Pavel Borulko: a forgotten legend of banking scams

Every time an economic crisis begins in Ukraine, “defrauded investors” take to the streets. But who is deceiving them? How many Ukrainians understand that their bank deposits do not actually “burn out”, but flow into someone else’s accounts, that it is not the crisis that is to blame for the bankruptcy of banks, but their own owners – often deliberately driving them to ruin. Moreover, it also happens that the “deceived investors” themselves are the ones who commit fraud and deception. We can learn about what tricks bankers-swindlers go to, using the example of the former owner of the banks “European”, “National Standard” and “AvtoKrazBank” Pavel Borulko. Skelet.Info believes that he was, although not the biggest, but the most impudent swindler!

Pavel Borulko: Mom, dad and uncle of Vital

Borulko Pavel Viktorovich was born on February 11, 1975 in the city of Konstantinovka (Donetsk region). Then, in the mid-70s, his family was still very ordinary: his mother Alla Pavlovna Shimanskaya worked as a teacher at school, his father Viktor Ivanovich Borulko worked as an engineer at a factory, and Vital’s uncle (Vitaly Lobas) was just finishing his medical degree. Nevertheless, loving parents raised Pavlik like an indoor geranium, trying to ensure that he lacked nothing. And by the end of the 80s, their financial situation improved significantly: Viktor Ivanovich became the director of the NPO “Konstantinovsky Glass Plant” (in Soviet times, the company produced bulletproof glass for aviation and Kremlin stars), and Vitaly Lobas received the position of chief surgeon in the health department Donetsk region. While all the other Konstantinovites were running around in search of shortages in empty stores, the Borulko family ate sandwiches with raw smoked sausage and watched videos on the big Sony screen on the new sofa. So Pasha began to get a taste for the major life, and all his thoughts boiled down to the desire to get fashionable clothes, a car, an apartment, a cooler car, etc.

In 1992, Pavel Borulko graduated from school with a silver medal: journalists ironized about this that such a medal is usually given to the children of teachers. By that time, his dad began to confidently ruin his factory, which was left with almost no orders, but Vital’s uncle went for a promotion: he became the head of the health department of the Donetsk region and began to create his own pharmacy business network, Donbass Pharmacy Trading LLC. In the same year, a new city prosecutor, Alexander Medvedko, was appointed to Konstantinovka, who later became the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and played a very important role in the life of Pavel Borulko. Well, Pasha himself entered the economics and law department of Donetsk State University that same year.

HELP ON PSHONKA: Victor Pshonka: the rise and fall of prosecutor Caesar

In the mid-90s, several key events occurred that radically changed the already good life of Pavel Borulko. Firstly, his father completely ruined the Konstantinovsky Glass Factory, after which it was liquidated, and on the basis of its main workshops the Avtosteklo Production Association was created (producing mirrors, tempered glass and glazing for aircraft and locomotives), which was subsequently transformed into a CJSC “Special glass”. Secondly, Vitaly Lobas was appointed deputy of the new chairman of the Donetsk Regional State Administration, Viktor Yanukovych. Thirdly, Pavel Borulko graduated from the university and in 1997 was going to work at the Konstantinovsky branch of Privatbank, and then as a senior manager in the credit department of the Ukrinbank branch. Fourthly, during this he met his future business partner Sergei Kirichenko. And fifthly, and this is the most important thing, he married Alla Nikolaevna Kuzmina.

Husbands and wives

Our hero’s wife (first wife) is a very mysterious person. The media called her the niece of prosecutor Alexander Medvedko, and once even suggested her possible relationship with the famous Donetsk prosecutor family of the Kuzmins (Read more about them in the article Renat Kuzmin: family business of lawless prosecutors). At the same time, rumors that filled the Internet claimed that her maiden name was Golutvina, and she became Kuzmina in her first unsuccessful marriage, and that she had nothing to do with the indicated prosecutorial families. But her colleague and business partner Dmitry Goncharov claimed that Alla Nikolaevna is a good close friend of her wife and daughter Alexander Medvedko.

