Grigory Tripulsky: Lawyer for Raiders and One-Armed Bandits. Part 1

Grigory Tripulsky

For over a quarter century, Odessa's corrupt and criminal clans have been squabbling over power in the city and region. Now, Grigoriy Tripulskyi has resurfaced. Every local election turns into a war, and the appointment of a new governor becomes a national intrigue. Consequently, each candidate has powerful forces behind them. But when, a few months ago, the "renowned lawyer" Grigoriy Tripulskyi began to be tipped for the new governor's post, many Odessans were puzzled. Could it be that this man with a rather tarnished reputation, originally from the gambling industry, was really being promoted to power by powerful figures? But who?

Then, searching for answers to these questions, they recalled that Tripulsky had recently been called a protégé of the Odessa businessmen Kaufman and Granovsky . But is this true? In search of further truth, Skelet.Org decided to conduct a small investigation of its own…

Breaking bad

Grigoriy Yakovlevich Tripulsky was born on August 28, 1978, in Odessa, to Yakov Lvovich and Faina Markovna Tripulsky. He has a younger sister, Irina (born 1985). He grew up on Osipova Street in the old Primorsky district of the city, just 500 meters from the sea—which, however, held no fascination for him. So, instead of becoming a sailor, like his heroic great-uncle, he chose to become a lawyer. In 1995, Grigoriy Tripulsky graduated from Secondary School No. 101, then spent a year "beating around the bush." ​​In 1996, instead of serving his military service, he enrolled in the Law Institute at Odessa State University (now the Odessa National Law Academy), graduating in 2001 with a degree in jurisprudence.

According to archival information, Grigory Tripulsky's parents became cooperative members in the late 1980s. In a semi-basement at 45 Pushkinskaya Street (the former Perozio apartment building, mid-19th century), they opened the Olimp café. In the 1990s, they registered it to the commercial company Samsun LTD (EDRPOU 13917987), which belonged to Yakov Lvovich until 2018 and was then registered to De-Iure LLC (EDRPOU 37476376), owned by his son Grigory.

Cafes during the perestroika era and the early 90s often became hangouts for certain social groups who consumed more than just alcohol. This may explain the persistent rumors circulating about the young Grigory Tripulsky, which still make him nervous. And since this has been repeatedly reported in the media , it doesn't seem like mere slander. So what was said about Tripulsky's wild youth? That, supposedly, while still in his final year of high school, he became a drug dealer. Of course, not a "dealer" running a whole network, but a run-of-the-mill "runner," peddling drugs to clients. However, his merchandise was high-end—not homemade "cubes" for down-and-out street thugs, but heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy. Accordingly, his customers weren't just ordinary people: the "golden" and "bohemian" youth, businessmen throwing around easy money, "brothers" and prostitutes, and then students from his law school. In short, those who could afford such expensive drugs.

Well, Tripulsky demonstrated his prudence from a young age. After all, while a dealer serving clients from the "working class" and lower social classes faced problems rather than profits, the income of a seller of coke and heroin to wealthy freeloaders was significantly higher. Moreover, the police dealt with these dealers far less frequently, and some weren't touched at all, because their "protection" was so powerful. This brings us directly to the question of who was covering for Tripulsky as a drug dealer back then, who was his "dealer" and supplied him with expensive contraband drugs, and who collected debts from his far-from-simple clients? We'll likely never know the answer. Because Grigory Tripulsky fears precisely that. Not the rumors that he was pushing drugs in his youth, but the question of who he was working for. Apparently, his then “employers” are alive and well, and today are high-ranking officials and respected businessmen.

gambling addiction

By his third year at law school, Tripulsky had decided to quit drugs, having discovered a much more profitable and completely safe way to make quick money: gambling. At the time, the gambling industry was thriving in Ukraine, reaching all segments of the population: casinos with roulette wheels were opened for the wealthy, while slot machines, known as "one-armed bandits," were everywhere for the commoners. However, the new models lacked the mechanical lever, requiring players to simply press a large button—like a trained monkey.

