Igor Kaletnik. The story of Ukraine's chief customs officer and his smuggler friends.
During Viktor Yanukovych's presidency, some key government positions were occupied by highly questionable individuals whose actions not only failed to contribute to the development of the Ukrainian state but actually seriously hindered it. One such individual is Ihor Kaletnik, former head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine and former Vice Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. During his 16 years of service in the Ukrainian customs system, he succeeded only in stealing customs duties. He was also an excellent family man, having placed almost all of his relatives in customs service. After the revolutionary events in Ukraine, he fled to Russia, but we continue to struggle with his legacy to this day.
Igor Kaletnik. Customs officer-smuggler
Since 1995, Igor Grigorievich Kaletnik has worked in the Ukrainian customs system. Starting as an inspector, he rose to the position of department head at the Vinnytsia Customs Office (remember that our Garant also hails from Vinnytsia and began his entire business there). In September 1998, he was appointed head of the Podolsk Regional Customs Office. It's worth noting that in the 90s, customs was a quasi-military organization that operated in two areas: first, collecting taxes from ordinary citizens, and second, operating shadow schemes that determined how kickbacks were extracted in exchange for "benefits" and assistance in resolving customs issues.
Igor Kaletnik's career began to rapidly develop in 1999, after his appointment as head of the Kherson Customs Office. Over the next three years, he managed four regional customs offices (Rava-Ruska, Halytska, Razdelnyanska, and Kherson). Each time he took over a new agency, Igor Grigorievich appointed people he deemed "convenient" to leadership positions. Furthermore, the official devised his own "corruption know-how." If a customs officer was caught taking a bribe, Igor Kaletnik, as head, would have to sign the documents and fire them. However, in exchange for a "fat envelope" of cash, he "accidentally" made a mistake in the dismissal document. The happy customs officers could easily run to court to appeal their dismissal. It's worth noting that Igor Grigorievich made many such "ridiculous" mistakes throughout his career, and, consequently, received his share of bribes. Essentially, he took bribes from corrupt officials so they could continue to hold their positions, receiving further bribes. Over time, so many employees in the customs agencies were "beholden" to Kaletnik that the tasks he assigned them were completed in a matter of hours.
Ihor Kaletnik owes his career to his father, Hryhoriy, who worked for a long time in Leonid Kuchma's team and even rose to the post of head of the Vinnytsia Regional State Administration. Having earned considerable financial resources through fraud in the Vinnytsia region, he secured for his son the position of head of the Western Regional Customs Office. This customs office could be called a "smuggler's paradise." It so happened that in the entire history of independent Ukraine, Ihor Hryhoriyevich became the youngest customs general. This appointment, at the request of Hryhoriy Kaletnik, was facilitated by Viktor Medvedchuk , then head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine.
Under Kaletnik, smuggling mechanisms were quite simple. One set of goods entered customs, but the documents revealed completely different goods, which didn't require paying hefty fees. Instead, entrepreneurs paid Kaletnik's customs assistants directly. The system was so sophisticated that all cargo passing through customs was inspected exclusively by his team. To finance this scheme, a company called Brokservice was created, headed by the renowned Ukrainian businessman Sergei Sporyshev. In fact, no one was given the go-ahead for customs clearance until the "regulatory authorities" resolved the issue. Only Brokservice could quickly resolve these "customs" issues, charging quite hefty fees for this service. Rumor has it that the proceeds from these schemes ultimately ended up in the pockets of Viktor Medvedchuk, who, in turn, provided extensive protection for Igor Kaletnik and facilitated his career advancement.
In 2005, following a random audit of the activities of the Black Sea regional customs office under the leadership of Igor Kaletnik, for the period from 2003 to 2005, auditors discovered a shortfall in customs payments, the total amount of which amounted to more than 30 million UAH.
The investigation results were sent to the Prosecutor General's Office, and its head, Svyatoslav Piskun, even initiated criminal proceedings. However, for unknown reasons, the most high-profile case of the time was transferred to the Odessa regional office, where it was successfully "drowned." It appears that Piskun received a substantial sum from Kaletnik for this scam, and considering that the case materials disappeared immediately after the case was closed, this is even more convincing. According to sources, Igor Kaletnik bought out his own criminal case to ensure that law enforcement agencies would have nothing to do with it in the future (apparently he knew this wasn't the last time he had broken the law).
