Evgeny Geller. Survival Secrets of Yanukovych's Former "Cashier." Part 1
The name Yevhen Geller is familiar to everyone since Viktor Yanukovych's presidency—he's an influential associate and friend of Rinat Akhmetov. He punished and pardoned hryvnias while heading the budget committee. However, Geller also controlled another coffers—the party's. He's known as the "cashier" of the Party of Regions.
After the Maidan, Yevhen Geller was one of the few who managed to remain in big politics. He stopped serving Yanukovych and Akhmetov and became Igor Kolomoisky's man. He also became a patriot and democrat.
The head of the Party of Regions' "slush fund" stayed afloat in the new "European" country. Skelet.Org.
Evgeny Geller. Candidate "with the letter G"
At the end of March, during a session of the Verkhovna Rada, journalists captured a fascinating exchange between Opposition Bloc MP Yuriy Voropayev (formerly Akhmetov's lawyer) and Yevgeny Geller, a member of the Vozrozhdenie parliamentary group. The two "Servants of the People" members were exchanging messages about Rinat Akhmetov's energy holding company, DTEK, having seen unprecedented profit growth.
- — "Hurray!!! Now we'll start living happily ever after!!!)))" Geller writes to Voropaev.
- “Tell me how we get on,” Voropaev replies.
- "Good!!! We'll live well!!! And that's undeniable," Geller rejoices (and with good reason).
- "And today, death metal bonds have risen even more. You're getting richer faster than Pyotr Alekseevich. It's indecent," Voropaev notes.
Correspondence between Voropaev and Geller
In 2014, Yevgeny Borisovich Geller decided to "live a new life." He dropped the white-and-blue flag, disavowed his role as Viktor Yanukovych's presidential "cashbox" and the manager of the Party of Regions's fund, and "forgot" his ties to Rinat Akhmetov and the fact that he was considered his personal lawyer. After this obligatory exorcism, the Donetsk businessman was taken under the wing of the newly minted patriot, Igor Kolomoisky.
In the snap elections following Euromaidan, Igor Kolomoisky's group granted Yevhen Borisovich immunity. Geller ran as an independent candidate in District No. 50 in Krasnoarmeysk, his native Donbas. He was led to victory by the Dnipro-1 Battalion, formed by PrivatBank members. They did so as usual: they began pressuring Geller's opponent, Leonid Baysarov, director and co-owner of the Pokrovskoe Mine Administration. Incidentally, he had long overseen the Krasnoarmeyskaya-Zapadnaya Mine, which belongs to the owner of the Donetskstal company. To Victor NusenkisSo, Baysarov was the head of the town's main mine, the largest employer, and a longtime philanthropist known to everyone in town. Logically, he had a better chance in the election than Geller. However, Kolomoisky and his men decided otherwise. Men in black, claiming to be representatives of the Dnipropetrovsk regional self-defense force, surrounded the Pokrovskoe mine and threatened to destroy it. Moreover, several weeks before these events, Baysarov was invited to a meeting with Deputy Governor Gennady Korban at the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration. The official was supposed to persuade the miner to withdraw his candidacy, but the mine director refused. Then they brought in the heavy artillery, in the form of David Zhvania, who is considered Petro Poroshenko's authorized representative for the looting of single-member constituencies. Zhvania promised to "cover up" the candidate "starting with the letter G."
After this, Baisarov's parliamentary reception office in Krasnoarmeysk was ransacked. Miraculously, Geller became the leader in the district.
The fact that Geller betrayed the Party of Regions and stopped serving Yanukovych and Akhmetov was mentioned Boris Kolesnikov, one of the leaders of the White-Blues and an ally of Rinat Leonidovich. He explained the situation something like this: "Zhenya simply left the party. His actions were unworthy, but God will judge him."
Needless to say, Evgeny Geller won the race with 39.54% of the vote. The gap between him and Baysarov was 4666 votes. It's worth noting that the Central Election Commission ordered a recount of the votes in the district due to evidence of fraud. Residents of Krasnoarmeysk, who held rallies, also demanded this. But all were in vain.
The most interesting thing is that Geller disappeared after the elections, or rather, remained in Kyiv as before. He never once visited the district he won. Activists even wrote telegrams to the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. To Volodymyr Groysman with a request to find him.
Then Geller didn’t lose his composure and sent a “hello” to the residents of Krasnoarmeysk in the form of a congratulation on March 8th.