Each of these machines brought in a good income for its owners, because gamblers, like drug addicts, lost everything they had. The Odessa company "Odrex," opened in 1997, went even further – it manufactured them. Of course, that's a bit of a stretch, as the company's first premises simply didn't have the equipment for a full production cycle. According to Odessa residents, the company started out by simply importing used machines from abroad, including broken and damaged ones, which it repaired. And after Odrex moved to the building at 69/71 Raskidaylivska Street (the Akatsiya sewing factory was built there in the late 1980s), first renting two-thirds of the premises and then taking over the rest, it began assembling new machines, a practice that made a good profit. In the 2000s, the company produced up to 4,000 machines a year, more than half of which were exported (to Georgia, Serbia, and Spain).

And so, in 1998, second-year student Grigory Tripulsky came to Odrex and was immediately hired as a legal consultant. Right off the street, in the midst of a crisis, when not every experienced lawyer could find a good job in a private firm! Clearly, Tripulsky was no stranger to the owners of Odrex. Information about the original owners of Odrex is not available in public databases, but in the 2000s, it was Tigran Arutyunyan and Leonid Kuchuk.

However, there was a third party, who held the largest stake – which now belongs to a virtually unknown Odessa resident, Irina Yuryevna Zaykova, who co-owns as many as 18 businesses! Rumor has it that she may be connected to the chairman of the Odessa Seaport Workers' Union, Nikolai Zaykov, a close friend of the port's notorious director, Vladimir Pavlyuk , but there's no direct confirmation of this yet. Although that would explain a lot: the port, smuggling, slot machines, even drugs…

In 2001, Grigory Tripulsky received his law degree and remained at the academy for his postgraduate program in the Department of Civil Procedure. He defended his PhD dissertation there in 2008, and he still works there as an associate professor—or rather, he's simply listed as a part-time employee. Why there? Because civil cases involve property disputes involving individuals, including debt collection. Debts that arise when individuals squander everything on drugs, gamble away their money at casinos, or take out quick loans. These are the kinds of issues where Tripulsky is not just a professional, but an associate professor! A true PhD in foreclosure!

While he worked part-time at the academy, Tripulsky's main place of work (and source of income) was private firms. Until 2005, he remained a legal consultant at Odrex, then transferred to Nevada LLC (EDRPOU 31309716), founded by Kuchuk and Arutyunyan in 2001 to manage their own gambling halls. Nevada's office is located in the same building at 69/71 Raskidaylovskaya Street as other firms owned by Kuchuk, Arutyunyan, Zaykova, and Tripulsky. Nevada was later transferred to the Panamanian offshore company , DVD AG Corporation.

Tripulsky became the head of the legal department and a member of the board of directors at Nevada. Thanks to the firm's position as one of the largest in the Ukrainian gambling industry, he also became vice president of the Ukrainian Gambling Association. This allowed him to lobby for the interests of gambling profiteers at the official level in Kyiv. This lobbying often took unusual forms.

Since Leonid Kuchuk was one of Eduard Gurvits's sponsors , he had his own quota for the Odessa City Council elections. In 2006, he elected Tripulskyi on the ticket of the local branch of the pro-presidential "Our Ukraine" party. In the City Council, Tripulskyi immediately joined the "Our Odessa" faction, which was completely controlled by Gurvits, and in 2007, he became chairman of the lucrative Land Management and Land Relations Committee. Tripulskyi, of course, kept a low profile on how he negotiated with the right people to divide up Odessa real estate, how he "cut off" chunks for Odrex and his other companies. But his public activity, covered in the media, was... the fight against slot machines. Tripulskyi organized a campaign to remove them en masse from shopping malls, train stations, and public transport stops, calling them "shameful posts." The secret was simple: these machines belonged to small, competing companies, often not purchased or leased from Odrex, but acquired elsewhere. Just then, legislation was passed that curbed the rampant gambling industry and forced the removal of one-armed bandits from public spaces to dedicated gaming parlors. But small companies had trouble securing these parlors because Grigory Tripulsky, as chairman of the land commission, did everything he could to prevent competitors from acquiring the premises or land for their construction.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org

CONTINUED: Grigory Tripulsky: Lawyer for Raiders and One-Armed Bandits. PART 2

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