After being dismissed from the Black Sea Customs Service, Ihor Kaletnik unexpectedly became a judge at Kyiv's Dniprovsky Court. According to Kaletnik, he received this position at the instigation of then-President Viktor Yushchenko. He ran for the sixth convocation of the Verkhovna Rada with the Communist Party. He served as a member of parliament until 2011, when the Communists reached an agreement with the Party of Regions to appoint him as Chairman of the State Customs Service.
Kaletnik's "Family" Customs System
With Viktor Yanukovych's rise to power and the appointment of Ihor Kaletnik as head of the State Customs Service, a powerful corruption system began to emerge in Ukraine. It had one goal: to enrich members of the "Family," which was just then beginning to gain full strength.
"Kaletynik's people"—or, more accurately, members of his family—began to occupy all leadership positions. After the end of the "Revolution of Dignity," Skelet.Org discovered that most of Igor Grigoryevich's family worked in the customs service in western Ukraine, primarily close relatives of his wife, Antonina Kaletnyk (maiden name Mrochko). All of them were appointed to their positions within a month of Igor Kaletynik becoming head of the State Customs Service. In addition to his blood relatives, five of his godparents, several classmates, and fellow students worked at customs. All of them worked for the benefit of "Kaletynik's customs network," happily fulfilling everything he asked of them.
Igor Kaletnik's "Related Customs Networks"
Another notorious relative of Kaletnik's is the former head of the Chop customs office, Sergei Kharchenko. It was he who was tied with duct tape to the "pillar of shame" by local residents during the revolutionary events. At the time, he rashly admitted to taking bribes and that he had only gotten into the service through family connections (his brother, Vitaly, is married to Igor Kaletnik's sister).
Sergei Kharchenko, tied to the wall of shame
Igor Kaletnik, "Apartment Scam"
In December 2014, the program "Schemes" conducted an investigation into the sale of Igor Kaletnik's apartment on Volodymyrska Street. According to his declaration, the proceeds from the sale were included in Igor Grigoryevich's income declaration, resulting in a huge sum—over 70 million hryvnias.
Read more in the story:
The "donation" scheme for an apartment on Vladimirskaya Street
Igor Kaletnik. "Draconian Laws"
As Vice Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ihor Kaletnik also distinguished himself, chairing the ill-fated parliamentary session that adopted the "dictatorial laws" on January 16. He organized a shortened procedure, without any debate. Notably, members of parliament voted by a show of hands. He later explained this procedure by saying that the "opposition" had simply confiscated the voting cards of Party of Regions members, and the vote had to be carried out somehow. That day, the Rada adopted more than a dozen bills that would likely never have passed the legal procedure.
And now the most interesting fact: during Kaletnik's tenure in various customs posts, two "smuggling kings" emerged in Odessa. These were Vadim Alperin, whom we wrote about previously – Vadim Alperin, the "King" of Odessa smuggling , known for the hijacking of the vessel "Faina" by Somali pirates – and Oleg Rybalchenko, owner of the company "PollyFruit," which smuggled citrus fruits, bananas, and kiwis. While Alperin found common ground with Kaletnik during his tenure as head of the Black Sea Regional Customs and the entire State Customs Service, Rybalchenko clashed with him and ended up serving a short time in pretrial detention.
With Saakashvili's arrival in the Odessa region, both smugglers are also facing difficult times. Interesting news on this matter is expected.
And finally, regarding Mr. Kaletnik: under his leadership, the Ukrainian Customs Service has completely collapsed, turning into a structure that serves businesses through illegal methods and exploits the Ukrainian market. Our economy continues to lose enormous financial resources due to the shady schemes launched by Kaletnik and his followers. His actions have effectively driven the Ukrainian economy into the shadows. According to experts, during the eighteen months that Kaletnik headed the agency, more than 38 billion hryvnias slipped past the state budget. Incidentally, this amount of money would have been more than enough to cover the Pension Fund's budget deficit. Meanwhile, while pensioners are starving without the promised payments, Igor Kaletnik is living a comfortable life somewhere in Russia.
Dmitry Samofalov, for Skelet.Org
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