Vladislav Dreger: How a Raider Pecked Out Another Raider’s Eyes. PART 1
In the list of Ukrainian raiders, he occupies the honorable place of “second after Korban.” But although Vlad Dreger is inferior to him in the size of the enterprises he has seized and captured, he is noticeably superior to him in cynicism and meanness, which he regularly showed even in relation to his own companions. The former members of the bloody organized crime group “17th Precinct” have been plotting against each other for several years now, and now they are also financing the separatists with their taxes, having high-ranking patrons both in Kyiv and Donetsk.
Vladislav Dreger. Under the roof of the “17th precinct”
Dreger Vladislav Olegovich February 3, 1973 in Slavyansk – then little-known provincial town of Donetsk region. After finishing high school, he entered the Kramatorsk Industrial Institute (now – Donbass Machine-Building Academy), which he graduated in 1996 with a degree in “management economics”. And then, if you believe his autobiography, Vladislav Dreger went to work in the tax inspectorate of Slavyansk, where in just a year he rose to the head of the legal department. But a year later, for some reason, Dreger quit his job in such a lucrative department, and transferred to the Slavyansk Oil and Fat Plant, as deputy director for legal work.
The young graduate’s successful career was explained by his closeness to the Kramatorsk organized crime group “17th Precinct”. More details about this group, infamous for its involvement in the murder of journalist Igor Aleksandrov, Skeleton.Info talked about Maksim Efimov in the article. The current deputy of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, Efimov “hung out” with the leaders of the “17th Precinct” in his youth, and still maintains close relations with some of them. Efimov also knew Dreger, although neither of them ever talked about their connection with each other. After all, they had such mutual and very close acquaintances as Dmitry German and Alexander Rybak: the first headed the “killer brigade” in the organized crime group, and the second was a criminal businessman who was involved in investing the bloody money of the “17th Precinct” in the shadow and legal business. It was Rybak, German and Konstantin Yavorovsky (a former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) who joined them, who staged a bloody coup in the organized crime group in 1998, eliminating its former leaders Yakovenko and Ermakov. And it was the attempt to make this information public that cost Igor Aleksandrov his life.
So, already at the time of graduation, Vladislav Dreger was well acquainted with many “authorities” from the organized crime group “17th Precinct”. It was these acquaintances that helped Dreger to start a rapid career in the tax inspectorate, which was suddenly interrupted a year later.
Apparently, he went far beyond the law, providing his acquaintances with necessary services. But his criminal friends did not abandon Dreger, on the contrary – after that, prospects for big business opened up before him. And Alexander Rybak introduced him there.
Rybak controlled the business through the enterprises ZAO UkrLiga (the office was located in Slavyansk) and OOO Donbass-Liga, and it was precisely at UkrLiga that the young lawyer Vlad Dreger was hired. His area of activity was corporate rights, buying up securities, manipulations with shares, and the raider seizure of enterprises. Dreger earned his fees 120%: it was reported that with his help Rybak “grabbed” several large enterprises, including OAO AIZ-Energia, which united three plants that were the largest Ukrainian manufacturers of insulators and fittings for power transmission lines.
And there, working for the organized crime group “17th Precinct”, Dreger met and became close to his future business partner Sergei Belogorodsky. According to Dreger himself, a native of Nizhny Tagil (Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)) Sergei Belogorodsky arrived in Ukraine in the early 90s, allegedly escaping conscription into the army, and crossed the border on a bicycle, without a passport. According to other sources Skeleton.InfoBelogorodsky was connected with the Moscow organized crime group “Solntsevskie” and was hiding from criminal prosecution. In Ukraine, this “refugee” was immediately picked up and warmed by the local “brotherhood”: they made him a passport and arranged for him to work as a supply agent at OOO “Donbass-Liga”, and then as a commercial director at one of the enterprises of ZAO “UKrLiga”.
