Igor Kaletnik. The story of the chief customs officer of Ukraine and his smuggler friends

During the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, some key government positions were occupied by very dubious individuals, whose actions not only did not help the Ukrainian state to develop, but also greatly hindered it. One of these people is the former head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine and ex-vice speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Igor Kaletnik. During his 16 years of service in the Ukrainian customs system, he was only good at stealing money from customs duties. He is also an excellent family man, because he assigned almost all of his relatives to serve in the customs service. After the revolutionary events in Ukraine, he fled to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), however, we are still struggling with his legacy to this day.

Igor Kaletnik. Customs officer-smuggler

Since 1995, Igor Grigorievich Kaletnik has worked in the customs system of Ukraine. Starting as an inspector, he reached the post of head of the Vinnitsa customs department (we remind you that our Guarantor also comes from Vinnitsa and started his entire business there). In September 1998, he was appointed head of the Podolsk regional customs. It should be noted that in the 90s, customs was a paramilitary organization that worked in two directions: the first was collections from ordinary “mortal” people, and the second was shadow schemes that determined how to take kickbacks for “benefits” and assistance. in resolving customs issues.

Igor Kaletnik’s career began to develop rapidly in 1999, after his appointment to the post of head of Kherson customs. Over the next three years, he headed four regional customs (Rava-Russian, Galician, Razdelnyansk and Kherson). And every time, coming to a new department, Igor Grigorievich appointed people “convenient” for himself to leadership positions. In addition, the official came up with his own “corruption know-how.” If a customs employee was caught taking a bribe, then Igor Kaletnik, as the boss, would have to sign the documents and fire him. However, for the “bulky envelope” with money, he “accidentally” made a mistake in the dismissal document. And happy customs officers could easily run to court to appeal the decision to dismiss them. It should be noted that during his career, Igor Grigorievich made a lot of such “ridiculous” mistakes, and, consequently, he also received a lot of envelopes. In essence, he took bribes from corrupt officials so that they could continue to work in their positions, receiving bribes again. Over time, there were so many employees in the customs departments “obliged” to Kaletnik that the tasks he set for them were solved in a matter of hours.

Igor Kaletnik owes his career to his father, Grigory, who worked for a long time in Leonid Kuchma’s team and even rose to the post of head of the Vinnitsa Regional State Administration. Having earned good financial resources from fraud in the Vinnytsia region, he won the position of head of the Western regional customs for his son. It is this customs office that can be called “a paradise for smugglers.” And it so happened that in the entire history of independent Ukraine, Igor Grigorievich became the youngest customs general. This appointment, at the request of Grigory Kaletnik, was facilitated by Viktor Medvedchuk, then head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine.

Smuggling mechanisms under Kaletnik were quite simple. Some goods entered customs, but according to the documents, completely different ones came out, for which it was not necessary to pay huge fees. Instead, entrepreneurs paid Kaletnik’s customs assistants directly. The system was so sophisticated that all cargo passing through customs was inspected only by his team. To provide financial support for this fraud, the Brokservice company was created, headed by the famous Ukrainian businessman Sergei Sporyshev. In fact, no one received the go-ahead for customs clearance until the “controlling authorities” resolved the issue. These “customs” issues could be quickly resolved only by the Brokservice company, which charged very impressive sums for this service. Rumor has it that the money from these frauds ultimately ended up in the pockets of Viktor Medvedchuk, who, in turn, “protected” Igor Kaletnik in every possible way and contributed to his career growth.

In 2005, after a random audit of the activities of the Black Sea regional customs under the leadership of Igor Kaletnik, for the period from 2003 to 2005, auditors discovered a lack of customs payments, the total amount of which amounted to more than 30 million UAH.

The results of the inspection were sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office, and its head Svyatoslav Piskun even launched a criminal case. However, for unknown reasons, the most resonant case of that time was transferred to the regional Odessa department, where it was successfully “drowned.” It looks like Piskun received a considerable sum from Kaletnik for this fraud, and if you also take into account that the materials on the case disappeared immediately after the case was closed, then you are even more convinced of this. According to sources, Igor Kaletnik bought out his own criminal case so that law enforcement agencies would not have anything to do with him in the future (apparently he knew that this was not the last time he had broken the law).

