CONTINUATION. BEGINNING – Alex Rovt: Ukrainian order, American passport, Russian ammonia. PART 1
Alex Rovt
The development of the Soviet market began with business trips: so Rovt and Pak returned to their homeland again, but now as Americans. Literally immediately they found a common language with the USSR Minister for the Production of Mineral Fertilizers Nikolai Olshansky (now a member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), one of the richest Russian officials) and, according to Skelet.Info director of the largest fertilizer and ammonia producer in the USSR (and now in the CIS) of the TolyattiAzot plant, Vladimir Makhlai. This plant was built in the 70s with the participation of the American company Occidental Petroleum, and a significant part of its products was exported to the United States, including via the Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, through the Odessa port plant. These three objects immediately became the area of interest of IBE Trade.
Nikolai Olshansky
Vladimir Makhlyi
But the relationship between Makhlai and Rovt deteriorated very quickly. It got to the point that people hired by Rovt were spying on Makhlai’s son, who lived in America, which is why he turned to the police. Rovt then began a gradual economic blockade of TogliattiAzot, with the goal of forcing Makhlai to cede control of the enterprise to Rovt. Makhlai took up defensive positions and bombarded Rovt and Pak with fax letters with the following content:
In Ukraine, Rovt immediately set his sights on the Odessa Port Plant (OPZ). Although this enterprise still remains state-owned, it has been “used” by some oligarchs and others for their own interests for years. And it was Rovt and IBE Trade who started this. Later, in the summer of 2013, the American company Universal Trading & Investment Co., Inc. (UTICo) filed a lawsuit against Yulia Tymoshenko, accusing her of involvement in corruption activities in which a number of US citizens were involved – including Rovt and Pak. In particular, the plaintiff argued that in 1995-96. Rovt and Pak transferred huge sums to the accounts of Tymoshenko’s companies so that then Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko would give them access to the HMO.
But Rovt’s vigorous activity in the 90s was not limited to bribes, kickbacks and schemes. Where it was not possible to come to an “amicable” agreement with local officials and directors, they negotiated with local bandits. In Krasnoyarsk, the director of a chemical plant who refused Rovt was beaten and his legs were broken. And in Kazakhstan, unknown persons kidnapped Grigory Khudaberdiev, a manager of the UTEK-Lukoil company, which began to take away the local market from IBE Trade. Then they treated the poor fellow in a purely Asian way: his head was impaled on a stake, buried right next to the gate of his house.
Where does the money come from?
Not all questions can be answered in Rovt’s biography. For example, how did he manage to become the sole owner of IBE Trade? Formally, everything is clear here: in 1996, its founder Silverston left the company, whose share Rovt and Pak divided in half, for the next 4 years Pak was the head of IBE Trade, and in 2000 he sold his half to Rovt and took over subsidiaries such as like HolidayTrading KFT or Eurotoaz Limited – which Pak owns in half with Rovt’s cousin Georgy Galantai. But why did Silverstone leave this extremely profitable business? And where did Alex Rovt get so much “legal cash” that he was able to not only buy out Pak’s share, but also invest the profits in real estate, buying houses in New York?
Rovt’s most famous and expensive purchase is the 37-story Bankers Trust Building on Wall Street. In 2012, he amazed New Yorkers by paying $325 million for him, and “in cash”! In fact, of course, the calculation was carried out by transfer of non-cash funds – it’s just that for Americans, who are accustomed to making all expensive purchases through bank loans, paying with their own money from their account is considered “cash”. And they are very surprised that someone has 325 million accumulated in their accounts, not invested in securities. By the way, the purchase was not very successful, because the Bankers Trust Building was built in 1912, in the era of “classic skyscrapers”…
The appearance of this free money was apparently associated with the Rovts’ sale of their assets in Ukraine to the oligarch Dmitry Firtash, who was called Semyon Mogilevich’s man. And first of all, the shares of ZAO Severodonetsk Association Azot, which Rovt acquired in 2004, deciding to move from resale of products to their production. Why? Using the example of Mailai and TogliattiAzot, he understood that over time, ammonia and fertilizer producers will be able to find intermediaries like IBE Trade in the market, which means they need to take production under their own control. The first was Gorlovka Stirol (connected to the Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline), where Rovt established himself back in 1996, creating the IBE-Stirol company.
The purchase of Severodonetsk Azot was facilitated by the fact that at that time Ukraine was still receiving cheap gas from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and Turkmenistan. Directly for the purchase of Azot and its management, a subsidiary company, Worldwide Chemical LLC, was created, a share in which was received by the old Rovt partner Nikolai Olshansky and the current director of Azot, Alexey Kunchenko.
