Yuri Rodin: the great schemer from Pivdenny Bank. PART 1

The great and terrible Yuri Ivanyushchenko had many business partners, and one of them was Yuri Rodin, co-owner and head of the Ukrainian bank Pivdenny and the Latvian Regionala Investiciju. Rodin really doesn’t like being reminded of his dealings with the most odious person of the Yanukovych era, but this is far from the only thing he was accused of, and among his associates you can find people worse than Ivanyushchenko. The name of Yuri Rodin and the names of his banks appeared many times in scandalous news about raider takeovers, various schemes for withdrawing money, robbing depositors, even attempted murders. And this list will continue to grow, because Rodin and his “Pivdenny” continue to work hard!

What, where and when

Yuri Alexandrovich Rodin was born on January 21, 1950 in Odessa, in the family of Alexander Gershevich and Veli Abramovna Rodin. Although his official biography is deliberately brief, he proudly wrote in it that in Soviet times he worked as a simple mathematics teacher. However, Rodin did not want to share the secret of how a simple Soviet teacher managed to become a Ukrainian oligarch, co-owner and director of one of the largest banks in the country. Only in 2010, in the media, the Korrespondent magazine, compiling a list of Ukrainian multimillionaires, briefly wrote about Rodin that he went into business back in 1987. The magazine also mentioned his business partner Mark Becker just as succinctly and casually. Since then, both businessmen have not reported anything new about themselves, and even tried to remove almost all old information from public access – in which many interesting facts could be found.

But Odessa residents who knew Yuri Rodin from the old days claim that he was engaged in business until 1987 (since the late 70s). His “business” was quite specific, and really related to real estate and pharmaceuticals. Allegedly, either Yuri Alexandrovich himself or his relatives “obtained” scarce medicines, as well as vouchers to Odessa sanatoriums – of course, without thanks. But, according to sources Skelet.InfoYuri Rodin earned his starting capital from the resale of repatriate apartments. Hundreds of Jewish families left Odessa for Israel (and beyond) every year, whose apartments, according to the law, were supposed to go to the city council free of charge: the state gave, the state took! Of course, repatriates who did not want to reward the Soviet government in this way resorted to various tricks: they transferred apartments to relatives remaining in the Union or sold them – fortunately, kilometer-long queues lined up in Odessa for those wishing to buy housing. Of course, it was then possible to sell and buy a state-owned apartment only through cunning workaround schemes, the key link of which were officials from the city government structures, with whom the cunning “realtors” worked. There is no information about whether Yuri Rodin had such acquaintances (or relatives) in the Odessa City Executive Committee. But rumors that the humble schoolteacher was a “housing broker” in the 1980s still circulate on the fringes of the Internet.

In addition to apartments, Jews leaving the USSR sold all their property: from televisions and refrigerators to cars and antiques, and intermediaries also made good money from this. According to sources Skelet.InfoMark Becker, the future partner of Yuri Rodin, was involved in this business (it is possible that they were business partners at that time), who had great connections abroad. In addition, according to unconfirmed data, Becker allegedly had access to the “emigrant transfer system” – an illegal scheme for converting and transferring money from the USSR to Israel, Europe and the USA, which was used by repatriates. When, say, a wealthy Jewish family sold everything (including an apartment), they could not take with them a thick “press” of Soviet rubles, for which, moreover, there was no demand abroad. But dealing with dollars or exporting jewelry was risky: repatriates caught in this way remained in the USSR for several more years, but as prisoners. Therefore, they handed over rubles here in the Union to illegal “money changers”, and received the currency abroad, upon arrival. You can read more about these schemes in our material about Boris Fuksman, who made his first fortune using them.

Actually, this is what a simple Odessa mathematics teacher did until 1987. Then “perestroika” gave the green light to “cooperation”, so Yuri Aleksandrovich was able to give up boring teaching and formalize “individual labor activity”. His biography does not tell what exactly it was, but in 1993, Yuri Rodin first appears in the “annals of history” as the owner of the family LLC Tekon (real estate operations), which over time expanded to a whole network of companies in various directions. Family, because the list of co-owners of this company included all members of the Rodin family: Yuri Rodin himself, Velya Abramovna and Alexander Gershevich Rodin (mother and father), Tamara Rodina (wife), Anna Rodina (daughter), Alla Vanetsyants (daughter), Levon Vanetsyants (son-in-law). Also, until recently, all of them were among the main shareholders of Pivdenny Bank – both through Tekon and directly. True, it is currently unknown whether the venerable parents of Yuri Rodin are still alive (after all, they were born in 1921).

