BEGINNING: Stepan Derivolkov: veteran of the customs mafia. PART 1
Stepan Derivolkov: veteran of the customs mafia. PART 2
In 2008, Derivolkov finally received a second, more or less specialized education, acquiring in absentia a prestigious diploma in law from the KNU. Shevchenko. At the time of his receipt, he had almost 20 years of service at customs behind him with the education of an instrumentation and automation specialist.
But under the head of the State Customs Service Anatoly Makarenko, who undertook, on Tymoshenko’s order, to clear customs gas confiscated from Firtash, Derivolkov made a new crankcase jump. In February 2009, Makarenko appointed him as his deputy, and Derivolkov began to master a new role for himself: placing the right people in the leadership of regional and local customs. Of course, Derivolkov himself was neither an oligarch nor the head of a corruption clan; he did not belong to any of the customs mafia groups at all. He worked at the request of others, lobbying for their “little men” for positions or offering them his candidates who were ready for “productive cooperation.” In addition, according to sources Skelet.InfoDerivolkov served as a “collector”, collecting a “share” from corrupt customs officials. This helped him get even closer to them, keep them on the hook – and, in turn, place them in his “personnel file.”
In 2010, the power in Ukraine changed dramatically, but Derivolkov remained in his position. He just got a new old boss – Igor Kaletnik, appointed on March 22, 2010, chairman of the State Customs Service. This is how their “corrupt duet” was restored, although in fairness we add that Kaletnik had many such “duets”. However, with Derivolkov, perhaps he was the most profitable! This was, in particular, described in publications on the ORD website, which then disappeared during the “great purge” started by Derivolkov. But still some things remained, including excerpts from Turchinov’s article:
“According to my information, after many communications with customs brokers, the deputy of the DMSU, Mr. Stepan Dmitrievich Derivolkov, receives at least $90 million in cash per month from his subordinates and through his adjutants. Next, the lion’s share of this money is transferred to the offshores of Viktor Yanukovych, the youngest son of our president, who for this “monthly remuneration” helped Kaletnik remain in office during difficult times. This money is taken from consumers, who in the last two years began to greatly overpay for goods after a sharp increase in the corruption tax. What’s more, this so-called tax is growing before our eyes, doubling every quarter.”
The media also described in detail corruption schemes at the Odessa customs, which was personally supervised by Derivolkov, carried out in the “Kaletnikov times”. A classic of the genre – customs clearance of expensive luxury and fashionable goods under the guise of cheap Chinese consumer goods. The state received thousands of dollars less from each container, part of which the traders paid to customs officers, who brought the share “up” to Derivolkov.
And then they went not only to Kaletnik, who in 2012 moved to the chair of the first vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and entrusted Derivolkov with full control over the collection of money, and not only to the offshores of the Yanukovych family. In 2013, the completely rotten customs service was reorganized and subordinated to the Ministry of Revenue and Duties of Ukraine. When the question arose about his deputy in charge of customs, the Communist Party faction staged a whole farce in order to push Stepan Derivolkov into this position – and achieved its goal. Of course, everyone understood that the regionals gave them this extremely profitable place for a reason, but with the condition that they continue to “contribute a share” to the presidential “family.” However, there was so much corruption money brought in by Derivolkov that part of it went to finance the Communist Party. About this then publicly stated People’s Deputy Igor Miroshnichenko.
It is interesting that at that time Derivolkov was very enthusiastic about the draft law on the “decriminalization of smuggling,” which provided for the replacement of criminal liability with “fines for financial violations.” He was always afraid that one day they would come for him. In addition, by intimidating entrepreneurs with fines, it was possible to extract additional bribes from him.
In the media you can find a statement that supposedly in 2013 Derivolkova tried to arrest the SBU, but he quickly paid off. But no news about this came out then, and the arrest of the chief customs officer would have been difficult to hide from prying eyes! Therefore, this news could be considered a tale, if not for information from sources Skelet.Infowho reported that in fact, in 2013, Derivolkov was only threatened with arrest, advising him to “rat from the cash register” and be less willful.
