Sergey Verlanov: conversion centers for “servants of the people.” PART 1

Despite the fact that first Vladimir Zelensky and then his Servant of the People party went to the elections with promises of mass imprisonment of corrupt officials, there were no fewer of them in power. It’s just that others took the place of some, as always, and some were not changed. And people like the head of the Tax Service Sergei Verlanov continue to sit firmly in their chairs. Now he is dragging his old friends, who are up to their ears in corruption scandals, to the capital, and they are dragging their assistants along with them. The new government does not pay any attention to this, apparently because the “servants of the people” also need conversion centers…

Sergey Verlanov. Lawyer for tax evaders

Verlanov Sergey Alekseevich born on August 6, 1981 in Lvov, in the family of Alexey Fedorovich Verlanov and Kira Mikhailovna Verlanova (before marriage – Semenovker). He is the eldest son, and he has a younger brother, Mikhail (born 1986). Judging by the available information about his parents, they are either native Lviv Jews, or the children of Soviet specialists and officials who “came in large numbers” to Lviv after the war. It’s interesting that on Odnoklassniki they have very few Lvovian friends with Western Ukrainian and generally Ukrainian surnames – mostly Jewish and Russian. Thus, we can conclude that Lviv national patriots and “raguli” from the surrounding villages are not part of their circle of acquaintances.

Sergei Verlanov (left) with his father (middle) and brother Mikhail (right), 2008

Almost nothing is known about the type of activity of the Verlanov parents. Kira Mikhailovna graduated from the Lviv Trade and Economic Institute in 1980, and then worked somewhere in her field. Alexey Fedorovich became a private entrepreneur in the 90s and opened a car service center. But if you believe rumors and fragmentary information from sources Skelet.Infothen he was connected with near-criminal circles, at the level of participation in some kind of shadow smuggling schemes (a typical business of that time). Apparently that’s why in 1998 they sent their eldest son Sergei to study at Lviv National University. Frank for a lawyer. Already since 2000, while a student, Sergei Verlanov worked in the companies of his parents and his friends as a legal consultant on tax issues. This is what he later specialized in, as a very smart tax lawyer who knows how to evade these taxes very well. And his services were in great demand!

Sergei Verlanov worked in “various companies” until 2008. For some reason, they are not indicated in his biography, perhaps so as not to cast a shadow on the past of this “young professional” – although he has already compromised himself enough in the present. As for his own business, Verlanov could not particularly boast of his own enterprises. He was the founder of Sportshouse LLC (USREOU 35715262) ​​and three public organizations: Association of Poker Players (34711243), Poker Federation of Ukraine (35562941) and Taxacademy (41895533). For a person who deftly operates tax schemes, this is too little. However, there is an explanation for this: some “earn” from tax evasion of their business, and Sergei Verlanov – by helping others with this. Therefore, he simply did not need his own companies.

And then, with the help of both his own acquaintances and his parents’ connections, he got a job at one of the branches of the international company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). It is a brand under which firms providing auditing and consulting services operate independently in 158 countries around the world. The brand is not flawless, and even vice versa, since PwC has repeatedly gotten into scandals with “poor quality of services” (the Satyam Computer Services audit) and participation in shadow tax schemes (the Yukos case). Therefore, it is not even surprising that such a genius of tax schemes as Sergei Verlanov was hired by PwC.

And again, Verlanov’s biography does not tell (hides?) what exactly he did at PwC, working there from 2008 to 2015. For now, we can only guess about this. However, it was then that Verlamov’s friends and colleagues began vigorous activity to create tax pits and conversion centers – first of all, his classmate Vasily Kostyuk. And of course, these converters used his services…

Vasily Kostyuk

Mafia of Lviv “tabaka”

As the media reported, Vasily Vasilevich Kostyuk studied with Sergei Varlamov, and also became a lawyer. However, his legal specialization raised many questions. He called himself a “human rights activist.” But custom-made advertising articles about his office were full of rather strange stories, similar to each other: his clients were often victims of scams, raider takeovers, as well as credit debtors. So, according to Skelet.Info sources, Kostyuk was not a noble defender of people, but part of a large “divorce for money” scheme. He was familiar with these swindlers and raiders – businessmen, officials and even bandits who never missed the opportunity to “run into” some “suckers”. But these “attacks” were different in that the law was on the side of the victim, only she had no idea about it. And then someone advised the victim to contact the “famous lawyer Kostyuk,” who would solve her problem “for a small bribe.”

