Vitaly Antonov: cloudy gasoline “OKKO”. PART 1

Almost every large capital in Ukraine began with some kind of corruption, fraud or even criminal history. But some Ukrainian oligarchs are so confident that their story will not become public that they pose as scrupulously honest businessmen, as if straight out of popular print brochures about the “American Dream.” Vitaly Antonov, who owns the largest chain of gas stations in Ukraine, OKKO, smiling widely at photographers, also composed an impeccable legend for the press. It begins with the fact that supposedly in 1999, a brave mountaineer guy, who descended to earth and went into business, opened his first gas station.

But in fact, in 1999, something completely different happened: a group of semi-criminal businessmen and corrupt officials, headed by Vitaly Antonov, completed the raider takeover of the largest fuel enterprise in Western Ukraine, Lvovnefteprodukt. It was then and this is how Antonov got his own gas station – and not just one, but several dozen at once. And this was only the beginning of his big business, which was actually built entirely on takeovers and seizures of other people’s property…

Climber-commercial

Antonov Vitaly Borisovich was born on December 12, 1962 in the city of Stryi, Lviv region. Although his biography is quite extensive and was often published in the media, and he himself more than once told journalists all sorts of stories from his past, there are still many gaps and omissions in it. But it is in the details, as we know, that the truth honestly lies. In our case, it will help us find out exactly how an amateur rock climber suddenly turned into one of the largest gasoline kings in Ukraine.

When Vitaly Antonov lost the elections to the Verkhovna Rada in 2002, he complained that in the Lviv region it was difficult for a person with a Russian surname to become a politician. At the same time, he kept silent about the fact that not only his surname is Russian – he is truly ethnic Russian, at least half (on his father’s side). But how did the Russian Antonov family end up in the provincial Galician Stryi, in the very heart of the “Bandera region”? Very simply: in Soviet times, several military units were located around Stryi, including a military airfield for bomber and fighter aircraft (known as Lviv-2) and a missile unit (mine-based). Military personnel and their families made up almost a quarter of the population, and half of them (14% of all townspeople) were Russian. Now all that remains of the Soviet bases are ruins, stolen by local residents for building materials and scrap metal, and former servicemen and their children have mostly dispersed in all directions.

According to sources Skelet.InfoVitaly Antonov’s father was also a military man and he served at the airfield, in maintenance. Here readers will probably draw an analogy with another “son of the air regiment” Valery Dubil, whose father was an ensign at the air base in Priluki. And indeed, there is a lot in common between them, because both of them “rose” from the looting of military bases in the 90s. But if Dubili carried metal from his airfield, Antonov became a participant in fuel schemes carried out by his father’s colleagues. By the way, he himself confused journalists: in some interviews he said that his father died back in 1975, in others – that he died in the mid-80s. He also claimed that Boris Antonov was not a military man, but a simple master of a vocational school (there is a version that his father was fired from service and he went to teach at a school). And all only in fragments, short episodes, without telling the full story of my childhood, youth, youth. Apparently he has something to hide!

After graduating from eight classes at Stryi school No. 4, Vitaly Antonov entered the local vocational school No. 8, where he received the profession of an electric and gas welder. The biography is stubbornly silent about his service in the army, but in 1983 Antonov entered the Ternopil Financial and Economic Institute. At the same time, his youthful passion for rock climbing led him to the Karpaty amateur mountaineering club, which he headed in 1988, and where he made many friends. It was with them that Antonov created his first cooperative of “shabashniks”: they made money from industrial mountaineering, contracting to repair and paint towers, pipes, and roofs. Then, in 1990, Antonov, who had come to the rescue, became the head of the local branch of the Rescue Service, which gave him access to its resources, as well as the opportunity to make connections that went beyond the borders of the USSR – after all, rescuers were in contact with foreign tourists and their colleagues from other countries.