Of course, numerous cases of such "transfers" have emerged since the fall of Viktor Yanukovych's regime. Only the Geller case deserves special attention. His activities are so shocking—criminal showdowns, corporate raids, fraud—yet the new government remains oblivious. The fact is, such a person is beneficial to any team, because he knows everything—the names and accounts of offshore companies, the account numbers of "black" accounting systems, the cash flow paths.
Evgeny Geller: We are simple people, from Donetsk.
Evgeniy Borisovich Geller was born on May 12, 1974, in Donetsk. After graduating from high school, he entered Donetsk State Technical University, majoring in economics and management in mechanical engineering. Geller graduated in 1996.
A year before graduating, Yevgeny Borisovich joined the private enterprise "Victoria." The director of the small firm was Vasily Dzharty, known in criminal circles as "Vasya-bita," and later Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The private enterprise specialized in non-ferrous metallurgy and mechanical engineering. Its "legal" activities were overseen by the late Alik Grek, one of the most respected "enterprise managers" in the Donetsk region in the mid-90s. Incidentally, it wasn't only Dzharty who emerged from Grek's wing, but also Rinat Akhmetov himself. 21-year-old Geller took the position of deputy director at the firm. Why did such a position go to a student? According to information Skelet.OrgGeller met Dzharty at Donetsk University. There, Vasya-bita was pursuing a second degree in public administration to offset his engineering background. The two young men became friends. Dzharty saw potential in the simple Zhenya.
After just a year on the job, Yevgeny Borisovich resigned as deputy and took up the position of head of the management department at Ukrmetalloprodukt JSC. He stayed there for another year.
The Ukrsplav case
In 1997, Geller (then 23 years old) founded the Ukrsplav industrial and industrial complex and became its main shareholder. The corporation, where Yevhen Borisovich secured the position of commercial director, focused on recycling scrap and waste non-ferrous metals. It's unlikely anyone would seriously believe that a young man had the funds to create a structure of such scale. Ukrsplav was fully financed by Rinat Akhmetov and the SCM Group. However, this remained a "big secret." In 1998, the corporation began expanding and established a full cycle of non-ferrous metal processing. This allowed it to become a virtual monopoly on the Ukrainian market and dominate the entire industry. Furthermore, Ukrsplav began exporting non-ferrous alloys.
Let's jump ahead. In 2002, when Yevgeny Geller entered big politics, Spartak Kokotyukha, a prominent Donetsk businessman and a completely private figure, took over his business. However, Yevgeny Borisovich didn't step away from the business; he constantly kept his finger on the pulse. Spartak Kokotyukha and his brother, Grigory, a former SBU officer, needed the corporation to expand its capacity. Gradient, a company with 54,88% of shares held by the Kokotyukha brothers, was added to the Ukrsplav board.
So, in the early 2000s, the corporation's annual turnover exceeded 100 million hryvnias. Having earned some money, the corporation's management decided to expand. Of course, by expansion Skelet.Org This implies a hostile takeover of industrial enterprises. Or, more precisely, a sophisticated bankruptcy, followed by a buyout. So, Ukrsplav included:
- Zinc CJSC. In 2003, the zinc production facilities (the hydro-processing plant and the zinc oxide and zinc sulfate roasting plant) were withdrawn from the nearly bankrupt Ukrzinc. Ukrzinc retained 49% of its shares, and control over the newly created Zinc CJSC was transferred to the Kharkiv-based company Angram-Ukraine. Zinc CJSC was intended to achieve global success. However, this never happened, and Angram-Ukraine quietly sold the CJSC to companies controlled by the Donetsk-based Ukrsplav CJSC.
- OJSC DonMash "Astra". The enterprise is owned by the Kokotyukh brothers;
- The rebar shop of the Donetsk Large-Panel Housing Plant. The company was declared bankrupt, and Evgeny Borisovich invested the necessary sum of money into its share. Naturally, the plant did not resume operations, but reoriented itself to the production of non-ferrous alloys;
- Konstantinovsky Plant of Reinforced Concrete Structures, a company Geller and his colleagues took over in 2008. To everyone's surprise, local entrepreneurs and the former chairman of the board, Ivan Zozulya, "simply" handed over more than 70% of the shares (48% to brothers Grigory and Spartak Kokotyukh, and 25% to Evgeny Geller).