Well, in any case, Alla Nikolaevna “rose up” too quickly for a simple woman with no connections to anyone. Moreover, in their family business tandem, it was she who played the role of the “locomotive”, and not the pampered major Pasha. And it was she who brought him together with her friend’s husband Dmitry Goncharov.

Moreover, sources Skelet.Info it was reported that she not only introduced her husband into the financial and banking business of Donbass, but used him as her personal chairman.

But here’s the most interesting thing: this “banking family” Alla and Pavel Borulko had equally interesting business partners. The surnames of married couples Dmitry and Irina Goncharov, Adamov, Eduard and Oksana Prutnik did not later appear in the criminal chronicles of Ukraine, like the surname Borulko – however, they started together, and they also ended.

Now it is difficult to figure out which of them started first, but from the available information it can be assumed that in the late 90s Eduard Prutnik (born 1973) got the best job. Who, in turn, could have been pulled (or pushed) upward by his wife Oksana Yurievna (born 1968), who also worked in the financial business, and Vitaly Lobas could have done this, since in 1997 Eduard Prutnik became an adviser to the deputy chairman of the Donetsk Regional State Administration. Be that as it may, in 1999 he held the position of first deputy director of the Directorate of Bank Ukraina in the Donetsk region, and then suddenly went into “private business” for two years, after which he suddenly rose sharply: as we wrote earlier , became deputy chairman of the Donetsk Regional State Administration of Yanukovych, then in 2002-2005 he was an adviser to Prime Minister Yanukovych, and after the first Maidan he became a banker and businessman. Let’s add: he also became the godfather of Sergei Levochkin (Read more about him in Levochkin’s article. The Gray Cardinal and his sister), who apparently supervised him.

So, it was precisely during the period when Eduard Prutnik was engaged in “private business” in 1999-2001. and this wonderful team of family financiers was formed, who occupied various positions in two banks: the Donetsk branch of Slavutich (the future National Standard) and Donkreditinvest (the future European), then called “Donetsk” conversion centers. At the same time, these banks differed in the specifics of their work: “Slavutich” worked under the “Soviet restaurant” system, and “Doncreditinvest” under the “Soviet grocery store” system. What is it? Let’s remember the Soviet past: restaurants and grocery stores were the focus of Soviet corruption, theft and criminal schemes, “dark deeds” were carried out within their walls every day, while most restaurants were always closed to ordinary people and served only their “regular customers,” but gastronomes, on the contrary, they were full of noisy people standing in long lines. In the same way, Slavutich had a minimum of branches and worked only with its captive enterprises and selected VIP clients, and Doncreditinvest had many branches and a lot of clients – while both of them provided the same “special services” within the walls of their accounting departments .

Let us add that it was at this same time that Sergei Levochkin was actively developing the Donetsk financial schemes, but his name was heard against the background of other, larger banks, which later became the main captive banks of the Donetsk oligarchs. But the Donetsk branch of Slavutich (Sergei Kirichenko is the director, Borulko is his deputy) and Donkreditinvest (Goncharov headed the foreign exchange department) were quite possibly used precisely as conversion centers: as they say, even if “the cops bust”, it’s not a pity – These banks had an order of magnitude less equity capital than the main Donetsk banks.

Pavel Borulko. First blood

However, these banks survived – well, don’t throw away the stuff! And in 2001-2002, an interesting transformation took place: Slavutich and Doncreditinvest, as well as some other conversion centers, became the property of their top managers, including the Goncharovs and Borulkos. But what kind of shit?! And here is the most interesting thing: it was Eduard Prutnik, shaking his pockets full of money, who proposed to his managers to buy out these banks – and he also provided most of the necessary funds for this. In addition, with his participation in 2002, JSCB “Donechchina” and CJSC “Financial Group “Donechchina” were created. The bank’s shares were divided by Eduard Prutnik, Pavel Borulko and Dmitry Goncharov. The owners of the CJSC were Alla Borulko (owns 32.463%), Irina Goncharova (32.46%), Dmitry Goncharov (16.998%) and Oksana Prutnik (20%).