But these “little things” are a thing of the past, but somewhere since 2012, Vasily Kostyuk has become a specialist of a different kind and on a larger scale: he became one of the people who created and serviced conversion centers in the Lviv region. As you might guess, Kostyuk began to do almost the same thing as his classmate Verlanov, but with the difference that Kostyuk directly carried out these operations with the help of his front companies – while Verlanov was engaged in constructing schemes and their legal cover.

This whole mafia is well “encrypted”; its tax schemes began to be revealed relatively recently, so it is difficult to say where it all began. However, one of its oldest participants is the scandalous Lviv businessman Grigory Kozlovsky. After graduating from the Lviv Trade and Economic Institute in 1994, Kozlovsky got a job at the Lviv Tobacco Factory, which was then owned by the Ukrainian-American joint venture “R. J. Reynolds Tobacco-Lviv.” Literally immediately, Kozlovsky helped management solve the difficult task of clearing customs for a large batch of raw materials, for which he was appointed deputy head of the department, then became commercial director. Since 2010, Kozlovsky has been the director of the factory and controls several tobacco companies that parasitize it, most of which were created for intricate smuggling, tax evasion and conversion schemes.

Grigory Kozlovsky

Grigory Kozlovsky

During the period 2011-2013 A double fraudulent scheme is being created at the Lvov Tobacco Factory, simultaneously working for both smugglers and conversion centers. It worked like this: the factory (through Kozlovsky’s tobacco companies) sold cigarettes and documents for them separately. Smugglers bought cigarettes for cash, but the documents for them were sold to converters – who, with their help, carried out their schemes. At the same time, “excess” cash was dumped into these same conversion centers, and then this money, along with the payment for documents, was returned to Kozlovsky’s companies in the form of laundered non-cash money.

It was in these conversion centers associated with the tobacco factory that Vasily Kostyuk rose to fame, becoming one of the most “famous” converters in the Lviv region. And somewhere behind him, tax lawyer Sergei Verlanov was quickly puffing away. But there was another key participant in these schemes: Orest Vityk, who until 2012 worked at the Lviv Regional Tax Office in the tax department for individuals, and then suddenly became deputy head and head of the department for control of excisable goods – primarily cigarettes. This picture is complemented by the fact that Orest Vityk, according to media reports, is… a classmate of Sergei Verlanov and Vasily Kostyuk. At a minimum, they all studied at the university at the same time. Thus, now we understand what unites these “three musketeers” of Lviv corruption!

Orest Vityk

It was Vityk who covered up these schemes from the tax office (then the Ministry of Revenue, then the State Fiscal Service, then the State Tax Service). The larger the position Vityk occupied, the more extensive the corrupt officials acted. When Vityk was appointed deputy head of the Lviv State Fiscal Service in 2016, Kozlovsky transferred a number of major companies to his trusted partners Sergei Ponomarev and Andrey Cherny, and an illegal VAT refund scheme was also launched (tens of millions of hryvnias annually).

Vladimir Tsabak

The precaution was not in vain: the Lviv tobacco factory is called one of the main producers of smuggled products sent to Europe, and these flows increased sharply after the second Maidan. After all, in 2019, even at the factory searches took placecarried out by employees of the State Security Service and the SBU. However, this did not in the least affect the criminal schemes prevailing there, nor the fate of their “protector” Vityk, who was soon transferred to Kyiv for a promotion – after all, the head of the Tax Service of Ukraine since May 2019 is his friend and classmate Sergei Verlanov.

But the ranks of the “musketeers” continued to grow, and Vladimir Tsabak, another classmate of Sergei Verlanov, became the new head of the Lviv State Fiscal Service (customs) from November 2019!

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUATION: Verlanov Sergey: conversion centers for “servants of the people.” PART 2

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