In 1994, the Rodin family, through Tekon LLC, became a shareholder of the Pivdenny bank, established by the city earlier than the Dako MP, and at first huddled in just one small Odessa office. Together with them, the co-owners of the bank were: the Ukrainian-German joint venture Vivienne (founders Mark Becker and his son Dmitry (Arie) Becker, as well as German citizen Leonid Kogan) and Strong LLC, associated with the Morokhovsky family, also known in Odessa, and far beyond. Viktor Yakovlevich Morokhovsky (1946-1999) in the 80s was the captain of the Odessa team of “experts”, participated in the show “What? Where? When?” together with Odessa residents Anatoly Wasserman and Boris Burda. His son Vadim Morokhovsky, who studied at the Odessa Institute of National Economy (now the National Economic University), managed to play in KNV for one of the Odessa teams.

The son of an “expert” was a “multi-player”: he not only played in KVN, but already in his fourth year at the institute he began working at Nord Bank, hired there through some connections. It is curious that usually in his biographies Morokhovsky always claimed that he worked at Nord Bank until 1993, although in fact he worked there until the beginning of 1995, and only then transferred from there to Pivdenny. Why? Because in 1994, a loud scandal broke out in the ill-fated Nord Bank: the NBU transferred 80 billion karbovanets to Nord Bank under a program for issuing preferential loans to agricultural producers. The management of Nord Bank used this money in its own way, distributing it to pocket companies, which then borrowed it from other companies… In general, the chairman of the board of Nord Bank, Perminov, was imprisoned for five years, and Vadim Morokhovsky, who by that time worked at Nord Bank as the head of the internal audit department and was aware of this scam, transferred to Pivdenny, where he immediately took the position of deputy head of the board (after all, their company Strong was a co-founder of the bank). In 1999, Vadim Morokhovsky took the post of chairman of the board of JSCB Pivdenny (in 2005, he took on his wife Liya Morokhovskaya as his deputy) and remained there until 2011, when he left Pivdenny for Vostok Bank.

It was under Morokhovsky that Pivdenny grew from an almost unknown city bank into one of the largest in Ukraine, becoming one of the financial leaders in the southern regions (from Odessa to Mariupol). Moreover, no one denied Morokhovsky’s merit in this, and many even emphasized it. However, according to sources Skelet.Infothe guarantee of this was not Morokhovsky’s economic genius, but… Jewish money. And in the most literal sense. It is no coincidence that the popular talk that Pivdenny was a “Jewish bank” was not some kind of manifestation of anti-Semitism, but simply a statement of fact. And the point is not in the nationality of its owners and managers, but in the fact that Morokhovsky immediately began to actively circulate through Pivdenny the money of Israeli banks (for example, Apolaim), the money of Jewish charitable foundations (through him the Joint worked in the southern regions of Ukraine “), money from Jewish communities, money from foreign Jewish businessmen, etc. The media once wrote that “Pivdenny” once even appeared in the “volunteer assistance” of one of the IDF units.

At the same time, Vadim Morokhovsky himself was the chairman of the board of trustees of the Odessa school “Chabad Or-Avner”, which is the main spiritual educational institution of the Odessa Jewish community – the leadership of which belongs to members of the Hasidic movement “Chabad” (as in Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson, Nikolaev, Mariupol). Coincidence or not, journalists once noticed that the “coverage map” of the regional branches of Pivdenny coincided with the map of the South Ukrainian regional association of Jewish communities. Which since 1998 has been headed by Rabbi Abraham Wolf (Avroom ben Shalom-Dov-Ber Wolf), who is also the chief rabbi of Odessa. Rebbe Wolf himself came to Ukraine from Israel, but his father was the deputy head of the Office for Coordinating the Activities of Educational Institutions of the Chabad movement.