In addition, it was reported that in 2001 Pavel Borulko became a co-owner of the small Vladimirsky bank (opened in the Lutsk region), together with Kirichenko, Goncharov and the owner of the Olymp vodka company Pavel Klimts, they bought AvtoKrazBank. Pavel Borulko was also involved in the work of several other small banks – together with other members of his friendly family financial group. But why did they already produce small banks, instead of developing the two they already had at their disposal? But this is a very interesting question, to which there is an even more interesting answer! Just think about what professional conversion center managers can excel at? That’s right – in all kinds of financial schemes. For the implementation of which they needed additional small banks. Perhaps they proceeded from the same considerations as Levochkin: why expose your banks if you can use “small consumables”?

But people who are accustomed to fooling the state and law-abiding citizens sooner or later begin to fool each other. On January 14, 2003, Sergei Kirichenko, at that time the chairman of the supervisory board of AvtoKrazBank, was stabbed to death in the entrance of his own house. Sources in law enforcement agencies almost unanimously believed that the mastermind of the murder was Pavel Borulko, Kirichenko’s deputy and co-owner of AvtoKrazBank – but this was only their unofficial opinion. His relatives and his wife’s connections did not allow him to put pressure on Borulko. And another unofficial suspect, Eduard Prutnik, was appointed to Kyiv in April of the same year as the head of the supervisory board of Oschadbank. And he immediately took Pavel Borulko as his deputy, and then Dmitry Goncharov joined them.

However, a few months later, this triumvirate broke up with a scandal: according to rumors, the cause of the quarrel was the “rat-robbery” of Borulko, who was trying to pocket part of the total profits of his partners. As a result, they split: JSCB Donechchina became the full property of the Prutnikov family, and in return Oksana Prutnik left the shareholders of CJSC Financial Group Donechchina – renamed CJSC Financial Group Insurance Traditions, which was headed by Alla Borulko. At the same time, a reformatting of the shareholders of other banks took place: Insurance Traditions became the owners of 19.45% of the shares of Doncreditnvest Bank – in addition to the fact that the Goncharovs and Borulko owned part of its shares directly (24.3% and 16.36%) , and they also became the main shareholders of Slavutich Bank. Borulko retained AvtoKrazBank and Vladimirsky.

Surprisingly, this division played a positive role in the future life of Eduard Prutnik, who, having somewhat moved away from the banking business, a few years later became a major businessman, the owner of UVERCON Investment Limited and MEDOK Group. But the Borulko and Goncharov couples remained financial scammers.

Big scams of Pavel Borulko

In the summer of 2005, People’s Deputy Igor Pluzhnikov, who owned Intercontinentbank (IKB), died. As the investigation later showed, Pluzhnikov, together with one of his business partners, was involved in scams: he provided loans to fictitious construction sites registered to homeless people. The boss died, the scheme was shut down, and the partners of the deceased began to “rat” – and as a result, 40% of the bank’s capital flowed into the “black hole” of the platform scam. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) began preparing to introduce a temporary administration into the ICB, when suddenly representatives of the Borulko and Goncharov banks offered their services in solving the problem. With the help of the then deputy board of the NBU, Anatoly Shapovalov, they pulled off a scam, which was then described by UBEP investigators as follows: “unidentified persons, with the aim of not returning loan funds to IKB accounts and seizing the bank’s assets, in the period from September 9 to 18, 2005, organized the conclusion of agreements on the assignment of the right of claim credit funds in favor of other banking institutions, namely: JSCB “European”, LLC Design Bureau “Slavutich” and Design Bureau “Vladimirsky” LLC.

In 2006, the name Borulko appeared in the case of the kidnapping and murder of Colonel of the Organized Crime Control Department Roman Erokhin, who was investigating economic crimes and financial schemes in the Donetsk region. At the same time, reporting about “getting on the trail of a large conversion center” (and they weren’t hiding very much), Colonel Erokhin for some reason suddenly received a certain “preferential short-term loan” in cash (!), the issuance of which was organized for him with the personal assistance of Pavel Borulko ( under his guarantee). But the colonel did not have time to use this loan.

