The Vagorovsky brothers. Smugglers and scammers from Amstor

In mid-October, the Vagorovsky brothers, Vladimir and Alexander, were put on the international wanted list. These are the former owners of the Amstor supermarket chain. They are minority owners. The majority shareholders of Amstor-Trade LLC at different times were oligarchs Shifrin and Novinsky. But, despite their menacing appearance and closeness to Rinat Akhmetov himself, the Vagovsky brothers simply cheated them out of money and took away part of their business and property.

Although, it would be more correct to say that the eldest, Vladimir Vagorovsky, cheated them, and Alexander took part in this. Undoubtedly, the main schemer in this story is the older brother, so we will talk more about him.

So who are these brave guys who are not afraid to get into the pockets of those who are used to cheating, raiding and taking over businesses?

Vodka and cigarettes

The Vagorovskys’ business career began in the early nineties. They then lived in Donetsk. You have to understand what the mining region was like in those years. It was a real Klondike for smugglers. As recent events have shown, the border there is still full of holes. So much so that not only small arms, but also armored personnel carriers and tanks can be transported through it. And in those years, there was practically no border at all, only border detachments and checkpoints were formed. Therefore, entire caravans with smuggled Ossetian vodka and Don tobacco passed through Donetsk. Some of this goods were in transit, and some ended up in local retail outlets. It was in the tobacco and alcohol trade that the Vagorovsky brothers rose up. Then the laws changed, alcohol began to be licensed, and the Vagorovskys were already on the market and organically fit into the new schemes. They put together a small capital and opened the first Amstor in 2003. The business began to grow, but there was not enough capital for its further development. Moreover, retail was considered a promising industry, and they had practically no competitors in Donetsk at that time. And while on vacation in Greece, Vladimir Vagorovsky met the metallurgy oligarch, owner of Zaporizhstal, Eduard Shifrin.

Rampant growth

Shifrin, like everyone who worked in metal and steel in those years, was, as they say, “in complete chocolate.” The global steel market was growing by leaps and bounds. Therefore, he easily acquired 60% of the shares, thereby investing money in Vagorovsky. On them, Amstor-Trade LLC began expanding the retail market mainly in the East of Ukraine. In addition, a number of companies affiliated with it appeared that were engaged in the construction of shopping centers, development, and real estate. 19 supermarkets were opened and 22 shopping centers were built. In new shopping centers, space was rented out and more and more supermarkets were opened. However, even after becoming respectable, the company continued to work with smuggling. Searches were carried out periodically in offices and stores. They found fake documents. Smuggled alcohol and other goods were seized. It happened that law enforcement officers “covered” six supermarkets in different cities at once, the operations were carried out using “Berkut” and “Falcon”. And Vagorovsky himself was under investigation. But none of these cases ever came to court; everything was stalled at the police level. And to be more precise, at the level of police general Vasily Farinnik. The company was growing rapidly and Eduard Shifrin, apparently, did not look at the profit statements. Because from the outside everything was just fine. The company showed unbridled growth and it seemed that it would always be like this. But then the 2008 crisis happened.

And suddenly it turned out…

In 2008, the crisis hit metallurgists the hardest. Global demand for metallurgical products has fallen, and production and profits from rolled metal products have fallen accordingly. The net profit of Zaporizhstal decreased by 91.4% compared to the previous year 2007. And at this difficult moment, apparently, Eduard Shifrin remembered that he had a retail chain. But then another disappointment awaited him. Amstor not only did not bring him any money, but drove him into debt. The total debt of the company, which was managed by his partner Vladimir Vagorovsky, at that time was about $300 million. Of these, according to various estimates, from 73 to 76 million is a debt to Shifrin himself. How was the retailer able to remain “in the red” in the “fat” pre-crisis years, during the peak of goods consumption? What caused the debts – Vagorovsky’s mismanagement or his theft? It seems that Shifrin could have sorted this out without any problems, and it would be difficult to envy the fate of the minority shareholder in this case. But this would not return the money to the oligarch. So he apparently decided to do something different. And he introduced Vladimir Vagorovsky to another oligarch, Vadim Novinsky, owner of the Smart Group company.

And “Smart” came

Novinsky later said that Vagorovsky literally spent days and nights in his reception room, trying to persuade him to buy Amstor. And he persuaded. Smart assumed all of Amstor’s debts in exchange for 70% of the shares. Part of the money was returned to Shifrin, and in addition he retained 15% of the company’s shares. But he retired and went to London. Another 15% went to Vladimir Vagorovsky. He also took over the management of the enterprises. And he continued to lead him in the same spirit, taking money into the cash and continuing to “dabble” in smuggling. Why did the “hardened” oligarch and partner of Rinat Akhmetov believe him? This still remains a mystery. Perhaps he, who himself knows how to “screw” others, could not even imagine that someone was capable of “screwing” him too. To be fair, it should be said that Smart periodically tried to introduce its “supervisors” into Amstor, but they always managed to isolate them. By the way, Vagorovsky would later claim that it was Novinsky who “dumped” him; the oligarch allegedly promised him $110 million and did not pay. Perhaps he promised, but there is not a word about this in the agreement below. Another interesting detail is that Novinsky became the godfather of Vladimir Vagorovsky when he suddenly decided to be baptized. Maybe this is where the trust between them lies? Be that as it may, the servant of God Vladimir soon decided to “swindle” his godfather into business.