In general, Ukrainian Jewry has fallen tightly under the Chabad movement, which is engaged in not only spiritual activities in Ukraine. The most famous oligarchs are members of Chabad: Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov, Victor Pinchuk, Alexander Feldman, Evgeniy Chervonenko and Vadim Rabinovich, sources Skelet.Info It is reported that Alexander Granovsky is also associated with Chabad. As we see, the Ukrainian “Chabad” also has its own “favorite” banks, and “Pivdenny” stood out especially among them. After all, if Privat or Pinchuk’s banks are the working banks of the oligarchs, through which they circulated their billions, and the share of “Jewish money” in them was very small, then in Pivdenny they for a long time (under Morokhovsky) constituted a significant part of the assets. Which, of course, does not violate any laws – this is just interesting information for your information. “Pivdenny” violated the laws only later, when he scammed his clients.

Yuri Rodin. Banks and factories

Since after the acquisition of Pivdenny, Yuri Rodin practically did not show himself outside his bank, we can say that his entire biography over the last quarter of a century is the history of the Pivdenny bank. And he is directly involved in everything that happened within the walls of his departments, even if he tries to deny it or hush it up.

By 2003, Pivdenny, or rather its affiliated companies, became the owners of a number of enterprises, investing their profits in the manufacturing sector. We started with several agricultural enterprises in the Odessa region, then became interested in factories. The choice of Rodin and Becker was very thoughtful: back in the 90s they bought the Odessa Steel Rolling Plant named after. F.E. Dzerzhinsky (transformed into CJSC Stalmetiz), which produced metal wire and various related products. The takeover of the plant was very dirty, but all the details of that scam simply disappeared later during the liquidation of the enterprise.

Then, in 2001, with the help of the then general director of Krivorozhstal Oleg Dubina (future deputy prime minister, head of Naftogaz in 2007-2010), Yuri Rodin and Mark Becker actually “squeezed out” the Odessa rope plant for its debts. It was from this incident that Rodin and Pivdenny Bank first acquired the bad reputation of raiders. It was a very “murky” story, which ten years later was continued in the form of a criminal case. The fact is that in 2000 the plant owed money to Krivorozhstal for raw materials. Whether this debt was a consequence of objective reasons or created artificially by the director of the rope plant, Leonid Shemyakin, even investigators have not fully figured out. Then Oleg Dubina, as it were, “ceded” this debt to the owners of Pivdenny, who offered Shemyakin a loan to repay it. The plant itself had nothing to repay the loan with – and then the plant sold its shares to the specially created PrJSC Stalkanat, which became the owner of the enterprise. Created by Rodin, Bekker, as well as the nimble “solver” of economic issues, Vladimir Nemirovsky, who arrived from Krivoy Rog, who immediately became one of the top managers of Stalkanat, and then became the head of the supervisory board of PJSC Stalkanat-Silur.

There is an interesting fact in Nemirovsky’s biography, which largely explains his connection with the owners of Pivdenny: he now holds the post of chairman of the Jewish community of Krivoy Rog, and even then he was an important person in it. And the Jewish community of Krivoy Rog… yes, as you guessed correctly, it is also ruled by Chabad. Such close business cooperation between members of Hasidic communities!

After acquiring the rope plant, Rodin and Nemirovsky organized “production optimization”: they decided to focus on the production of wire, wire products and steel ropes (at that time only 2 plants produced these products in all of Ukraine), closing other lines. Therefore, in 2003, they decided to “downsize” JSC Stalmetiz, driving it into bankruptcy for a debt to a certain foreign investor in the amount of 746 thousand euros. Part of the former Stalmetiz became the property of Stalkanat as a second site, and the rest of the territory (Izvestkovaya Street 52 and 52a) was used for many years “as needed.” Several other different companies that were part of the business of the Rodin, Bekker and Morokhovsky families were registered at this address: LLC Ecology, LLC Parus, PKF Most-met, PE Alimar, PE Dis, LLC Manar”, OJSC “Odesnefteprodukt”, CJSC “Evarmet”, CJSC “Rezon”, etc.