Derivolkov under the new government: arrests and rises
Having grown fat on “corrupt grub” in 2013, Stepan Derivolkov moved around Kyiv in his own motorcade of three official cars. With an official income of 1.4 million hryvnia, he then spent more than 7.4 million in a year. In total, his fortune was estimated at between 38 and 50 million dollars! However, Derivolkov wisely hid them, without acquiring too luxurious real estate and without creating companies in his own name – which allowed him to seem like an “honest professional.” Behind the scenes of this performance lay the same cunning veteran of the customs mafia, ready to cooperate with any authority.
When the second Maidan won in Ukraine, Kaletnik hastened to remove himself from the post of vice-speaker and temporarily leave Ukraine altogether. Instructing Derivolkov to establish contacts with the new government and present it with a rich gift in the form of a corruption “cash fund” collected from customs in February 2014. The editor-in-chief of Apostrophe and Kommersant-Ukraine, Valery Kalnysh, wrote about this in his blog at the time.
Whether this offering was accepted remains unknown, but at least the prosecutor’s office did not then initiate proceedings on the fact of attempting to give a bribe on an especially large scale. However, Derivolkov was unlucky in any case: in March 2014, he was fired. However, he didn’t go to jail either, and didn’t even end up in a trash bin! But he could, because Derivolkov was accused not only of corruption, but also of supplying “titushki” for anti-Maidan protesters in Kyiv, and then in Odessa. Perhaps this is why, after the tragic events in the Odessa House of Trade Unions, Derivolkov ended up in Moscow, where he sat quietly for several months. There were even rumors that he got a job at the Federal Customs Service! When all attention in Ukraine was switched to the ATO and the economic crisis, Derivolkov decided to return and offer his services as an “honest professional.”
And he succeeded! Although all versions of the biography of Stepan Derivolkov, which can now be found on the Internet, for some reason end with the year 2014, in a number of publications for 2016 one can find confirmation that Stepan Derivolkov then again held the position of Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Service and supervised “Customs reforms”. But why is he trying to hide it? Apparently, the whole point is in the story of his unsuccessful attempt to escape from Ukraine to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), which Derivolkov so zealously erased from all online media that he also grabbed a piece of his work biography along the way. In general, he preferred to delete these years of his life rather than explain how it happened that SBU officers detained him at Boryspil airport with a ticket to Moscow. The reason for the arrest was the resumption of a number of criminal cases opened against top officials from the Yanukovych era back in 2014, but then hidden under the carpet (for a lot of money). It seems that Derivolkov managed to pay off even then, but he no longer remained in his position – and disappeared from the field of view of journalists for three years. Where? Perhaps, after all, back to Moscow.
But in 2019, the power in Ukraine changed again, and Derivolkov again decided to try his luck by offering his services. True, he was not given the position, but his vast experience turned out to be in demand among Zelensky’s entourage, who are trying to take control of corruption at customs. And so, after many attempts to break through a whole crowd of the same “lobbyists,” Derivolkov managed to get a job with the new chairman of the State Customs Service, Pavel Ryabikin, in the fall of 2020. Derivolkov also had a hand in his appointment. Under him, Derivolkov was supposed to oversee Odessa customs. The news of this immediately shook up everyone who was aware of Derivolkov’s past!
Stepan Derivolkov: veteran of the customs mafia. PART 2
Stepan Derivolkov: veteran of the customs mafia. PART 2
However, he did not limit himself to supervising Odessa customs. It soon became known that in December 2020, the new acting. Taras Kravchenko was appointed head of the Volyn customs – whose candidacy was persistently lobbied by Derivolkov. Thus, his influence turned out to be much greater, at least in personnel matters.
And although Ryabikin a year later went to work at the Ministry of Strategic Industries and Industry, leaving the chair of the head of the State Customs Service to Brigadier General-Border Guard Vyacheslav Demchenko, Derivolkov, who had already entered the corridors of the current government, was firmly entrenched there. And today, when as a result of the war between Ukrainian corruption clans a new squabble has begun for control over customs, the personnel services of this “professional” are again in demand. And judging by how thoroughly he cleans up his past, it will not be surprising if Derivolkov himself again receives a high position in the leadership of the Customs Service!
Mikhail Shpolyansky, Skelet.Info
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