Konstantin Bondarev. “Tymoshenko’s Man” comes out of the shadows. PART 1

Konstantin Bondarev is a sponsor of the Batkivshchyna party and the real owner of the Kiev region, who prefers to be in the shadows. He is inconspicuous, not at all charismatic, even modest, by the standards of modern PR, and silent.

His name is associated with an ingenious scheme for exporting Kharkov lenses to Hong Kong for 1 billion hryvnia; money laundering by Veles Bank, where Yulia Tymoshenko’s party kept its cash register, the failure of the century – Bondarev vodka, and daring raider takeovers in the Kiev region.

Today, Konstantin Bondarev is promoted by Yulia Tymoshenko as the “people’s governor”, ​​without thinking that everyone remembers his criminal past. And for a minute – there are 5 supposedly closed criminal cases hanging on it.

Skelet.Info tells the story of who “holds” the Kiev region. Meet Konstantin Bondarev.

Konstantin BondarevProject “People’s Governor”

In the fall of 2016, another major corruption scandal broke out in the Kiev region, which led to the dismissal of the governor of the Kyiv region, Maxim Melnichuk. Law enforcement officers detained Deputy Chairman of the Regional Administration Igor Lyubko while receiving a bribe in the amount of 200 thousand hryvnia.

Then the majority of deputies voted for the decision to recommend that the competition commission under the Administration of the President of Ukraine appoint Konstantin Bondarev to the post of chairman of the Kyiv Regional State Administration. True, Bankova did not listen to the decision of the regional council. Moreover, this decision had no legal force, and the idea of ​​​​the appeal seemed custom-made.

The methods by which Konstantin Bondarev wanted to get the governor’s chair are of interest. He decided not to openly recognize the competition for the position of governor. Local mayors, heads of village councils and ordinary people were supposed to marry the “people’s governor” Bondarev. And then – large-scale protests in the region, which could turn into blockades and burning tires. This way, Yulia Tymoshenko’s dream about the Third Maidan could come true.

The idea of ​​a repeat “Maidan” was invented by Bondarev’s business partner, yesterday’s regional leader (from the time of Governor Prisyazhnyuk) – Alexander Kachny. The plan was supported by Yulia Tymoshenko. Lady Yu realized that this would help her prove to the people the ineffectiveness of the presidential vertical and take a step closer to early elections.

But something went wrong: Konstantin Anatolyevich remained in the shadows. But this does not mean at all that Bondarev has given up hope of taking control of power in the capital region, where he already has very serious influence.

Konstantin Bondarev. From students to businessmen

Bondarev Konstantin Anatolyevich was born on September 13, 1972 in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). The future politician’s parents, Lyubov and Anatoly Bondarev, were simple workers. Little is known about little Kostya’s childhood. However, Konstantin Bondarev even now does not like to talk about “personal things”, give interviews or appear at events.

Based on information in open sources, in 1979 Konstantin entered school No. 110 in the city of Tashkent. The first-grader was interested in music, piano, and played tennis. Bondarev graduated from only 2 classes in Uzbekistan. In 1981, his family moved to Kyiv. The parents sent their beloved son to the capital’s school No. 91.

In 1989, the young graduate entered the Kiev Institute of Civil Engineering with a degree in Industrial and Civil Construction. Having received his diploma, he immediately takes his first steps in big business… And here we will stop. Konstantin Anatolyevich excluded the fact of a criminal past from his “ideal” biography. According to Skelet.Infoin 1992 he was accused of forgery of documents. The court found Bondarev guilty under Art. 194 (forgery of documents, stamps and seals, their sale and use of forged documents, used a fake ID of a trade worker) and was even put behind bars, where he stayed from 1993 to 1994. The conviction was later expunged. Otherwise, Konstantin Anatolyevich would not have been able to become a people’s deputy.

Coming from places not so remote, Bondarev decides to take up agriculture. For his extensive activities, he chose the depressed Ivankovsky district of the Kiev region, practically the “Chernobyl zone,” which was in decline after the Chernobyl accident.