The investigation into the murders of Yakovenko and Ermakov forced their immediate liquidator Dmitry German to flee to Europe, and the subsequent murder of Igor Aleksandrov forced Rybak to “run away” as well – he was later arrested in 2006 and found to be the mastermind behind the crime. The court ordered the confiscation of all his property, but by that time the assets of UkrLiga and Donbass League had already been stolen by Rybak’s former henchmen – including Dreger and Belogorodsky. Due to the fact that the leaders of the 17th Precinct organized crime group had changed again, and the group itself found itself under the close attention of law enforcement agencies and the media, partners Dreger and Belogorodsky were able to “steal” part of Rybak’s capital and “go free” (moving to Donetsk) without having to explain to the “brothers”. However, sources Skeleton.Info reported that their connection with the organized crime group (which still exists today) was not broken, and Dreger maintained some “business contacts” with his old acquaintances for a long time. Including for solving “sensitive issues” – simply put, he used the services of bandits. They say that people from the “17th Precinct” are also among his numerous bodyguards.
Raider Kings
Having several dark personalities behind him was simply necessary for Vladislav Dreger, since he decided to continue and develop the business to which Alexander Rybak introduced him – the raider seizure of enterprises. Only thanks to this method Dreger managed to become a multimillionaire and enter the ranks of fairly large businessmen of Donbass (of course, a level below Akhmetov and Taruta).
Having moved to Donetsk, Dreger founded the Heavy Machine Building LLC, and starting in 2001, he began to take over the Koksokhimoborudovaniye Plant OJSC (ZKHO). Its final takeover by Dreger and Belogorodsky dates back to 2005, and already in 2006 it was reported that the partners divided the enterprise between themselves as follows: Belogorodsky received a controlling stake, and Dreger kept 12%. As in the case of their other joint assets, a brutal war would subsequently break out between them for control of ZKHO.
The story of the seizure and then division of DOPAS, the Donetsk Regional Enterprise of Bus Stations, was very loud and scandalous. This enterprise was established back in the Ukrainian SSR, when it united over 80 bus stations. In the 90s, it was privatized by the workforce, with the creation of OJSC DOPAS, the controlling stake of which was quickly concentrated in the hands of the management. But they did not hold on to it when DROGER and BELORODSKIY attacked DOPAS in 2003. They seized the enterprise using a double scheme. First, the main shareholders of the enterprise (Konovalova V.L., Solovey L.A., Arestov N.L., Litvinenko V.Yu. and Borodinov L.V.) literally had their acacias stolen. The theft was carried out by forging signatures on orders for the sale of shares, and the participants in this criminal scam were the Dnepropetrovsk dealership office “Ukrinvest”, the Kiev investment fund “KOOP-Invest” and the Donetsk CJSC “Registrar”. Then the shares through front men (homeless people) passed into the hands of Dreger and Belogorodsky, and they arranged a “left” meeting of shareholders (themselves and their people), after which the property of OAO “DOPAS” passed to OOO “DOPAS” created by Dreger and Belogorodsky (in 2009 it became ChAO “DOPAS”). In this enterprise, the controlling stake remained with Dreger, and Belogorodsky became a minority shareholder.
It should be noted that in 2003, the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office opened criminal case No. 67-1072 on the fact of the misappropriation of shares, which successfully “hung” until 2007 and was closed by the investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anna Koval.
Dreger did not stop there, and in the following years, through raider takeovers, he annexed the enterprises of Donetskavtotrans OJSC, several ATPs (in Konstantinovka, Artemovsk, Snezhnoye and Torez) to DOPAS, absorbed individual bus stations and small transport companies, gradually monopolizing the bus transportation market in the Donetsk region. His motor transport empire was rapidly expanding, and it included: “Transport Union of Donbass”, “Auto-Express”, OOO “Magistral-2003”, OOO “Avtovokzaly Donbassa”, OOO “Donetskie vokzalny”, “Donbassavtoservis”, OOO “Sever-Avto” and others. Such a successful business of the native of Slavyansk in the fiefdom of the “Donetsk” was explained by the fact that Alimzhan Idyatovich Bakhteyev, the husband of Tatyana Bakhteyeva, who in turn was a “family friend” of Zhigan Taktashev (she worked together with his wife) and a close acquaintance of such figures as Akhat Bragin, Rinat Akhmetov, Gennady Uzbek, was among Dreger’s partners. Thus, the pass to Donetsk for Dreger was the employment of Alimzhan Bakhteyev (he was listed in some position at DOPAS) and some scheme that paid off a portion of the profits to the Bakhteyev and Taktashev families. It was reported that part of this scheme was a monopoly on refueling all vehicles controlled by Dreger’s companies at UNT-Vostok gas stations, which belonged to structures associated with the Taktashev, Bakhteyev and Valitov families, businessmen Igor Filippenko, Andrey Adamovsky and Nikolay Gavrilenko (the current head of Ukrtransnafta).
