Igor Gilenko: the elusive Joe from Nadra Bank. PART 1
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who fled to America, was accused of embezzling $280 million. Igor Gilenko, the former chairman of the board of Nadra Bank, who fled to Russia, is implicated in the theft of a billion dollars, but he hasn't achieved the same international notoriety. Moreover, after several half-hearted requests for his extradition, the Ukrainian judiciary completely forgot about Gilenko, as if he had never existed—and then the Ukrainian media stopped mentioning him, too. Too many influential people (including the current president of Ukraine) have no interest in Gilenko returning to Kyiv and testifying.
Greetings from Seva Mogilevich!
Gilenko is a very interesting character in recent Ukrainian history: he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, then vanished into thin air just as quickly. More precisely, he arrived from Russia, where he then fled, vanishing without a trace. All that is known about Igor Gilenko is his 12 years in Ukraine. But what happened before and after remains shrouded in mystery. And this adds even more intrigue to the question "Who is Mr. Gilenko?"
Igor Vladimirovich Gilenko was born on January 2, 1966, in Moscow. Immediately after school, he entered the Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communications (now the Technical University of Communications and Informatics, MTISI), graduating in 1988 with a degree in radio engineering, and continued there for his postgraduate studies. At the time, the perestroika-era USSR was already gripped by the euphoria of commerce, so Gilenko immediately found a job at a "scientific and technical center" (either a cooperative or a joint venture) established with the participation of the district Komsomol committee. Very quickly, their entire "science" was reduced to purchasing computers, television equipment, and communications equipment from abroad—which they then sold at a lucrative profit in Moscow and other cities. During this process, according to Skelet.Org , the young businessman Igor Gilenko became acquainted with the Moscow Solntsevskaya and Lyubertsy gangs, as well as with commercial firms created by the heads of the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the GRU.
What could they possibly have in common? People like Semyon Mogilevich—a criminal businessman whose connections extended from New York restaurants run by the "Russian mafia" to Russian oil companies founded by the relatives of Foreign Ministry officials and KGB generals. These people elevated domestic organized crime groups from the level of low-street rackets to the pinnacle of international corporations, while also providing important intermediary services to "businessmen in uniform." They also served as the link in the joint ventures of criminal groups, security officials, and government officials. But Mogilevich stood out from them for his breadth of scope: he had dealings in Russia, America, Europe, and his native Ukraine (he was born in Kyiv and studied in Lviv). These dealings and the people associated with them still hold high positions in the Ukrainian hierarchy.
One such case involved the Moscow-based Delta Bank, founded by businessman Igor Linshits and controlled by Mogilevich. It's worth immediately noting some of the methods used by Semyon Yudkovich to exert such control. He always avoided direct, official ownership of any company. Perhaps out of fear of having it confiscated, or perhaps because he considered company shares to be unreliable securities. Mogilevich had his own securities: the debt obligations of his employees. Their biographies often feature a peculiarity: they would once find themselves in debt to Mogilevich, sizable sums, which they would later repay in cash, selling their shareholdings or carrying out scams similar to the one that rocked Nadra Bank in 2008-2009. However, the details of this rather intriguing scheme have never been publicly disclosed.
So, in 1992, Delta Bank was founded, serving as the financial center of the Russian-American enterprise SAP (oil product trading). In 1993, both the enterprise and the bank were renamed Neftyanoy. It was at Neftyanoy Bank that Igor Gilenko began his career, spotted by Semyon Mogilevich and welcomed into his "family." He began under the guidance of Ilya Segal , who, along with his twin brother Vadim, had been "brought" by Mogilevich from New York. Segal also had big plans for Gilenko, who in 1994-95 diligently mastered banking science at the Manager Training Center at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. These plans were connected with the Ukrainian bank Nadra.
Igor Gilenko and the Bandit Bank
If a bank was founded by organized crime bosses and controlled by them for many years, then it probably couldn't be described as anything else. But Nadra Bank had another peculiarity: its owners were always Mogilevich's men—considering that oligarch Dmitry Firtash was also called his "foster child." So it turns out that throughout Nadra's history, it was passed on like a baton to one another by Mogilevich's front men. A curious scheme!
The bank's history can be roughly divided into several stages. The first is the creation of JSCB Nadra in 1993, founded by Kyiv-Donbass CJSC. This, in turn, was the joint brainchild of Oleg Asmakov's organized crime group, controlled by Mogilevich (involving the Konstantinovsky brothers ), and the shadowy coal mining schemes of Viktor Topolov and Mikhail Grinshpon , who was associated with Akhat Bragin's Donetsk organized crime group.
The second phase of Nadra's history began in 1997, when Kyiv-Donbass and Oleg Asmakov left the bank, their stake passing to the Segal brothers who had arrived in Kyiv. Igor Gilenko arrived with them, immediately appointed director and chairman of the bank's board. Meanwhile, Konstantin Masik, former first secretary of the Kyiv City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, former deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, and deputy prime minister in the Masol and Fokin governments, became chairman of the bank's supervisory board. His involvement in the management of Nadra Bank was frankly surprising and clearly demonstrated the ties between the criminal "authorities" and the former Soviet bigwigs.
