Ruslan Bodelan: what did the former owner of Odessa not repent of? PART 2

BEGINNING: Ruslan Bodelan: what did the former owner of Odessa not repent of? PART 1

Bodelan elections: how and what they fought for

The 1998 elections for the mayor of Odessa were one of the dirtiest in the history of both the city and Ukraine – even by the standards of that time. Then all sides distinguished themselves, but now we will talk about the “tricks” of Ruslan Bodelan’s team. Shutdowns of repeaters of city TV channels and radio stations that campaigned for Gurvitsathe war of incriminating evidence and the attempt to arrest Vice-Mayor Mikhail Kuchuk, who was repulsed from the police by a crowd of Gurvits’ people, the withdrawal of Gurvits’ candidacy on election day by the decision of the Malinovsky District Court – all this was their most innocent prank. It was much sadder when the “titushki” Trukhanova they smashed the business of Hurwitz’s supporters, and Mariyanchuk’s gang kidnapped and killed people.

Then, in addition to the kidnappings and murders of Igor Svoboda and Sergei Varlamov, Bodelan’s team was credited with an attempt on the life of the head of the city election commission, Leonid Kapelyushny, who received two gunshot wounds. Also on March 23, 1998, a deadly bomb was discovered at the residence of Mayor Hurwitz: several kilograms of army explosives. However, Bodelan’s team immediately called this incident a staged provocation by Hurwitz’s team.

The elections were held on March 29, 1998, and Bodelan lost them: with a turnout of 61%, 48.8% voted for Hurwitz, only 33.8% voted for the governor. Even the widespread nostalgia for the Soviet era did not help him: they say, they lived poorly, in shortages, but did not starve and received their salaries on time. And then Bodelan filed a lawsuit to invalidate the elections due to a number of gross violations – including due to the withdrawal of Hurwitz’s candidacy. This is how a power crisis broke out in Odessa, to which they responded in Kyiv: Bodelan was removed from the post of governor, direct presidential rule was almost introduced in the city, and re-elections were scheduled for August 1998. Moreover, Gurvits was not allowed to join them by decision of the district election commission – here it played into Bodelan’s hands that Kapelyushny, wounded by the killer, dropped out of the game, and the election commission came under the control of Bodelan’s henchmen. In addition, Bodelan’s team did everything to ensure that Hurwitz’s supporters ignored the re-elections altogether, “voting with their feet”: thanks to the low turnout (only 36.7%), Ruslan Bodelan received 36.7% of the votes (what a coincidence!) and defeated his main rival Kostusev (27%). That is, in fact, only 12% of Odessa residents voted for Bodelan!

The use of such methods in the struggle for power was explained by why Bodelan’s team needed this power.Angert-Grigorenko. In the 90s, their main targets were ports (Odessa and Ilyichevsk), oil piers and refineries, and for dessert – the remains of the ChMP. There were flows of smuggling through the ports: among other things, drugs were imported (cocaine, heroin), and weapons were exported. The arms business of Minin-Zhukov-Angert (in particular, the export of arms to Yugoslavia) flourished until the end of the 90s, until this group was caught abroad by the Italian police: in the so-called. “Minin’s list” included two dozen people, including the current mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov. However, sources Skelet.Info reported the involvement of another figure in this business: the head of the Odessa port Nikolai Pavlyuk. Among his acquaintances, he has a reputation as a person with whom one can always come to an agreement, and he will only have two questions: the size of the “fee” and who provides the “cover” for smuggling. It is not surprising that he still rules the port as chairman of the board.

Nikolay Pavlyuk

Even more income than weapons was brought in by the smuggling of ordinary cigarettes and alcohol, which was carried out in partnership with the authorities of Tiraspol, according to an intricate scheme: witnesses claimed that containers from ports were transported in transit to Transnistria, they were “cleared through customs” there, and then the goods were sent back through Ukrainian border and was distributed throughout the country.

Oil transshipment through Odessa ports alone brought in up to $18 million in net income in the 90s. Its processing at the Odessa Refinery, as well as the use of this plant for fraudulent schemes with “illegal” gasoline, evasion of excise taxes and VAT refunds, brought in several tens of millions more. The refinery itself was absorbed by the company Sintez Oil Ukraine CJSC, which is a subsidiary of Sintez Oil United Kingdom – created in England by Alexander Zhukov with the active participation of his friend Minin and their Odessa partner Angert. It is interesting that many former security officials worked at Sintez Oil: in particular, ex-KGB major Marchenko and ex-KGB colonel Valery Borovik.