The land itself under the former enterprise legally belonged to the city for a long time (but it was owned by the owners of Stalkanat). Finally in 2016 by decision of the Odessa City Council No. 620-VII this entire plot with an area of ​​19.3432 hectares was sold to the ownership of PJSC Stalkanat-Silur for the amount of 23.117 million hryvnia (889 thousand dollars). Forty thousand dollars per hectare of Odessa land 1700 meters from the pier of the Odessa commercial port – is it a lot or a little? Perhaps this issue should be addressed by the Prosecutor General’s Office! But PrJSC Stalkanat-Silur, having already become the full owner of this land, divided it into parts: one contains the site of the Stalkanat plant, and the other part, with an area of ​​8.69 hectares, they are now actively advertising as an “investment object.” Surely they are going to recoup their expenses for land privatization with a good profit. However, by this time the legal owner of Stalkanat-Silur was only Vladimir Nemirovsky, but participation in the Rodin scam is still hidden behind the schemes of various companies and offshore companies.

The emergence of PrJSC Stalkanat-Silur is a very interesting story – it happened in 2004 during the merger of the Odessa Stalkanat and the Khartsyz Silur it bought. It is curious that the latter belonged to Rinat Akhmetov, who was building his metallurgical empire. At the same time, at the time of sale, Silur and Stalkanat remained the only producers of steel cables in Ukraine. It would seem that Akhmetov should have bought himself “Stalkanat” and become a monopolist in this area – but it turned out quite the opposite! What forced Akhmetov to take this step still remains a mystery. Many journalists and analysts tried to explain it by some kind of economic problems of Akhmetov, although they did not name any significant ones. But perhaps the reason was completely different? One day, information flashed in the media that this deal could be the result of some kind of exchange of services or concessions, as a result of which the owners of Pivdenny acquired the Khartsyzsk Silur. But what could Pivdenny Bank offer Akhmetov then? Credit? Another question is what those who stood behind this bank could offer (or how they could help) Akhmetov. And only Nemirovsky, who was the “authorized manager” in this transaction, knows the answer to this question. Well, now we can build the most daring hypotheses, because now we have found out that Pivdenny was not a simple Odessa bank, but a very specific financial center with great connections.

Yuri Rodin: “Pivdenny” robs everyone!

The banal theft of money from their clients is not uncommon at Pivdenny Bank. So, for example, in October 2009, bank employees stole $336,088 from the current account of TD Yug-Steklo LLC, opened in the Dnepropetrovsk branch of Pivdenny JSCB. When the management of Yug-Stekla turned to the director of the Dnepropetrovsk branch of Pivdenny for clarification, they were told that the money had allegedly been debited from the account on the basis of a certain guarantee (for December 2007). In response to the demand to show such a guarantee, the director of the branch threw up his hands: they say, I don’t have it, it’s in the main office of Pivdenny in Odessa. The robbed entrepreneurs turned directly to the head of the bank, Morokhovsky, who also threw up his hands: no, it disappeared somewhere while I was on vacation! Then the owners of Yug-Stekla turned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a request to initiate a criminal case. They were turned down at the Zhovtnevy District Department of Internal Affairs, but at Babushkinsky they accepted their application.

A case was opened, but the management of Pivdenny refused to provide the investigators with any information: they say it’s a bank secrecy! And a few days later the case was closed altogether – on the personal order of the prosecutor of the Dnepropetrovsk region, Mikhail Kosyuta, who previously headed the prosecutor’s office of the Odessa region.

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Here we should make a small digression: the fact is that Yug-Glass belonged to the Soroka brothers. Gennady Soroka was shot near Donetsk in 2004, but survived.

Subsequently, the general public was presented with a recording of a telephone conversation between Igor Kolomoisky (Beni) and Gennady Kernes (Gepa), in which Kolomoisky in a derogatory form demands that Kernes resolve the issue with a certain department store.

In fact, we are talking about the Ukraina shopping center in Kharkov, which also belonged to the Soroki brothers. But Kernes could not satisfy Igor Kolomoisky on the issue of destroying the shopping center.

This issue was subsequently resolved by Yuri Rodin and Pivdenny Bank (through a “non-repayable loan”, as raiders often do). It was he who organized the forceful seizure of the Ukraina shopping center, possibly at the request of Igor Kolomoisky.

By the way, the text transcript of the conversation between Kernes and Kolomoisky has been practically “cleaned up” from the Internet.

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Let’s continue! The management of the Babushkinsky District Department of Internal Affairs sent an official refusal to the robbed entrepreneur (see documents). And two weeks later, by order of Kosyuta, a new criminal case was opened – this time against the Yug-Glass company itself, on charges of “introducing knowingly false information into its business plan.”

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Yuri Rodin: the great schemer from Pivdenny Bank. PART 2

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