Konstantin Masik
This period in Nadra Bank's history, when Igor Gilenko was already at its helm, was marked by the first high-profile scandals. In the late 1990s, tax audits revealed that Nadra Bank owed the state over 800 million hryvnias. A criminal case was opened, and the search for someone to blame was launched – the cashier of the Makeyevka branch was appointed as the culprit. The second scandal was the outright "cash scam" perpetrated by Kharkiv oligarch Oleksandr Yaroslavsky . In late 2002, he and Mogilevich's associates entered into a seemingly strange agreement: Yaroslavsky purchased 26% of Nadra Bank's shares, with the understanding that the bank would repurchase them after two years at a 40% markup. Apparently, Nadra (or rather, its owners) was desperate for cash at the time and was forced to borrow from Yaroslavsky under this scheme. Moreover, they had no intention of repaying the money. Just a year later, the bank's management launched an additional share issue, increasing the authorized capital from 54 to 80 million (and diluting Yaroslavsky's stake to 18%). The bank acquired new co-owners, and offshore schemes began to accumulate. Thus began the third stage of Nadra's history.
In 2003, 11 individuals and legal entities established the offshore (Virginia) firm "Universal Advisory Capital Limited." Among them were brothers Vadim and Ilya Segal, Igor Gilenko, and businessman Vadim Pyatov. How the agricultural oligarch Vadim Pyatov (owner of the Ukrainian-American joint venture "Agrokom-Ukraine") ended up in this company of "loyal Mogilevites" is unknown, as Pyatov is an extremely private figure, about whom far less is known than even Gilenko (according to Skelet.Org , it was Pyatov who became the bank's actual manager, handling all "issues," while Gilenko was relegated to the role of a simple "financial genius," not making any decisions but proposing his own "schemes"). Even the role of Universal Advisory Capital remains unclear: according to one theory, it became the ultimate shareholder of Nadra Bank, while another suggests it was the center of a scheme to siphon profits and launder money from the bank. Interestingly, the founders of this company (liquidated in 2010) list Igor Gilenko's Australian address: 71 Roslyn Street, Brighton, Vic 3186, Australia.
Universal Advisory Capital Limited Co-Ownership Scheme
In 2004, Yaroslavsky attempted to recoup his money by organizing a massive campaign against Nadra, ranging from lawsuits to invalidate the additional share issue to demands for the bank's liquidation. However, he achieved nothing, ultimately selling his stake to oligarchs from the Continuum Group ( Dyminsky , Lagur , Ivakhiv , and Yeremeyev). Meanwhile, the issuance of new shares continued: by the end of 2006, the bank's authorized capital stood at 362 million, a nearly fivefold increase in four years. While this process defrauded shareholders like Yaroslavsky, the core of Nadra's co-owners held on to and increased their stakes, distributing new ones among themselves.
Thus, in August 2004, the co-owners of the bank were: the Yaroslavl firm CJSC Ukrainian Metallurgical Company (18,2%), LLC Spectrum Mediamart Ukraine LTD (17,53%), JV LLC Agrokom-Ukraine (15%), an enterprise with 100% foreign capital LLC Progress (13,65%), the Russian LLC Consul-N (9,63%), LLC Rast (7,78%), LLC Start-K (7,75%), LLC Grand + (6,81%).
As of autumn 2005, the bank’s shareholders were: Spectrum MediaMart Ukraine Ltd. (20,697%), Progress LLC (20,161%), Agrokom-Ukraine LLC (17,715%), Consul-N LLC (9,5123%), Rast LLC (9,964%), Start-K LLC (9,851%), and Gloria LLC (9,761%).
By the summer of 2006, the composition of Nadr’s shareholders looked like this: Spectrum Mediamart Ukraine Ltd. (6,9%), Agrokom-Ukraine (24,9%), Progress (24,5%), Start-K (9,9%), Rast (9,9%), Consul-N (9,9%), Banergil-Proekt LLC (9,9%).
However, by the end of 2006, Nadra Bank shares began to be transferred to two Cypriot offshore companies: Manmade Enterprises Limited and Novartik Trading Limited, which by 2008 owned 60,99% and 30,74% of the shares, respectively. It was reported that Semyon Mogilevich, who continues to control the bank through the Segal brothers and Universal Advisory Capital Limited, was behind Manmade Enterprises Limited. However, the list of individual owners included Igor Gilenko (33,4%), Sergey Lagur (33,7%), Vadym Pyatov (18,6%), who had already parted ways with his Agrokom, and businessman Timoteusz Fleishar, who owned Dogmat-Ukraine CJSC, Eurocredit, and Euroremont. From this we can conclude that Manmade Enterprises Limited and Novartik Trading Limited were a kind of "offshore cooperatives" jointly owned by Mogilevich's people, the Continuum group, whose interests were represented by Sergei Lagur , and the secretive Vadim Pyatov.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Igor Gilenko: The Elusive Joe from Nadra Bank. PART 2
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