In the same year, according to journalists, Pavel Borulko managed to cheat Sergei Taruta himself a little (Read more about him in the article by Sergei Taruta. Secret coordinator of Ukrainian oligarchs). The fact is that Pavel Borulko decided to participate in the parliamentary elections – both as a candidate on the list of the ECO + 25% party (Taruta’s project, financed by the Industrial Union of Donbass), in which Borulko and Goncharov bought themselves seats No. 14 and No. 15, and as the party’s “teller” in the 2006 elections. Well, as numerous sources later reported Skelet.Infodespite the complete loss of the party (it gained 0.47%), Pavel Borulko managed to warm his hands well on the finances of its election campaign.

In 2007, Pavel Borulko and his AvtoKrazBank carried out a grandiose scheme to siphon $875 million out of Ukraine by paying bills issued to pay for fictitious goods and services. The scheme involved: the British company “TRID Financial Ltd” and the American “Hansen Holding LLC”, serviced in the Donetsk branch of “AvtoKrazBank”, the Ukrainian brokerage firm “Shnipelson and Sons”, the Donetsk company “Aurora”, the Zaporozhye “Center” – and the money was transferred to the accounts of the Latvian Baltic International Bank. The banks “European”, “National Standard” and “Arma” also partially participated in the operation.

This was the last major joint business between Borulko and the Goncharovs, after which they quarreled and began to divide their joint business: Pavel Borulko’s attempts to absorb the banking shares of his partner were cited as possible reasons. As a result, Alla Borulko left the chair of the head of the board of CJSC FG “Insurance Traditions”, giving it to Dmitry Goncharov, and he gave Borulko his chair of the head of the board of the bank “European”. At the same time, the parties exchanged shares in a similar manner. In 2008, the Goncharovs tried to inflate the capitalization of Insurance Traditions by 2-3 times, intending to sell the company – during this they did a lot of stupid things, because of which the deal scheduled for July 2008 did not take place. A month later, the crisis broke out, the Insurance Traditions Federal Group bent under the weight of multimillion-dollar debts, and in the summer of 2009 the state revoked their license. However, there was information that the bankruptcy of the company was deliberate, and through it the Goncharovs “saved” and transferred a significant part of the insurance premiums to offshore companies.

The “demobilization chord” of Pavel Borulko himself was the impudent theft of the National Bank through fraudulent manipulations with the refinancing of its banks “European” and “National Standard”. It all started in the spring of 2008, when Borulko, like many other Ukrainian oligarchs, as if knowing about the approaching crisis, began to transfer the funds of their banks (depositors’ money and refinancing from the NBU) into currency, which was transferred abroad.

As you remember, according to this scheme, money was withdrawn from banks by issuing loans to their own enterprises, fictitious companies or dummies. Pavel Borulko used various options, including issuing loans to owners of land plots in the Obukhovsky district of the Kyiv region: in reality, these plots were not even in sight, and the “land owners” turned out to be homeless and alcoholics. Banks had “problem loans” and they turned to the NBU for help – which, with the onset of the 2008 crisis, began to issue generous refinancing to banks. Of course, financial whales such as Privatbank or UkrSibBank were jostling in line for money at that time, but Borulko was helped out by his long-standing close acquaintance with the deputy board of the NBU, Shapovalov. Thanks to this, “European” and “National Standard” received 430 million hryvnia in refinancing – which were also withdrawn from the bank (actually stolen) through issuing loans to front companies and individuals. As a result, in the summer of 2009, banks were informed that their licenses would be revoked.

