In Kazan, the co-owners of the Ukrainian groups “Privat” Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov on charges of creating a criminal community and attempted embezzlement on an especially large scale, informs press service of the Vakhitovsky district court of the city.
“In the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan, a measure of restraint in the form of detention was chosen from the moment of extradition to the territory of the Russian Federation Kolomoisky I.V., born in 1963, and Bogolyubov G.B., born in 1962, who were charged by the preliminary investigation bodies in the commission of crimes, under Part. 1 Article. 210, part 3 of Art. 33, part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code,” the statement said.
Kommersant.Ru, 03.11.2022, “Former partners are waiting for business”: The Ministry of Internal Affairs for Tatarstan and Tatneft were unable to explain to Kommersant yesterday the reduction in the declared amount of damage. Also, the ministry did not say why the decision to arrest the businessmen was made only now. […] According to the base of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, now Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov are wanted in Russia. The card index says that earlier a measure of restraint was chosen for Mr. Kolomoisky in the form of a written undertaking not to leave (in the case of 2014). The location of the businessmen is not specified. Their names “Kommersant” could not be found in the Interpol database.
“From the point of view of the law, the detention of Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov is possible,” says Dmitry Gorbunov, partner at Rustam Kurmaev & Partners. “Another question is that for this they must be extradited. Despite the existence of extradition treaties with the participation of the Russian Federation, the decision on extradition is made by the court of the country in which these persons are located,” he explains.
According to Mr. Gorbunov, “the existence of a criminal case against a particular person and an extradition agreement do not in themselves guarantee that he will eventually be extradited.” Therefore, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov can be placed in a Russian pre-trial detention center only “in a hypothetical situation.” “In itself, the decision of the Kazan court in fact does not fundamentally change anything. If a person is extradited to the territory of the state, then a decision on detention is most often made in relation to him, since it is assumed that if he has already attempted to abscond from justice in another country, he can do it again, ”concludes the lawyer. — Inset K.ru
According to the prosecution, from December 2006 to October 2007, Kolomoisky, Bogolyubov, as well as the founder, owner and president of the DCH investment group Alexander Yaroslavsky and chairman of the board “Ukrtatnafta” Pavel Ovcharenko, “acting as part of a criminal community, with a mercenary purpose” appropriated more than 800 thousand tons of oil for a total amount of more than $400 million, which was supplied by Tatneft through intermediaries to the tanks of the Ukrtatnafta oil refinery located in the Poltava region of Ukraine.
Last summer newspaper “Kommersant” citing a source in the central office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, she wrote that the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Tatarstan had opened a criminal case against Kolomoisky and other Ukrainian entrepreneurs – Bogolyubov, Yaroslavsky and Ovcharenko. Tatneft was recognized as the injured party.
According to the publication, the case is connected with the creation in 1994 by decrees of the then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and at that time President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev Ukrtatnafta. The authorized capital of the joint venture included the property complex of JSC Kremenchugnefteorgsintez (the assignee of the Kremenchug Oil Refinery), as well as 75% of the shares of the oil producing company Tatnefteprom and the right to use 25 fields in Tatarstan (later it turned out that Tatneft replaced the rights to the fields with a cash contribution) . Thus, the Tatarstan side owned 55.68% of the company (Tatneft controlled 8.6% of the shares directly, 28.77% of the shares belonged to the Ministry of Land and Property Relations of the Republic, and 18.3% of the shares belonged to structures friendly to Tatneft: the American Seagroup International Inc. and Swiss Amruz Trading AG). NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine controlled 43.05% of the shares.
However, in October 2007, Tatneft began to lose control over Ukrtatnafta. Then the shares of Seagroup and Amruz were transferred to Ukrtatnafta. Prior to this, the shares of these structures were sold at an auction for $275 million to Korsan LLC, which represents the Privat group of Kolomoisky. Then the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine invalidated the deal on the acquisition by Tatarstan of 28.77% of the shares of Ukrtatnafta.
In 2009, the Economic Court of the Poltava region, on the suit of Ukrtatnafta, declared illegal the purchase by Tatneft of 8.6% of the shares of this company. The court then considered that the Tatarstan side, without agreement with Ukraine, changed the type of contribution to the authorized capital, making money instead of deposits. By 2010, full control over the enterprise was transferred to the Privat group of a Ukrainian businessman.