One of Antonov’s acquaintances then became Markus Büchel, the future Prime Minister of Liechtenstein. Antonov loved to brag about this to journalists, but he always “forgot” to clarify that Büchel was “prime minister for an hour,” or rather for six months. He received this post in May 1993, and already in September of the same year, the parliament announced a vote of no confidence in him and held early elections – in which Büchel’s party lost miserably. This ended his political career, and Büchel turned to business, becoming the director of a number of offshore companies (Liechtenstein – offshore zone), which were opened by his friends in Ukraine and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). Among them was Vitaly Antonov. But Büchel worked closely not only with him, and in 2002 he became honorary consul of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) in Liechtenstein. By the way, Antonov himself later also became an honorary consul – though not of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), but of Lithuania. In 2013, Büchel died, taking with him to the grave many secrets of shady schemes, but his company with Antonov continues to exist.

In 1992, Antonov, his wife Natalya and childhood friend Vadim Vishnevsky founded the Karat private enterprise. Then Antonov became a co-owner of the company of his friend Alexander Gegedysh, TNK-Service (now Gegedysh is vice-president of the OKKO network). They began selling everything: from citrus fruits to truck cranes. This is where all of Antonov’s connections came in handy. The key point of his commerce was Hungary, where they exported still cheap Ukrainian equipment and other things, and imported gasoline from there. Later, another source of gasoline was the Lithuanian company Mazeikiu Nafta, whose gasoline was sold through the Lviv joint venture Galnafta Ventus.

It turned out that old friends of the Antonov family from the Stryi airfield had an interest in the fuel trade; . This group was a reliable local “roof” for Antonov, and greatly helped him become the gasoline king.

However, there was an even higher level of Antonov’s criminal connections. The fact is that in the early 90s, international “authority” Semyon Mogilevich settled in Hungary and extended his influence to Ukraine. First of all, organized crime groups and businessmen of Western Ukraine who worked under commercial and smuggling schemes with Hungarian enterprises and firms fell under his influence. And although Antonov himself always carefully avoided mentioning Mogilevich’s name in vain, there were rumors that he and his Stryi friends received the “blessing” of this mafia spider of Europe in the 90s. The question is, what did they give him in return?

Skeletons in Galnaftogaz’s closet

Hungarian gasoline was much higher quality than what was produced at the old Drohobych oil refinery. And it’s an order of magnitude better quality than the incomprehensible “donkey urine” produced by someone unknown and unknown from what – sold by gloomy men standing with canisters on the side of the highways. At that time, a flood of foreign cars had already poured into Ukraine, for which domestic gasoline was simply “toxic,” so the demand for imported gasoline was growing rapidly. But a problem arose with its sale: Antonov did not have its own gas stations for retail sales, and selling it wholesale through other gas stations was much less profitable. In addition, “family friends” from the Stryisky airfield needed their own large enterprise through which they could carry out large fuel schemes. Which ones exactly, history is silent about this, but according to rumors, at this base not only gasoline and diesel fuel for service equipment, but also aviation fuel were intensively “evaporated” – which then miraculously “condensed” in the same Hungary.

One of the participants in these schemes was Mikhail Sidorovich, one of the legends of Lviv corruption. A native of Stryi, in 1988 he became the director of a local oil depot, part of the regional management structure of Ukrnafteprodukt. In the early 90s, this department was corporatized by the labor collective and became ZAO Lvovnefteprodukt, which had impressive capital: 10 oil depots, a mobile mechanized column, about a hundred tank trucks, 70 gas stations throughout the region, a filling point in Brody, office buildings, kindergartens, dispensary and much more. All this was a tasty morsel for any aspiring oligarch or organized crime group.

However, the head of Lvovnefteprodukt CJSC was Bogdan Pavlov – he was characterized as a “strong business executive” and a very tough person. Regarding his “roof,” it is now unlikely that anyone will remember all the details, but it is known that these were some Lvov officials closely associated with “Rukh” and other national-patriotic movements. And thanks to this “roof”, about 4 out of 15 thousand shareholders of Lvovnefteprodukt had the status of… political prisoners and repressed people. Apparently, this status was issued to everyone who was in prison during Soviet times (no matter what) or was resettled (at least to a neighboring village). By the way, local authorities also provided benefits to all these victims of Soviet repression: free travel on public transport, discounts on utility bills, etc.