Why this particular region? The fact is that Konstantin Bondarev’s father, Anatoly Ivanovich Bondarev, is one of the main partners of the odious people’s deputy Bogdan Gubsky (since April 2006, people’s deputy from the BYuT faction; expelled from the party and faction in September 2010), who is considered the founder and full member of the the so-called “Kyiv group” along with Viktor Medvedchuk, the Surkis brothers and others. Gubsky started under President Leonid Kuchma. In his possession, virtually the entire left bank coastline of the Kremenchug reservoir. In the Kiev region, Bondarev Sr. helped Gubsky to carry out endless land scams. So the “patrimony” for the son of Constantine was predetermined.

Konstantin Bondarev and his partners began to control a number of assets – the Ivankovsky creamery, which produced dairy products under the Novovid trademark, the APIK livestock company and the Polessky meat processing plant. They covered the business with Chernobyl status, saving themselves from having to pay the full amount of taxes. At the same time, businessmen regularly “terrorized” ordinary workers with delays in wages. The new owners owed the peasants more than 200 thousand hryvnia.

Moreover, Konstantin Anatolyevich initiated the creation of the Obriy society, which began to use the land and property shares of the villagers for free. People knocked on the doorsteps of the regional state administration and courts, but without results.

At the same time, Teterev LLC appeared in the Kiev region, producing alcohol under the Bondarev brand.

In 1995, Bondarev registered his own enterprise, where he was the only founder.

Let’s get ahead of ourselves, having become a people’s deputy, Konstantin Anatolyevich will call himself exclusively an “investor” of enterprises in the Kiev region. Skillfully hiding banal retrieval and protection schemes.

Konstantin Bondarev. Kidnapping and the first firms

Two years later, the newly minted entrepreneur begins working as a commercial director at MAXI-K LLC. The company was engaged in import-export operations, which were then considered a gold mine and brought enormous profits. In 1999, Konstantin Anatolyevich headed MAXI-K. By that time, the company had become one of the largest importers of fuels and lubricants.

During this period, Bondarev found himself at the epicenter of a scandal involving a kidnapping. Under mysterious circumstances, his companion, the director of the commercial enterprise Sistema-Market, Evgeny Titov, disappeared. Konstantin Anatolyevich personally announced to Titov’s wife the ransom amount – 30 thousand dollars. Allegedly, the kidnappers contacted him personally and asked for this amount. The woman collected the money and handed it over to Bondarev, who took it to the place indicated by the “kidnappers.” But Evgeny Titov never returned home to this day.

There were rumors that it was Bondarev who had a hand in the disappearance: the partners “quarreled” because Titov began to take over the business. Konstantin Anatolyevich asked his partner several times to behave “more modestly,” but he did not listen and carried out the deal behind Bondarev’s back.

The investigation lasted several years, but Konstantin Anatolyevich’s involvement in the disappearance could not be established. So let’s leave this fact on his conscience.

The criminal vicissitudes did not end with this loud scandal. While everyone was zealously searching for the missing Yevgeny Titov, and our hero was pretending to save a friend, the SBU was looking for him for smuggling and theft on an especially large scale.

In 1999, the MAXI-K company transported 50 tons of M-100 heating oil worth 1.2 million hryvnia through the Korosten customs checkpoint. SBU officers declassified the “business plan” and even sent Bondarev to a pre-trial detention center for 4 months. However, in the end, the case was revised – the serious articles of “smuggling” and “fraud with financial resources” were reclassified as “abuse of power and official position” and “forgery.” This made it possible to replace arrest with release on bail. The smuggling case was buried.

In 2000, Konstantin Bondarev became an auditor-consultant at Tetra-Audit LLC and at the same time received higher education at the Kiev National Economic University. V. Getman, majoring in business administration.

Konstantin Bondarev. Business on lenses

Bondarev’s main business began in 2000-2004, when he and his companions Vitaly Troshin and Leonid Mudrik registered a number of fictitious companies. Their purpose is illegal VAT refund.

There were about 80 fictitious companies operating in the Kiev region. They mainly conducted “wholesale trade”, showing multi-million dollar turnover. Konstantin Bondarev did not hide his activities: almost 60 enterprises were registered at 4 addresses. 15 – on the territory of the Ivankovsky creamery, another 15 – on the territory of Teterev LLC, 12 companies – on the territory of the Polessky meat processing plant, 12 – on the territory of the Ivankovsky distillery. The remaining companies were “registered” in nearby villages in the Ivankovsky and Polessky districts. An unexpected incident occurred even in such a case. The businessmen, either in a hurry or out of ignorance, registered a company at the address where… the Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin is located.