According to sources Skelet.InfoRuslan Bodelan also had his share in this oil business – and this is not counting the system of “kickbacks” for budget contracts, which he launched in Odessa when he became the mayor of the city. In addition, with the help of the commercial structures of the brothers Alexander and Vladimir Galitsky (the companies “Mortex”, “Gali”, “Ukrvneshgaz”) and Vladimir Rosengoltz, shadow schemes were operating in the port, according to which enterprises close to the Bodelan “family” paid for unloading and loading at “preferential” tariffs, which caused a direct loss to the port and the state. In addition, Rosengoltz was also involved in cigarette smuggling – and later he created workshops in Transnistria that first repackaged Moldovan cigarettes, and then produced counterfeit goods under different brands and smuggled them to Odessa. This business is still thriving!

After the big oil business Sintez Oil ended in 2001 with the sale of the company to the Russian Lukoil (and Bodelan personally helped the Russians get the Odessa oil refinery), the mayor began to get his hands on smaller pieces – starting to actively divide the Odessa real estate. However, he did this before: for example, in 1999, by decision of the Odessa City Council No. 255-XXIII, part of the territory of the sanatorium named after. Chkalov were transferred to the companies of Ivan Grigorenko (at that time he was already working as the head of the Suvorovsky district) and to the then head of the Tax Administration of Ukraine Svyatoslav Piskun (to the future Prosecutor General). With the beginning of the new century, such land grabs intensified. Thus, on July 11, 2003, the Odessa City Council, by decision No. 1404-XXIV, transferred to the MP “Vlanev” a plot of 0.454 hectares on the coast (8th station of the Big Fountain) under the pretext “for the construction of the sports and recreational complex Yacht Club.” In reality, several private hotels were built there.

In 2000, Bodelan “persuaded” the city council to allocate a sanatorium to them on the territory. Gorky five plots of land with a total area of ​​0.42 hectares and transfer them for private residential development to the company of Rodina party deputy Konstantin Rozovoy. It is worth emphasizing that the Rodina party was created with the support of Ruslan Bodelan from the organized crime group Igor Markov (nickname Maradonna) as an allied political force, as opposed to the “patriotic” parties and organizations that supported Eduard Gurvits. And Bodelan paid his allies with Odessa real estate. The most generous “gifts” were the territory of the sanatorium. Chuvyrina (French Boulevard), as well as almost 21 hectares of land of the Druzhba sanatorium, which was specially closed for the sake of this deriban. The territory went to the companies of Igor Markov and Andrei Ivancho – the latter was on the “Minin list”, he is a long-time (since the early 90s) friend and companion of Gennady Trukhanov, with whom he jointly owns a number of companies.

Igor Markov

In total, for the period 1998-2005. Ruslan Bodelan partially or completely destroyed more than 70 sanatoriums and boarding houses in Odessa. Some were closed and sold out entirely, while others had most of their territory taken away.

When the first Maidan clearly smelled in the air, Bodelan decided to finally distribute “candy” to his close associates and “the right people.” For example, generously giving them luxury apartments from the City Council fund – which they then immediately privatized. The case was completed literally in 2.5 months – exactly the same amount of time that the chairman of the Economic Court of the Odessa region Valentin Prodaevich (a person close to Angert), the prosecutor of Odessa Nikolai Markin, the prosecutor of the Odessa region Mikhail Gavrilyuk, the deputy head of the regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Ruslan Soloveychuk, head of the regional election headquarters of Viktor Yanukovych Vasily Pupkov.

Ruslan Bodelan. Unpunished departure into oblivion

The victory of the “orange team,” with whose members Eduard Gurvits had long-standing friendly and business relations, was the clear end of Bodelan’s rule of Odessa. But he lost his position in the same way he received it – according to the scheme of “contractual lawlessness”, which did not die after the first Maidan, but began to serve the new masters. On March 14, 2005, the Primorsky Court of Odessa satisfied Gurvits’ claim, recognizing the results of the 2002 mayor elections as invalid and falsified. During the hearing of this case, a fight broke out outside the courthouse between the support groups of Bodelan and Hurwitz, as a result of which 5 people were sent to the hospital.

