Anatoly Yurkevich: Paying Off Debts for the Milkiland Credit Fraudster. Part 1
Another Ukrainian "oligarch on credit," who doesn't want to repay his debts but instead "makes" hundreds of millions on tenders involving a single military unit. Oleksandr Yurkevich could very well join the ranks of the notorious Oleg Bakhmatyuk, who owe billions to their creditors. Of course, Yurkevich's debts are an order of magnitude smaller, but he has no intention of paying them—not in Ukraine, not in Russia, not in Europe. He couldn't even if he wanted to, as he owes 14 times more than he has! Therefore, the owner of Milkiland and the Krai retail chain is trying to salvage what's left of them by devising new fraudulent schemes.
The first "throw"
Anatoly Ivanovich Yurkevich was born on August 30, 1968, in the city of Chimkent, Kazakh SSR (now Shymkent, Kazakhstan), to Ivan Antonovich and Olga Fedorovna Yurkevich (born in 1940 and 1946, respectively). He doesn't talk about his family, nor how and when they moved to Kyiv, so it's difficult to explain the successful start of the Yurkevich business in the early 90s.
Olga Ivanovna Yurkevich
It's quite difficult—well, perhaps, unless you use the typical "worked tirelessly" tale that all Ukrainian oligarchs tell. So it's only logical that many have tried to find the answer to these questions in his father's biography, which remains completely classified, giving rise to numerous and conflicting rumors. According to one version, he was a former military man; according to another, he was a KGB officer; according to a third, he was connected to the Shymkent mafia, which was quite powerful in the 80s; according to a fourth, he was a "simple" university professor. But for some reason, his venerable mother has been unfairly neglected, because Skelet.Org It is reliably known that Olga Ivanovna worked in Shymkent as a senior official in the trade and financial sector. She worked there both during the Soviet era and in the 90s, which is why she didn't immediately move to Kyiv to be with her children. Instead, she remained in Shymkent and obtained Kazakh citizenship. However, in the late 90s, Olga Ivanovna, while retaining her Kazakh citizenship, reappeared in Ukraine as the director and co-owner of one or another of the Yurkevich family's businesses. The Yurkevich family business is registered in her and her children's names, while Ivan Antonovich remained largely uninvolved and has not been mentioned anywhere for a long time.
Oksana Kanarchuk
It is known that the parents were directly involved in their son's first business, and later their daughter's. Yes, Anatoly Yurkevich has a younger sister, Oksana Ivanovna Kanarchuk (born 1973, née Yurkevich), who is a businesswoman and the wife of former Kyiv City Council member Oleksandr Kanarchuk. The latter is known for his The company PJSC "Stroyindustrii Combine" regularly wins multimillion-dollar tenders in Kyiv.
After finishing school, Anatoly Yurkevich enrolled in the Kyiv Higher Military Engineering School of Communications (now the Military Institute of Telecommunications and Informatization of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute), graduating in 1990. However, instead of being assigned to some far-off place, he was retained at the same school for postgraduate studies as the head of the training laboratory department. This, again, suggested he had some kind of influence.
At the school, Anatoly Yurkevich became close with his instructor, Yuri Bezborodov, the brother of Russian general and former State Duma deputy Nikolai Bezborodov. It was Yuri Bezborodov who became one of the founders and first director of the Bankomsvyaz NPVF "cooperative" established at the school. In April 1992, Anatoly Yurkevich transferred to the same institution, becoming Bezborodov's deputy.
Yuri Bezborodov
Initially, the company intended to focus on its core business—communication systems—as Bezborodov had planned. They even found their first major clients: Bank Ukraina, then awash in free budget funds, and Ukrgazprom (the predecessor of Naftogaz). But the Yurkeviches had their own views on business and persuaded Bezborodov to "grow capital" by engaging in wholesale trade. And so, under the guise of Bankomsvyaz, a commercial chain was quickly established: the Yurkeviches transported certain equipment from Ukraine to Kazakhstan, where they bartered it for tin, which was then transported to the Baltics, where it was exchanged for sprats and juices, which were then transported for sale in Ukraine. That's how the Yurkeviches entered the food trade.
However, in 1993, the NPVF Bankomsvyaz broke up: into Bezborodov’s Bankomsvyaz LLC, which nevertheless took up communications (the future Golden Telecom), and the trading JSC Bankomsvyaz (EDRPOU 19353391), which
Mikhail Popov
The Yurkeviches and their associates controlled the bank through barter schemes. Anatoly Yurkevich later claimed that "disagreements arose between us, and my associates and I separated." Yuri Bezborodov described the split of Bankomsvyaz NPVF differently: the Yurkeviches simply screwed him, leaving him with a huge debt. The scheme was as follows: a large loan was issued to Bankomsvyaz NPVF, then Yurkevich was transferred to their subsidiary, and they left Bankomsvyaz NPVF, leaving the loan debt in Bezborodov's hands—for which he paid with his Kyiv apartment. This is how the Yurkeviches carried out their first loan scam, defrauding their business partner and building their capital.
Along with Anatoly Yurkevich, Mikhail Popov also left the Bancomsvyaz non-profit partnership, remaining its main partner until the late 90s. But in 2001, they also parted ways, and Popov returned to Russia, where, from 2003, he served as Commercial Director and Deputy Chairman of NOVATEK, Russia's largest gas company after Gazprom.