But Pavel Borulko didn’t stop there! When in 2009 the NBU began saving the deposits of Ukrainians through the Deposit Guarantee Fund, Borulko decided to profit from this too – although this fraud was already outright impudence, attracting unnecessary attention. The day before the licenses of the European and National Standard banks were revoked, 1,339 new deposits were opened in them for 150,000 hryvnia each (the maximum deposit amount guaranteed for return by the Fund). Accounts were opened for certain residents of the Donetsk and Cherkasy regions, who, perhaps, only gave the scammers photocopies of their passports. The deposits were real: funds were deposited into them from the accounts of Borulko’s other enterprises and the businessmen who participated in this scam – among whom was the future head of the NBU, Sergei. But the money from these deposits was immediately transformed into loans and various kinds of bills for “services”, which were returned to Borulko and Arbuzov. Then, after the closure of the “European” and “National Standard”, “deceived investors” were brought to their doors by buses, whose role was played by homeless people and Moldovan guest workers: they were paid from 40 to 100 hryvnia for participating in the performance. Having made noise under the windows of banks, this farce a few days later unfolded under the walls of the NBU and the Deposit Guarantee Fund. Moreover, as they wrote, for some reason Sergei Arbuzov was unable to organize a couple of buses of homeless people and brought employees of his Ukrbusinessbank to the rally, who stated that they were “trusted representatives of depositors.”

Pavel Borulko – False Pashka

But if Sergei Arbuzov and Anatoly Shapovalov somehow got away with participating in this scam, then the authorities quickly became interested in Pavel Borulko – his impudent fraud received too much attention, “exposing” the state to a total of 620 million hryvnia! And this includes investigations into his possible involvement in the assassination attempt on the chairman of the supervisory board of the Financial Union Bank, Dmitry Fomenko, in January 2008, as a result of which he was injured. Fomenko stated that the reason for the assassination attempt could have been his conflict with the co-owner of Rodovid Bank, Alexander Shepelev, who in turn was Borulko’s business partner. Shepelev, by the way, was arrested in Budapest in 2013, transported to Kyiv, kept in a pre-trial detention center, then transported to a hospital – from where he safely escaped on July 6, 2014.

In general, Pavel Borulko also had to flee – but for some reason he chose Belarus for his refuge. Perhaps because it was the only place where neither the Western Interpol nor the Russian police could get hold of him – after all, with his regional friends coming to power, Borulko’s criminal case was not thrown into the trash. Well, with money you can get a good job in any country. And everyone in Belarus Borulko got a little nervous when in December 2011 he was arrested by the local KGB (border guards) because of his fake passport. But he didn’t worry for long: after three weeks he was released on bail. Moreover, the Minsk prosecutor’s office refused to extradite him to Ukraine, stating that they were guided by Article 19 of international convection (this could cause some harm to Belarus).

The delighted Borulko, who by that time had already divorced his wife Alla (or was abandoned by her as no longer needed), immediately decided to stage another scam! And to begin with, he married a 25-year-old resident of Gomel, Natalya Richkova, after which he took the opportunity to change his last name. Finally, his plan almost succeeded after Maidan 2014, when Pavel Borulko got ready to go home to Ukraine. But, realizing that he could be “accepted” there even despite the change of power and the resulting political and legal mess, he decided to participate in the parliamentary elections – but under the name Richkov!

Everything would be fine, because the law does not prohibit changing your last name, unlike the theft of money from depositors and the National Bank. However, Pashka Borulko was again let down by greed and excessive self-confidence: the fact is that at the same time he decided to play it safe and get hold of a Russian passport – and in the name Borulko. And in June 2014, he received a Russian passport as a resident of Feodosia, having registered there on February 20, 2014 (as if he knew about the imminent annexation). This seemed not enough to him, and in September 2014 he appeared in Kyiv, where he received a Ukrainian passport with the surname Richkov. But at the same time he indicates that he has been a resident of Feodosia since March 20, 2014. In a word, complete lies and fraud! By the way, Pavel Richkov-Borulko lost the election miserably. But although there has been practically no news about him since then, this does not mean at all that this great scoundrel will not try to return to his homeland again. Or maybe he’s already here and doing the same things under a new name?

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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