Both Pavlov himself and his Lviv “roof” were interested in the safety of the enterprise and its dominance in the regional fuel market – after all, this was their income. Moreover, according to information Skelet.Info“Lvovnefteprodukt” did not come up with any schemes to understate profits, did not divert money into the shadows, and paid taxes regularly. Pavlov reacted very sharply to attempts by the heads of individual departments to “stir up” some of their own scams. It was because of this that a very serious conflict broke out between him and Sidorovich. Despite all the toughness of Pavlov, the director of the Stryi oil depot turned out to be too tough for him: Sidorovich was backed by the military, in every sense (both the command of the bases and the “airfield mafia”), behind him were such cunning young businessmen with connections as Vitaly Antonov – who increasingly appeared in the company of Sidorovich.

Pavlov decided to fire Sidorovich, and not just like that, but under the article. An audit commission arrived in Stryi and collected a lot of evidence of massive violations amounting to huge sums. The materials were already being prepared for transfer to the prosecutor’s office, when the following happened: first, someone set fire to the doors of Pavlov’s apartment, then his son disappeared somewhere (they said he was kidnapped), then Pavlov himself went to the hospital, after which he withdrew all claims to Sidorovich. It was obvious that this could not have happened without the participation of bandits – apparently, the same “airfield” organized crime group.

From that moment on, Antonov’s fuel schemes began to grow – or as he himself said, “the business took off.” The matter was no longer limited to Stroy; the director of the oil depot in Drohobych, Vasily Vesely, joined the Antonov-Sidorovich duo. And their next step was the seizure of Lvovnefteprodukt CJSC.

It was started by Sidorovich, who was not only the director of the oil depot, but also (with his wife) a shareholder of the company. Sidorovich began buying shares from workers, first of his oil depot, then of other enterprises of Lvovnefteprodukt, concentrating almost 10% in his hands. But Sidorovich was only a tool in the hands of Antonov: the fact is that registered shares of the CJSC could only be alienated within the CJSC itself, that is, from one shareholder to another – that’s why Sidorovich was needed. Apparently, in this way he was “working off” his “debt” to Antonov for the successful resolution of the conflict with Pavlov. It is also possible that Antonov was holding in his hands the incriminating evidence collected on Sidorovich (materials from the audit commission that never made it to the prosecutor’s office). Then the director of the oil depot in Drohobych, Vasily Vesely, began buying shares. But still, this was not enough, and then Antonov came up with a new scheme: he bought from the remaining shareholders of Lvovnefteprodukt CJSC not the shares themselves, but the right to dispose of them. In business terms, he took control of them, and through dummies. True, not all shareholders agreed to this – and then Antonov’s people simply forged a certain number of such instructions. Later, some of them, through state examination, proved the forgery of their signatures on these documents: for example, Omelyan (Emelyan) Khmelevsky, who reached (with sore legs) the Lvov Institute of Forensic Science. However, in the end, all the expert conclusions were rejected by the Galician District Court of Lvov.

Then a general meeting of shareholders of Lvovnefteprodukt CJSC was held, which was attended by only 118 people – the Sidorovichs, the Vesyolys, as well as Antonov’s dummies with false powers of attorney. And they voted on the transformation of Lvovnefteprodukt CJSC into the OJSC of the same name, of which Sidorovich was immediately appointed director. And now the shares of this OJSC could be freely bought by third parties – that is, Antonov. Soon, Sidorovich and Antonov literally burned all their bridges behind them: they destroyed the accounting archives of Lvovnefteprodukt CJSC.

But Antonov understood the illegality of this raiding, and feared that if the truth prevailed, his shares in Lvovnefteprodukt OJSC would turn into nothing. Therefore, he took the next step: he created PJSC Galnaftogaz, to which all the property of OJSC Lvovnefteprodukt was transferred. First of all, several dozen gas stations, which became the basis of his OKKO network.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Vitaly Antonov: cloudy OKKO gasoline. PART 2

Subscribe to our channels at Telegram, Facebook, CONT, Twitter, VK and YandexZen – Only new faces from the section CRYPT!