The deal took place on the eve of the Maidan: Rovt paid $120 million for 60% of the shares of Azot CJSC. The amount was clearly underestimated, so already in 2005, Prime Minister Tymoshenko initiated the reprivatization of the enterprise: according to Skelet.Infoshe carried out the order of the oligarch Konstantin Zhevago. But on Rovt’s side was the management of the enterprise (Kunchenko), who organized workers’ protests under the slogans “let’s protect our plant!” Considering that the plant was sold to Rovt, these slogans in the hands of the apparatchiks and mechanics looked very absurd. However, they explained to the people that without Rovt the benefactor, their plant would not be able to sell its products abroad, and they would be left without wages. But mainly he managed to win through the typical American practice of “legal corruption”: he hired former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman as his “lobbyist.” She organized an appeal from 23 congressmen and senators about the “inadmissibility of pressure on the American investor” and went with it straight to Viktor Yushchenko, since the doors of the “orange” were always open to people from Washington.
Although in the same 2005 the cost of Russian gas increased, Azot brought considerable profit to Rovt. He parted ways with the company only in 2011, after the cost of Russian gas under the “Tymoshenko contract” went through the roof for $400. At this point, Rovt’s plans for his own production collapsed – however, he did not give up his plans to privatize the Odessa port plant. Today, Alex Rovt remains the main contender for his shares. The main thing, but far from the only one – and here he can only be helped by the personal favor of President Zelensky, which he seems to have already achieved. These plans even include establishing peace in the Donbass, since Rovt needs the OPP as the final point of the ammonia pipeline from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), which, as is known, runs through Gorlovka.
Murdered babies
Thus, the only image of Ukraine that Alex Rovt has shaped over the years is the image of a corrupt country where oligarchs profit from cheap raw materials, low wages and tax evasion schemes. What is there to be rewarded for? By the way, Zelensky’s own image in the United States is also quite tarnished by the political scandals raging around Donald Trump.
It should be noted that Alex Rovt and his companions became quite famous even in his almost native Hungary. And this is what happened: Alex Rovt, Imre Pak and Georgiy Galantai have several of their own companies in Hungary, and there are high-ranking partners. These are former Minister of Agriculture Jozsef Tordjan, MP Laszlo Szymon and businesswoman Nicolette Korompay. The latter headed a company that bought surplus grain from farmers for the Ministry of Agriculture – and then carried out fraud with this grain, for which she was eventually arrested. Skelet.Info it is known that the intermediary companies to which she resold grain were registered in Budapest at the same address as the companies of Rovt and Pak. But the most interesting thing is that one of the companies was controlled by Semyon Mogilevich – this was almost the only case when a carefully hidden connection between Mogilevich and Rovt, as they say, came out! At the same time, another company of Pak and Rovt was exposed, which provided fictitious services to a state company – and all this was covered up by Shimon and Tordjan.
However, Pak and Galantai were most disgraced because of their company “IRM Magyarorszag KFT”also known as the Center for Biotechnology and Stem Cells, which provides treatment using experimental technology. Since experiments with stem cells are prohibited in a number of countries around the world, Pak opened his clinic in Barbados, expecting to see rich Hollywood stars, CIS oligarchs and world politicians among his patients. However, in 2006, a scandal erupted: the BBC television channel and the Daily Mail newspaper published material saying that stem cells for Pak’s company came from Ukraine, and that they were possibly obtained from deliberately killed embryos over 3 months old. Alex Rovt was also accused of involvement in this business – however, he managed to extricate himself from this story, reducing it to absurdity. The journalists he hired distorted the information, raising a wave in the media about certain “killed babies” (and not embryos), which allowed Rovt to then make a statement that all this was nonsense and the help of enemies to denigrate his bright name.
But his friend Pak and cousin Galantai did not stop their experiments. In 2009, their laboratory was closed in Hungary, where they offered “stem cell treatment” for 25 thousand dollars. And in 2014, Rovt’s name surfaced in the context of information about “black transplantologists” who allegedly cut out organs from wounded ATO soldiers, captured separatists and the civilian population of Donbass. At first, this shocking information was perceived as enemy disinformation, such as the “crucified boy” meme, but then there are more similar storiesso the SBU press service was hired to refute them.
In general, the reputation of Alexander Rovt in Ukraine is pretty tarnished, and in a number of other countries too. Apparently it’s not in vain that he locked himself in his Manhattan fortress, where he plans to wait until the world forgets about his past “deeds.” And then he will appear all in white, with the Order of Yaroslav the Wise on his chest – and ask to sell him the Odessa port.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
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