From Russia to offshore companies
It's likely that the Yurkeviches not only swindled Bezborodov out of a loan, but also stripped the Bankomsvyaz non-profit partnership bare, as they had a lot of money in the mid-90s. However, according to some sources, Skelet.OrgThey made their major acquisitions with loans, not all of which they repaid. The only question is, who provided them with these loans? It seems likely that the murky past of the Yurkevich family business in the 90s will eventually reveal many intriguing scandals.
So, starting in 1993, the Yurkeviches began actively acquiring businesses and continued to actively trade everything from canned goods to computers. Baltic sprats sold particularly well, but selling them under the "Bankomsvyaz" (BCS) name felt a bit odd, so they created the company "More." Anatoly Yurkevich opened it together with Mikhail Popov, who inherited it after their split (Popov sold it to Interflot). Casein and powdered milk, however, sold well to the Western market, as their production costs were much lower than in Europe at the time. Thus, in 1994, BCS-Miltek was founded, which a few years later was re-registered as "Milkiland"—the beginning of an entire holding company, later re-registered in the Netherlands and with subsidiaries in Ukraine, Poland, and Russia.
Anatoly Yurkevich: Paying Off Debts for the Milkiland Credit Fraudster. Part 1
One of the distinctive features of the Yurkevich family's business is the complex structure of its interconnected companies, which ultimately have their roots in offshore jurisdictions. If you look at the list provided, you'll see that the Yurkeviches began creating offshore companies back in the late 90s. Moreover, some offshore companies are owned by others, making it quite difficult to discern who is who. However, it is known that, for example, the Bahamian "Ditel, Inc." became the owner of JSC "Bankomsvyaz," and that the "Krai" supermarket chain was registered to the Panamanian "KRAI CORPORATION."
Anatoly Yurkevich: Paying Off Debts for the Milkiland Credit Fraudster. Part 1
Anatoly Yurkevich: Paying Off Debts for the Milkiland Credit Fraudster. Part 1
Milkiland's structure is the most complex here. So, in Ukraine, there's a company called Milkiland-Ukraine (with subsidiaries), which is owned by Milkiland NV, registered in the Netherlands. Milkiland NV, in turn, is 73% owned by Anatoly Yurkevich's company, 1 Inc. Cooperatief UA (the remaining shares were listed on the stock exchange), through the Panamanian company Milkiland CORPORATION, and is managed through the Panamanian company, 1 INC-UKRAINE. This raises the question: does an honest dairy producer, as Anatoly Yurkevich claims to be, need such complex offshore schemes?
But he also occasionally positions himself as a "staunch patriot," sent his people to the first Maidan and supported the second, and complained about attempts by Russia's Sberbank to seize his business—even though he has been developing his own business in Russia for over a decade. This includes, in particular, the Russian Milkiland-RU LLC (TIN 7715937669), which owns the Ostankino Dairy Plant in Moscow (the plant went bankrupt in 2017 due to credit debt) and the surviving Kursk-Moloko LLC (TIN 4632173083) and Novomoskovsk Dairy Plant LLC (TIN 7116149771).
The division of property amid the noise of the Maidan
In the second half of the 90s, Anatoly Yurkevich and Mykhailo Popov purchased two dairy plants: one in Nizhyn and one in Kamianets-Podilskyi, for just a few hundred thousand dollars each (the equivalent of a Kyiv apartment). Perhaps these factories would have continued to produce only powdered milk, but then Yurkevich Mama arrived from Kazakhstan, took over the dairies, and launched cheese production there. Things took off, and the newly formed company, Milkiland, began to grow rapidly—and acquire new businesses in Ukraine. Assisting the Yurkeviches in this endeavor was the resourceful lawyer Tatyana Kozachenko. Yes, the same one who became the Director of the Ministry of Justice's Department of Lustration in 2014!
Tatyana Kozachenko
In 1997, she earned a law degree from the Khmelnytsky Institute of Regional Management and Law. She tried teaching for two years, then quit and moved to Kyiv, where she found a job as a lawyer at Bancomzvyaz JSC. She quickly settled in, looked around, and married Vitaliy Kozachenko, who was a top manager at the firm from 1996 to 2009. Her exceptional talent and resourcefulness caught the attention of the Yurkevich family (either her son or her mother), who found a much better use for her than their in-house lawyer. They initially created a separate firm, BCS-Capital, where Tatyana was transferred as deputy head of department. After receiving her attorney's license (2002) and insolvency practitioner's license (2003), Tatyana Kozachenko became head of BCS-Capital. In 2007, a new firm, the law firm "Capital," was created. Kozachenko became its co-owner and director, and her visible ties to Bankomsvyaz and the Yurkeviches disappeared. This allowed her to later don the guise of a "public lawyer," become a defender of Euromaidan protesters, and slyly worm her way into the position of head of the Lustration Department. Moreover, between 2015 and 2017, There were constant scandals surrounding Tatyana Kozachenko Regarding her declared and actual assets, the public was understandably concerned: if the head of the Lustration Department was suddenly acquiring millions of hryvnias and expensive cars, didn't that mean she was being cheated out of money?
Sergey Varis for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Anatoly Yurkevich: Paying off debts for the Milkiland loan scammer, Part 2
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