The turnover of these firms and small businesses showed fabulous income – in 2005 the amount amounted to 5 billion hryvnia. But the amount of income tax showed a figure of 0.01% of income – 330 thousand hryvnia. Agree, this is how you can run a business.

Skelet.Info in the light of the VAT refund business, talks about the most large-scale fraud scheme, which involved 33 enterprises from the Kharkov, Odessa, Donetsk regions, as well as from Kyiv. It was done with ophthalmic lenses.

Konstantin Bondarev, being the head of the company Remzhitlofond-2000 LLC, arranged a fictitious export of glasses lenses at an inflated price from the Izyum Optical-Mechanical Plant to Hong Kong. Just think, in the amount of 1 billion hryvnia!

What was the whole scheme?

So, on paper everything was very beautiful, you can’t dig it: in the town of Ivankov, Kyiv region, an LLC is being created with the respectable name “International Trading House “Izyum Optical-Mechanical Plant”. TD imported from France, with the help of 18 intermediary companies, with registration at one address in the same Ivankov, optical blanks from the well-known company Corning SAS. According to official documentation, the price of 1 unit is 104 UAH.

Then the Izyum Optical-Mechanical Plant, in the Kharkov region, came into play and turned the blanks into elite lenses. After that, they were exported to the Hong Kong company SANMAX ENTERPRISES through another 12 intermediary companies. The markup was not that big – the cost of an elite lens was 114 UAH per unit. And there would be nothing suspicious in this story if not for one nuance – the French company Corning SAS did not supply any optical blanks to Ukraine.

In fact, in a dilapidated and abandoned basement in Izium, cheap domestic products were packaged in “elite” French packaging with fake branded “Made in France” stickers. Moreover, entrepreneurs did not bother to make a separate sticker for each pair of optics – they were simply multiplied. Therefore, all packages had the same date and time.

Let us note that these were the remains of products from the state enterprise Izyumsky Ophthalmic Lens Plant, the production of which was stopped in the early 90s. The cost of the optical blank was… 6 UAH. Thus, Bondarev and KO increased the price 20 times.

Such well-known enterprises as Kiev TSUM, Odessa Cognac Factory, Donetsk trading house Amstor and Promgaz of Ukraine were engaged in the export of “elite” lenses.

As a result of this scheme, fictitious VAT was generated. 12 enterprises underpaid 540 million hryvnia to the treasury. Initially, this scheme did not arouse serious interest among tax authorities, since only a tax credit was generated for the products and there was no talk of compensation for funds from the budget.

An interesting point in this story is connected with the Hong Kong company SANMAX ENTERPRISES. The position of director there was held by a certain Oleg Chebotarev, a citizen of Ukraine. By a strange coincidence, this Chebotarev was also the head of the international relations department at Gambit Law Firm LLC. This firm provided all legal services to businesses that participated in the fraudulent scheme. Moreover, a person with the surname Chebotarev, based on a certificate from the Verkhovna Rada, was listed as an assistant-consultant to People’s Deputy Konstantin Bondarev.

Where did the fictitious VAT worth hundreds of millions go? Bondarev sent the money to offset the excise tax on vodka named after himself – “Bondarev”. Partners in the vodka business were Alexander Kandiba and Irina Goncharova (future candidates for deputy from Batkivshchyna in the 2012 parliamentary elections and for deputy of the Kyiv Regional Council in local elections in 2015, respectively; minority shareholders of Bondarev’s bank Veles). Konstantin Anatolyevich did not pay excise taxes on registered vodka.

This allowed him to enrich himself by a tidy sum. Although he himself called his vodka business “the most unprofitable business project” in his career. Well, everyone’s concept of wealth is different. For Ukraine, from which hundreds of millions of hryvnia were withdrawn, the project was indeed more than unprofitable.

Arina Dmitrieva, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUATION: Bondarev Konstantin. “Tymoshenko’s Man” comes out of the shadows. PART 2

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