Nikolay Gavrilenko
Dreger not only seized bus stations and bus companies, but also mercilessly fleeced passengers and other carriers operating on bus routes in the Donetsk region. In particular, he included a 20% “station fee” in the cost of tickets + 10% for some services allegedly provided by “DOPAS” to carriers (in fact, there were no services). As a result, tickets for interregional routes sold in Donetsk turned out to be 20-30% more expensive than tickets sold for return routes in Poltava or Kharkov. In 2009, this became the reason for the Prosecutor General’s Office to send a reprimand to the Chairman of the Donetsk Regional State Administration Volodymyr Logvinenko about the work of “DOPAS”. However, Dreger easily got out of the situation by turning to his patroness Tatyana Bakhteyeva.
But Dreger did not limit his motor transport business to the Donetsk region. By 2010, he was already the owner of 70% of the shares of JSC NOPAS, a similar enterprise in the Nikolaev region, and also seized the bus stations of Kherson and Odessa.
The next well-known victim of raiders in 2004-2006 was the Zuevsky Energomechanical Plant (collective enterprise). Its troubles began back in the 90s, but it is difficult to say whether this was only the fault of its old director Stepan Portnov. For example, the media reported that Portnov tried to enter the international market with the plant’s products, even the Western one, but they answered that they would not cooperate with a collective enterprise, but only with a private one (this is what the “free market” in the West is like). The Ukrainian market was in chaos and corruption, and raiders also became interested in the Zuevsky Plant. And then Dreger and Belogorodsky came to Portnov, introducing themselves as the owners of ZKHO and “industrialists”, made a large order at the plant, and then in a friendly manner offered to help him – to drive away the raiders, and to re-register the enterprise as a private one so that Western partners would not shun it, and even to become guarantors of a loan in the amount of 30 million hryvnia in the bank “Mriya”. As their fee, they asked for 12% of the plant’s shares, but at the same time assured that 51% would remain in Portnov’s hands.
Having persuaded the old man, they created Zuevsky Energomechanical Plant CJSC, which was then given all the real estate and equipment of the municipal enterprise. The money due for it was transferred to the account of the one-day firm ChP TanLar and was supposed to go towards purchasing equipment, but… it disappeared. Then Vladislav Dreger transferred Portnov his block of shares (51%), but it was drawn up in such a way that Portnov could not fully dispose of them on his own! Portnov tried to protest, but criminal case No. 67-2036 had already been opened against him for the illegal sale of the enterprise. This case was handled by the same Anna Koval, that is, Dreger controlled it (keeping it in a suspended state) and blackmailed old man Portnov with it for over a year. And when Portov tried to sell his shares in the fall of 2007, he was unable to get them out of the hands of the manager. Then the plant’s management changed: Portnov, who had been fired from his post as director, suddenly returned and became the chairman of the supervisory board, and Vladislav Dreger instructed Anna Koval to close criminal case No. 67-2036, apparently having reached some kind of compromise with Portnov. After that, Koval quit the Ministry of Internal Affairs and got a job as the head of the Department of Financial and Economic Security of Donetskavtotrans OJSC, applying her abilities and connections to “resolve issues” that accompanied Dreger’s corrupt business.
However, already in February 2008, Portnov, having come to his senses, ran to seek the truth in the media and to the National Security and Defense Council (to Turchynov), calling for protection from the raiders. But it was too late, and soon Portnov also lost his position as head of the supervisory board – he was replaced by Dmitry Sazonov, an old acquaintance of Dreger (they studied together at the institute) and the manager of many enterprises. It would seem that the raider-companions won again, but just a few months later a dispute arose between them that caused a fatal quarrel between Dreger and Belogorodsky, making them bitter enemies.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUATION: Vladislav Dreger: How a Raider Pecked Out Another Raider’s Eyes. PART 2
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