Tatneft has been trying to recover $2.4 billion in damages from Ukraine since 2008. In 2014, the International Commercial Arbitration Court in Paris ordered Ukraine to pay Tatneft $144 million in compensation for the loss of its stake in Ukrtatnafta. After that, Tatneft filed three petitions for the enforcement of the arbitration award: in the USA, in the High Court of London and in the Moscow Arbitration Court. In the summer of 2017, the London Court granted solicitation.
In the summer of 2020, the Federal Court of the District of Columbia in the United States confirmed the recovery of more than $112 million from Ukraine in favor of Tatneft, reminiscent of RBC Tatarstan.
In 2014, Kolomoisky was arrested in absentia by the Basmanny District Court of Moscow at the request of the Investigative Committee. According to investigators, Kolomoisky created and financed the Dnepr special forces battalion of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. He and Arsen Avakov, then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were suspected of using prohibited means and methods of warfare. Interpol denied Russia an international search for a businessman, recognizing his criminal prosecution as political.
“Business Online”, 03.11.2022, “You will answer for Ukrtatnafta: how Kolomoisky was arrested in absentia in Kazan”: For 2021, Forbes estimated the businessman’s fortune at $1.8 billion. The last time Kolomoisky appeared in public on October 4, then he came to Kyiv, where he testified in the national anti-corruption bureau of Ukraine. — Inset K.ru
Igor Kolomoisky in Bukovel was awakened by a search
Co-owner of “Ukrnafta” lit up in the case of the withdrawal of the company’s assets for $ 350 million
The original of this material
© IA “RBC”09/18/2022, ZN.ua learned about the search at Kolomoisky’s in the Ukrnafta case
Elena Chernyshova
The former owner of Privatbank and the former governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ihor Kolomoisky, was searched by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), reports the publication ZN.ua with reference to witnesses.
The search is related to a criminal case on the seizure of property and funds of the oil and gas company Ukrnafta for more than UAH 13 billion (more than $350 million at the current exchange rate). According to the interlocutors of the publication, they came to Kolomoisky at five in the morning at the place of residence in the ski resort of Bukovel. Sources in the NABU confirmed the search of ZN.ua. Documents and a gadget were confiscated from the businessman.
According to the publication, the businessman is not accused in the case, he was also not notified of the suspicion. However, according to ZN.ua, employees of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) and NABU reported suspicions against several top managers of Ukrnafta, co-owned by Kolomoisky, in a fraud case. Under suspicion are the former chairman of the board of Ukrnafta, the former deputy head of the department for the sale of oil, gas and oil and gas products, the former head of the department for monitoring the accounting and supply of oil and petroleum products, as well as the former directors of five commercial enterprises (one of them was detained ).
The case was initiated under the article on “seizure of other people’s property by abuse by an official of his official position, by prior conspiracy by a group of persons, on an especially large scale.”
Suspicions arose back in 2019, but Nazar Kholodnytsky, then head of the SAPO, did not start the case, ZN.ua reports.
Kolomoisky, together with Gennady Bogolyubov and Igor Palitsa, owns 40% of Ukrnafta, 50% plus one share belongs to the state-owned Naftogaz.
In early September, the SAP notified eight persons of suspicion in the Ukrnafta case, Suspilna reports, citing the prosecutor’s office. During the investigation, it turned out that the suspects from five private companies, by prior agreement with the top managers of Ukrnafta, including acting. Chairman of the Board and heads of two structural divisions of the company, in March-August 2015, “illegally delivered oil worth more than UAH 10 billion to commercial enterprises” without payment in full.
The raw materials were supplied and processed at the Kremenchug refinery, and then sold at gas stations throughout the country, NABU said. In addition, it was found that in July 2015, Ukrnafta employees entered into 52 contracts with a commercial enterprise for the supply of petroleum products in the amount of more than UAH 2.5 billion to Ukrnafta, while paying the advance payment in full.
Subsequently, Ukrnafta signed additional agreements to postpone the delivery of petroleum products until the end of 2018, as a result, the commercial enterprise did not deliver them, and the officials of the commercial enterprise took possession of the advance paid and transferred the funds to the accounts of offshore companies.
The case was initiated under Part 5 of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, under this part of the article, the perpetrators face up to 12 years in prison. The NABU clarified that the total amount of property and funds that the suspects took possession of exceeds UAH 13.3 billion. […]