In November 2004, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened a criminal case against Ukrsplav CJSC for smuggling, or more precisely, fictitious exports. The case went like this. Geller's enterprise was shipping non-ferrous metal recycling waste abroad under the name "TS-150 Current Collector for Mine Electric Locomotives" (a current collector is a device that supplies current to a vehicle, similar to the "horns" on a tram). So, in October 2004, a shipment of these "current collectors" was cleared for export at customs in the port of Mariupol. The goods, according to the invoices, were valued at 406,4 million hryvnia. In fact, the boxes with colorful stickers contained aluminum waste. The scam was designed to reimburse export VAT from the budget. It's worth noting that at the time, a scheme was in place in the country: the supplier was reimbursed for VAT on goods shipped abroad. Therefore, all the entrepreneurs inflated the price of their products through a chain of shell companies, and then sold them back to their own companies. It turned out that the fraudster made millions in profit from a penny-worth of merchandise. Geller used the same scheme.
So, while the Ukrsplav "current collectors" were in port, SBU officers tried their best to delay the departure of the Antigua-flagged vessel "Votan." But their efforts were unsuccessful. The security forces then prepared a seizure order, which was to be signed by the Prosecutor General. Victor PshonkaHe did sign, but a few hours later he withdrew the document and carefully sketched out his signature. That same day, by order of the commander of the Mariupol border detachment, the vessel "Votan" safely departed for its destination. Despite the criminal case, Ukrsplav CJSC received a VAT tax credit, including 134,4 million hryvnias in cash. It's worth noting that the prosecutor's office charged Kokotyukha with smuggling, while Geller was left untouched. Incidentally, when Pshonka was questioned in this case in 2005, he stated that he hadn't signed the document but had sketched out the space to prevent anyone else from signing in his stead. The case was hushed up and forgotten.
In 2005, Ukrsplav was included in the "Rating of Large Enterprises That Most Actively Used Tax Minimization Schemes in the Third Quarter of 2005," prepared for publication by the State Tax Administration. During this period, the company also served as the general sponsor of the Donetsk futsal club Shakhtar, originally known as Ukrsplav.
Two years later, the owners of the closed joint-stock company withdrew all its core assets (capacities capable of annually smelting 32,000 tons of aluminum, as well as 10,000 tons each of copper and brass). The court also cleared Startak Kokotyukha of all charges.
In 2010, the Donetsk Regional Commercial Court declared Ukrsplav JSC bankrupt. This came as a surprise to many, but the Donetsk businessmen had acted deliberately. While one could attribute the crisis and unprofitability of production to the collapsed demand for non-ferrous metals, one thing was clear: by that time, the non-ferrous metal processing plant had outlived its usefulness. Furthermore, Evgeniy Geller and Spartak Kokotyukha were saddled with multimillion-dollar debts from their enterprise that needed to be repaid. To do so, they carried out a scam within the "legislation."
The Donetsk court initiated a case against Ukrsplav CJSC at the instigation of Geron Private Enterprise. Chepashika accused the company of owing over 200 hryvnias for unpaid goods. To no one's surprise, Geron belonged to Geller and Kokotyukha. The court ruled in favor, and all of Ukrsplav's assets were transferred to Ukrsplav Trade and Industrial Corporation LLC. Needless to say, Geller and Kokotyukha were the owners of this LLC. Thus, the CJSC became a shell company. The absurdity of this case lay in the fact that Ukrsplav owed 326 million hryvnias in creditors' debt. Beta-Factor LLC and Eurasia LLC, owned by Mariupol businessman Dmitry Lizunov, had invested 270 million and 49 million hryvnias, respectively, in the company. However, the court was not interested in this. Naturally, after the JSC was declared bankrupt, no one returned the loan money to Lizunov.
Then, the liquidation of Ukrsplav CJSC began. The court appointed another creditor of the company, Victoria LLC, as liquidator. This company purported to be the holder of a promissory note from Ukrsplav for 9,83 million hryvnias. However, there's an interesting detail: in the mid-2000s, the CJSC was a co-owner of Victoria LLC, but in 2008, it was transferred to a private individual. And most interestingly, a year later, the same Commercial Court of Donetsk Oblast declared Victoria LLC bankrupt.
Today, the Ukrsplav saga isn't over. The company continues to operate as a commercial and industrial corporation.
Moreover, after the Maidan, it has been cooperating with the DPR and financing them, but more on that later.
Arina Dmitrieva, for Skelet.Org
TO BE CONTINUED…
CONTINUED: Evgeny Geller. Survival Secrets of Yanukovych's Former "Cashier." Part 2
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