It’s about the hyphen

The “wiring” itself is brilliant in its simplicity. Vladimir Vagorovsky, together with Vadim Novinsky, owned the Amstor-Trade company. And so, Vagorovsky and his brother open a similar company, Amstor Trade. Only the hyphen was removed from the name, but this is a completely different company. And little by little, they began to transfer property and equipment to this Amstor, without a hyphen. Partners were gradually transferred to work with it, contracts were re-signed, and cash flow was transferred there. As a result of such a “velvet discount”, for some time Amstor Trade had to gradually accumulate all assets on its balance sheet – real estate, construction equipment, land, and, of course, supermarkets. And Amstor-Trade, the one with the hyphen and the one that is 70% owned by Novinsky, should remain with all the debts, problem loans and other troubles. Vagorovsky does not forget himself personally. With Amstor’s money, he buys himself a Mercedes, or rather transfers it from the company to his driver. He buys an apartment in Kyiv, on Grushevskogo Street. Why doesn’t Novinsky see this? Perhaps this is because it was at this time that Viktor Yanukovych came to power. Renat Leonidovich is not a stranger to him, which means he gets access to quite tasty state assets. Accordingly, Akhmetov’s partner also gets something. That is, being carried away by the interesting business of stealing state property, Vadim Novinsky did not notice that at the same time another, no less resourceful businessman began stealing his property.

And then the war began

This is not about the war between Vagorovsky and Novinsky, but about the war in the East of Ukraine. It must be said that the Donetsk oligarchs missed the situation in their regions. Apparently, they were too cut off from their small homeland and from the people. But Vladimir Vagorovsky got his bearings on time. Perhaps connections with smugglers played a role, who, according to rumors, brought weapons to the Donetsk region, and also led the detachment of Igor Strelkov-Girkin and similar “soldiers of fortune” and Cossacks across the border. They could well have shared information with Vagorovsky. Be that as it may, Amstor began to be roughly “squeezed out” from Novinsky in Donetsk. For this purpose, another company “Premiumtorg” was opened, where all supermarkets in the DPR were transferred. In this, Vladimir Vagorovsky was supported by his friend, Donetsk businessman Vadim Bondarenko. It was not difficult for him to do this – in the company where he was the founder, one of the “leaders” of Novorossiya, Pavel Gubarev, once worked as a director. It was through them, and also through its regional manager Vyacheslav Glizunitsa, that Amstor began supplying the DPR terrorists with cigarettes, vodka and food. They essentially took over the Kalmius battalion as support. In response, the militia did not touch the supermarket chain. At some point, Vladimir Vagorovsky’s stores (and by that time they were already completely his) were actually taken under the protection of Konstantin Kuzmin personally (Read more about him in the article Renat Kuzmin: family business of lawless prosecutors) and Eduard Basurin.

I realized it a little late

Some of the property of construction companies affiliated with Amstor was taken to Crimea. We are mainly talking about construction equipment. There, Vagorovsky found a business partner, a certain Sergei Lapenko, a former Simferopol deputy from the Party of Regions, and now a member of the board of the organization “Support of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)”. But he simply ditched Vladimir Vagorovsky, appropriating the equipment for himself. Simultaneously with the seizure of Amstor in the ATO zone, the process of transferring supermarkets from Amstor-Trade LLC to Amstor Trade LLC began. It’s hard to say what exactly attracted Vadim Novinsky’s attention, but he finally realized that something was wrong with his retail network. But it was a little late. All property 70% owned by Novinsky, which was located in the East of Ukraine and Crimea, was lost forever. But there were still assets in the rest of Ukraine. Smart Holding filed a lawsuit against the Vagorovskys. Armed men were brought into supermarkets. Both defendants in the case said that it was the work of their rival. Wild PR began on both sides. As a result, Novinsky won. He managed to take control of the remnants of the trading network located in unoccupied territory. Well, to some extent this can be called a victory.

Let’s sum up the results

At the beginning of 2014, the total assets of all companies associated with Amstor were estimated at $200 million. Vadim Novinsky lost at least two-thirds of these assets. If we add to this most of the company’s debts that were paid to them and the forced shutdown of supermarkets all the time while the litigation dragged on, we can say that the oligarch was heated up for a very tidy sum. And part of this amount fell directly into the pockets of the Vagorovsky brothers themselves. According to the most conservative estimates, this is several tens of millions of dollars. Amstor continues to operate in the DPR; moreover, the brothers have opened online stores focused on this region and their own Donetsk payment system, which is called “Unified Wallet W1”. Terrorists are financed through this system, who obviously do not touch their business in return. The last time the brothers were seen in Courchevel, they checked into one of the hotels in this fashionable resort. Well, with that kind of money, why not relax?

But a thoughtful and understanding reader may have a question: Or maybe Novinsky himself organized everything in such a way that the Vagorovskys remained the answer and he looked “white and fluffy”?

According to the editors SKELET-info this question is rhetorical and does not require an answer ;).

Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info