However, such a court decision led only to re-elections, and nothing more. Therefore, Gurvits filed a new lawsuit, and on April 4, the same Primorsky court issued a new decision: it declared the registration of Bodelan’s candidate for the 2002 elections invalid due to certain violations, thus retroactively removing him from the list of candidates. And in this case, another candidate was declared the winner of the 2002 elections – that is, Eduard Gurvits. Nobody remembered that two weeks ago the same court declared the same elections invalid. Moreover, when the Prosecutor General’s Office became interested in the case of falsification of the 2002 elections and requested it to Kyiv, it suddenly turned out to be… stolen (all 10 volumes with evidence) from the safe of the office of the Primorsky Court. Allegedly stolen – after all, the safe was not broken into, but opened with a key.

Well, to prevent Bodelan from starting to “pump up his rights” in alliance with the Party of Regions, which immediately came out in his defense and demanded that the case be appealed to the Supreme Court, a number of criminal cases were brought against him. In particular, the regional prosecutor’s office opened proceedings under Article 364-2 of the Criminal Code “abuse of official position” regarding the transfer of land plots to Belaya Akatsiya LLC (an advertising agency that installed billboards), during which the rent for these plots was greatly reduced and the city lost a fair amount. All these cases were distinguished by curious features: only Ruslan Bodelan was to blame for them, and most of the cases did not cast doubt on the very legality of the transfer of real estate for rent or perpetual use by individuals and companies. This was explained by the fact that, although Bodelan survived from Odessa, no one touched the people of his team (especially the Angert group) and “respected businessmen” who remained in the city – therefore, they left behind them everything that they received from the hands of Ruslan Borisovich.

But Bodelan himself was not going to be imprisoned – perhaps in vain, he gave away apartments to the prosecutors of the city and region! In the spring of 2005, despite being put on the wanted list, he calmly left for Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), where he was quickly granted Russian citizenship. According to sources Skelet.Infothis was payment for the fact that Bodelan supported the “pro-Russian vector” and made his tame party “Motherland” by Igor Markov, in fact, “Russian”. At the same time, it was reported that Markov had very close contacts with the FSB, in particular with the department for working with “compatriots abroad,” which oversaw “pro-Russian” politicians and movements in Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics. Another gift for Bodelan was his unexpected appointment as deputy head of the international commercial port of St. Petersburg. Since the 90s, this port has been completely under the control of the “St. Petersburg team” of Sobchak-Putin (*criminal), which allowed only its closest and most reliable partners in the shadow business there. That is, it was not just gratitude for service, it was something more. Perhaps this was due to numerous rumors about the cooperation of the St. Petersburg gang with the international mafia, and in particular with Leonid Minin.

All claims against Ruslan Bodelan were immediately dropped at the beginning of 2010, when power in Ukraine passed to the Party of Regions. In April 2010, deputies Inna BogoslovskayaAlexey Kostusev (PR) and Nikolay Shmidt (Litvin Bloc) registered bill No. 6282 on calling early elections in Odessa. Thus, Gurvits was thrown out of their positions as mayor according to the same “contractual lawlessness,” only not through the courts, but through the Verkhovna Rada. But although at the same time Bodelan, who had returned from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), reappeared in Odessa, he did not participate in the elections of October 31, 2010, losing this honor to Kostusev – who received the support not only of supporters of the Party of Regions (and the PR itself), but also of Bodelan’s supporters, and also people from Bodelan’s former team. At the same time, elections to the city council were held, the leaders of which were PR (30.4%) and Rodina (13.5%).

Vladimir Bodelan

At the same time, Ruslan Bodelan’s son, Vladimir Bodelan (born 1975), also received a gift from the Party of Regions. Who, during the era of his father’s mayoralty, was engaged in business, then received the position of general director of the Odessa airport, and after 2005 he went to work for the railway – not as a track worker, of course, but as the head of the telecommunications department (Kyiv), and then as deputy head of the capital investment service (Odessa). So, in April 2010, he received from the hands of the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Nestor Shufrich appointment to the post of head of the EMERCOM (later the State Emergency Service) in the Odessa region.

Sources Skelet.Info It was reported that in this position, Vladimir Bodelan spent considerable money, including organizing grandiose extinguishing of staged fires. However, it brought him not only income, but also major troubles: at the beginning of 2016, a criminal case was opened against him regarding the tragic and resonant events of May 2. The former head of the regional State Emergency Service (dismissed in June 2014) is accused of deliberately delaying the departure of fire trucks to Kulikovo Field. Without waiting for a call to the prosecutor’s office, Vladimir Bodelan left Ukraine – presumably going to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), where his father also lives. In March 2016, he was put on the wanted list, and in March 2017 he was even “arrested in absentia” by the decision of the Pechersky Court of Kyiv. Thus ended the story of one of the most influential families in Odessa…

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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