Boris Lozhkin
It's common knowledge that the selection of foreign ministers for Yatsenyuk's government was handled by a world-renowned recruiting agency. The search for worthy candidates for ministerial posts was directly overseen by the agency's director, Tatyana Furtseva (whose services, incidentally, were valued at over a million hryvnias). In one of her comments to the media, Furtseva stated: the main requirement for candidates is the absence of corrupt ties. Therefore, we have compelling reason to believe that if similar criteria were used to select personnel for the presidential administration, its head, Boris Lozhkin, would never have secured his position. Because the head of the presidential administration is not only suspected of large-scale corruption ties but also, apparently, is the mastermind behind corruption schemes involving hundreds of millions of dollars.
Last summer, a sensation swept the media: 26-year-old Serhiy Kurchenko, a self-proclaimed "wunderkind" and simply one of the overseers of Yanukovych's "family," was buying one of the largest media holdings in the Ukrainian market, UMH Group, from his fellow countryman, Kharkiv native Boris Lozhkin. Kurchenko's VETEK group of companies gained control of a number of publications, including Forbes, Vogue, Korrespondent, Telenedelya, Arguments and Facts in Ukraine, Komanda, Futbol, Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine, and the portals i.ua, bigmir.net, Retro FM radio, Nashe Radio, Europa Plus, Avtoradio, and others.
The deal's value was not disclosed. However, in an interview with Kommersant in April of that year, Lozhkin stated: "I can only say that my estimate of UMH's valuation is $450-500 million." So, let's assume that the figure Lozhkin voiced at the time was fairly close to the actual deal value...
Interestingly, two months before the deal, Petro Poroshenko sold his stake in the magazine "Korrespondent," the website korrespondent.net, and the radio station "Nashe Radio" to UMH Group.
It is also interesting that the former owner of UMH, Boris Lozhkin, praised Sergei Kurchenko in every possible way and stated that "VETEK will be able to provide a serious impetus for the development of UMH."
According to Lozhkin himself, shareholders received half of the deal's proceeds at the end of June 2013, with the other half expected to arrive no later than the first quarter of 2014. However, on November 5, 2013, the sale was announced to have been completed early and all financial obligations fulfilled. This meant that the financial obligations to the previous shareholders, amounting to a dollar amount with many zeros, had been fully and on time fulfilled. However, this transaction was not mentioned in the presidential administration's 2013 asset declaration (which journalists officially obtained through a journalistic request).
Let us reiterate: we're talking about a huge sum, potentially amounting to around half a billion dollars. Mr. Lozhkin did not respond to journalists' requests for comment on this discrepancy.
This suggests that the current head of the presidential administration, using a specific scheme, managed to avoid paying hundreds of millions of hryvnias in income tax in Ukraine. Or Lozhkin never received any income from the sale, but rather carried out a scheme to launder Kurchenko's income.
In fact, this story could have been "adapted" to the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and the Security Service of Ukraine could have had the final say. But here's the problem: Boris Lozhkin is now a resident of the political Olympus, and therefore, according to the rules in Ukraine, he's untouchable. Although we sincerely hope these rules will change soon...
Both Kurchenko and Lozhkin were members of a "criminal organization," according to the SBU.
After all, Kurchenko was placed on the international wanted list back in April 2014. True, our sources in the SBU claimed that this "wunderkind" continued to roam Kyiv undisturbed, hiding from no one. Nevertheless, on May 19, the SBU officially announced that "instances of Kurchenko's direct involvement in the implementation of criminal mechanisms for the acquisition of UMH Group for the benefit of the VETEK financial and industrial group have been exposed." In other words, the SBU claims to have uncovered "criminal mechanisms" in the Kurchenko-Lozhkin agreement, used by a "criminal organization."
In other words, if the UMH Group purchase and sale scheme, as SBU investigators claimed, involved "criminal mechanisms," and not just one of the actors, but a "criminal organization," then this means both the seller and the buyer were well aware of these mechanisms, and, more likely, jointly developed and implemented them. In other words, the Security Service concluded that both Kurchenko and Lozhkin constituted this very "criminal organization."
But already at the beginning of June, the “UMH group case” was put on hold in one of the many offices of the Security Service, since Mr. Lozhkin occupies the position of head of the administration of Petro Poroshenko.
THE DECLARATION OF THE HEAD OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION POROSHENKO FOR 2013 DOES NOT MENTION THE SALE OF UMH
However, after Lozhkin's somewhat strange declaration for 2013 surfaced, which did not record a single penny of income from the sale of UMH, the case is gaining new momentum.
After Yanukovych and his entire gang fled Ukraine, the "office" hundred gained access to previously classified documents that had been hastily left behind in the dictator's residences (or thrown into the river in a hurry, as in Mezhyhirya, but fished out in time).
So, journalists have learned that long before selling his media holding, Boris Lozhkin became a co-owner of a British Virgin Islands company, Integrity International Holding Ltd. This company, in turn, established control over the Cypriot UMH Group, which then established the Dutch company United Media Holding. This company then controlled enterprises in Ukraine... According to lawyers, creating such a structure allows for either minimizing profit taxes or avoiding them altogether.
However, the second version—that Lozhkin merely helped to legalize Kurchenko’s income—also has a right to exist.
The fact is that, as a result of the acquisition of the holding by the financial and industrial group VETEK, there are absolutely no changes in the holding's ownership. The companies that manage the holding in Ukraine remain 99% controlled by the Dutch company United Media Holding.
Whatever the case, and no matter which of the options we outlined was implemented, the fact remains: Boris Lozhkin created a scheme that helped him evade paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on the deal with Kurchenko.
Against this backdrop, the passages printed last summer by publications that only yesterday belonged to the current head of the Presidential Administration seem even more comical: "...One of the largest and most ambitious deals on the Ukrainian market!"... "The agreement with UMH is a model of European and even global standards!"... "The public nature of the deal speaks to its transparency and honesty!"
One can understand the desire of those in power a year and a half ago, under Yanukovych, to portray us all as suckers. In fact, it was precisely the constant lying of the then government and its maniacal desire to steal from the state that brought people to the Maidan. But the problem is that the current government also treats society as suckers, continuing to lie and engage in corrupt practices...
It's not hard to imagine what would happen to, say, the US Vice President if he were proven to have engaged in large-scale tax evasion. He would be fired, all his real estate and bank accounts would be seized, and he would be jailed. But we can bet that Boris Lozhkin will continue to thrive as Chief of Staff, no matter how many instances of his involvement in corruption are proven.
"I dream of becoming a billionaire, and I will be one," Lozhkin once declared in an interview. We have no doubt his dream will soon come true. It's just a shame it'll be at our expense...
Viktor Landarenko, National Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine
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