After his dismissal from the Black Sea Customs, Igor Kaletnik unexpectedly becomes a judge of the Dnieper Court of Kyiv. According to Kaletnik, he received this position at the suggestion of then President Viktor Yushchenko. In the elections to the Verkhovna Rada of the sixth convocation he took part together with the Communist Party. He remained a people’s deputy until 2011, when the communists agreed with the Party of Regions to appoint him to the post of chairman of the State Customs Service.

“Family” customs system Kaletnika

With the rise of Viktor Yanukovych to power and the appointment of Igor Kaletnik to the post of head of the State Customs Service in Ukraine, a powerful corruption system began to be built. She had one goal – to enrich the members of the “Family”, which just then began to come into full force

“Kaletnik’s people”, or more precisely, members of his family, began to appear in all leading positions. After the end of the “Revolution of Dignity” Skelet.Info I found out that most of Igor Grigorievich’s family worked in the customs service in western Ukraine, mostly close relatives of his wife Antonina Kaletnik (her maiden name was Mrochko). All of them were appointed to positions a month after Igor Kaletnik became the head of the State Customs Service. In addition to his blood relatives, 5 of his godfathers, several classmates and classmates worked at customs. They all worked for the benefit of Kaletnik’s “customs network,” happily fulfilling everything he asked of them.

“Related Customs Networks” by Igor Kaletnik

Another notorious relative of Kaletnik is the ex-head of Chop customs Sergei Kharchenko. It was his local residents who tied him with tape to the “pillar of shame” during the revolutionary events. Then, in the heat of the moment, he admitted that he had taken bribes, and also that he got into the service solely thanks to family connections (his brother Vitaly is married to Igor Kaletnik’s sister)

Sergei Kharchenko tied to the wall of shame

Igor Kaletnik. “Apartment scam”

In December 2014, the Schemes program conducted an investigation into the sale of Igor Kaletnik’s apartment on Vladimirskaya Street. According to the declaration, the money from its sale ended up in Igor Grigorievich’s income statement and therefore a huge amount appeared in it – more than 70 million UAH.

More details in the story:

Scheme of “donating” an apartment on Vladimirskaya

Igor Kaletnik. “Draconian Laws”

Occupying the position of Vice-Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Igor Kaletnik also managed to distinguish himself, because it was he who chaired that ill-fated parliamentary meeting at which the “dictatorial laws” were adopted on January 16. He organized an abbreviated procedure, without any discussions. It is noteworthy that people’s deputies voted by “showing their hands” in the air. Later, he explained this procedure by saying that the “oppositionists” simply took away their voting cards from members of the Party of Regions, and it had to be carried out somehow. On that day, the Rada adopted more than a dozen bills that would hardly have passed through the legal procedure for adoption.

And now the most interesting fact: During the period of Kaletnik’s rule at various posts at customs, two “kings of smuggling” appeared in Odessa. This is Vadim Alperin, about whom we wrote earlier – Vadim Alperin. The “King” of Odessa smuggling, known for the seizure of the Faina ship by Somali pirates, and Oleg Rybalchenko, owner of the PollyFruit company, which was involved in smuggling citrus fruits, bananas and kiwis. And if Alperin, during the period of leadership of Kaletnik, the Black Sea regional customs and the entire State Customs Service, found a common language with him, then Rybalchenko went into conflict, and as a result, served a short time in a pre-trial detention center.

With the arrival of Saakashvili in the Odessa region, both smugglers are also going through difficult times. We should expect interesting news on this matter.

And concluding about Mr. Kaletnik: under his leadership, the Ukrainian customs service finally went downhill, turning into a structure serving business through illegal methods and exploiting the opportunities of the Ukrainian market. Our economy is still losing enormous financial resources due to the shadow schemes launched by Kaletnik and his followers. In fact, his actions drove the Ukrainian economy into the shadows. According to experts, in the year and a half that Kaletnik headed the department, more than UAH 38 billion “flew” past the state budget. By the way, this money would be enough to close the budget deficit of the Pension Fund. In the meantime, pensioners are sitting without the money they were promised, Igor Kaletnik is living happily somewhere in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism).

Dmitry Samofalov, for Skelet.Info

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