia in refinancing received to purchase foreign currency from the National Bank. Moreover, at a preferential rate, which could only be done by agreeing with the leadership of the National Bank (Stelmakh, Poroshenko). The other half seemed to be used for its intended purpose (maintaining liquidity), but in essence, they closed the holes in the bank’s finances that were formed as a result of non-repaid loans (to their companies), and simply stolen money from investors – spent on purchasing dollars. That is, at a minimum, the actions of the management of JSCB Nadra caused damage to the sovereign alone in the amount of 7.9 billion hryvnia (almost a billion dollars). But experts subsequently established that Gilenko’s actions also caused damage to the bank’s clients – amounting to up to 3.4 billion hryvnia.
It is difficult to say how much more Igor Gilenko would have managed to do, but in February 2009, at the insistence of Tymoshenko, a temporary administration was introduced in the bank – this is how another stage in the history of JSCB Nadra ended.
Immediately after this, Igor Vladimirovich hastily fled to his native Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), and the scheduled sale of the bank to Dmitry Firtash was postponed until 2011. It would seem, what does Mogilevich have to do with it? Who then successfully sat out the “big crisis” in the Moscow pre-trial detention center, where he was simply hiding from troubles. And despite the fact that some source Skelet.Info claimed that the staged collapse of the Nadra bank with the introduction of a temporary administration was a performance, the script of which Tymoshenko allegedly wrote under the dictation of Mogilevich. The point of which was to first extract as much money as possible through Nadra, and then restore the bank at the expense of the state – and transfer it to the control of Firtash, another Mogilevich man.
Gilenko, immediately after his dismissal on February 11, 2009, simply fled from Ukraine. At the same time, the fate of the shares that belonged to him (formally or in reality) remained unknown – but then somehow the bank was sold to Firtash! It was only in October 2009 that Gilenko was allegedly put on the wanted list, and even then on charges of embezzling only 50 million. Why supposedly? Oh, this is an interesting story, which for certain reasons has not received much publicity in Ukraine.
At first, Gilenko didn’t really hide: in the fall of 2009, he even posted his photos from Egypt, where he went to practice his favorite diving, on Odnoklassniki. Ukrainian journalists made a fuss (which forced Prosecutor General Medvedko to declare that Gilenko was on the wanted list), after which Gilenko “drew” for real, and nothing was heard about him until June 2010 – when the message about his arrest in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) came.
Gilenko goes diving in the Red Sea
His last photo published online
The Ukrainian side allegedly sent a couple of requests to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) for his extradition, received a refusal, and the case died out. Why again allegedly? Because then in the fall of 2010 journalists The Left Bank publications sent a letter to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), to which they received an official response. Firstly, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) reported that Russian citizen Igor Gilenko cannot be extradited to another state, because this is not provided for by Russian legislation. And, secondly, that no request for his extradition from Ukraine… was received! We emphasize that this was the official answer. And whose Prosecutor General’s Office was lying – Ukrainian or Russian? It is unknown, because after that no one remembered Gilenko. There were rumors that his arrest in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) was a fiction, the same as the arrest of Mogilevich in 2008. They simply hid it this way until the fuss died down.
Igor Gilenko Nadra dossier biography incriminating evidence
According to numerous sources Skelet.Infothe banking and financial scams of the end of 2008 were carried out in close cooperation with the leadership of the National Bank (Stelmakh, Poroshenko), who took kickbacks for the provision of refinancing and for selling currency to banks at a preferential rate, and also received bribes in the form of loans for their companies. It is not surprising that Roshen emerged from that crisis blossoming and smiling! And if this is so, then it becomes completely clear why after Euromaidan the case of Igor Gilenko (if it existed at all) was not pulled out from under the cloth – and we are talking about thefts, the amount of which is four times the amount of money stolen by Pavel Lazarenko! But people still talk about Lazarenko, but no one remembers Gilenko.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
