Konstantin Karamanits
One of the main swindlers who bankrupted FORUM Bank has been identified: Konstantin Karamanits. However, not only has he escaped criminal punishment, but he is now running for mayor of Kryvyi Rih as a candidate for the Renaissance Party.
The bankruptcy and subsequent liquidation of Forum Bank became one of the most high-profile cases of 2014. A systemic bank serving hundreds of thousands of clients and operating for nearly ten years, it suddenly collapsed in a matter of weeks. Many attributed the incident to a political conspiracy (the bank's owner, Vadym Novinsky, belonged to the ruling political party under Yanukovych), the ineffective management of the NBU as a state regulator, management fraud, and so on. Much has been written about this. The main unsubstantiated truth is that the actual cause was defaults on loans by legal entities, which ultimately brought down the bank itself. The scammers took out loans and defrauded other clients.
Krivoy Rog Mavrodi
Our journalistic investigation revealed that a group of businesses controlled directly or indirectly by Fedor Ivanovich Karamanits (born 1949) and his sons, Ivan Fedorovich Karamanits (born 1971) and Konstantin Fedorovich Karamanits (born 1976), has been operating in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, for over 15 years. Overall management of the business is exercised by Fedor Karamanits, the father. Below is a list of the businesses in which K.F. Karamanits and I.F. Karamanits are directly the shareholders:
LLC "Krivbasszhelezobeton"
LLC "Budivelnik"
LLC "Krivorozhzhilstroy"
OOO Promkanat;
Ferrum Mineral Processing Plant LLC;
All of the listed companies opened accounts with PJSC Bank Forum between 2004 and 2006, and also received loans. A review of the business reputation of the management and owners of these companies revealed documented evidence of a negative credit history with Bank Forum. The debt obligations of Karamanits' companies are presented in Table 1:
It's especially noteworthy that in all of these cases, the Karamanits family's group of companies opted to file for bankruptcy proceedings against the debtor companies. A detailed examination of the court records for these companies reveals that the bankruptcies were fictitious. For example, here's an excerpt from court case No. 901/2967/13 (the bankruptcy of Ferrum LLC):
“On 05.12.2013, before the Gospodarsky Court of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the Partnership with the associated jurisdiction “Promkanat” received a statement (w/n dated 29.11.2013) about the recognition of creditors in the world 272671,01 UAH. for the settlement of contracts with the borzhnik and 1147,00 UAH. for payment of ship dues."
In other words, Promkanat LLC, a company affiliated with and directly controlled by the Karamantsy family, filed a debt claim against another company affiliated with and directly controlled by the Karamantsy family during the bankruptcy hearings. A comparison of court documents for the other aforementioned companies revealed that a similar sham bankruptcy scheme was used across them as well. Thus, the Karamantsy group's main creditor, Bank Forum PJSC, was never able to actually recoup its loan.
A review of all available open-source materials on the Karamanits group of companies reveals evidence of document forgery during lending (deliberately non-performing loans) and a subsequent fraudulent bankruptcy scheme aimed at evading debt obligations to PJSC Bank Forum. This suggests collusion with Bank Forum's management, which could not have failed to understand that the collateral would not cover even 10% of the allocated loan funds. As a clear example, we provide an excerpt from protocol No. 11/11-14 dated November 11, 2014, concerning Krivbaszhelezobeton LLC (case materials No. 904/6549/15 of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Commercial Court, Judge S.A. Primak):
Interim liquidation balance is confirmed by the representatives of the Partnership with interconnected responsibility “KRYVBASZALIZOBETON”, 50000, m.KrivyRig, K.Marksa Ave., bld.1, office 407, code ЄДРПУ 32974860. Current balance of non-current assets - 1756,9 thousand UAH, receivables - 200,5 thousand UAH, cash - 2,8 thousand UAH, long-term debt - 5685,9 thousand hryvnias, creditor debt becomes 666,50 yew. UAH; main features, commodity - materiality - vіdsutnі. Thus, based on the filing of documents, the State Court established that the debtor's property is insufficient for satisfied creditors, whereupon He brought the liquidator to the Gospodar's court with a statement about the violation of the law against the bankruptcy debtor, the bolotot-trimanov and vindictive and the Gospodar's legislation for the voluntary liquidation of a legal entity.
Consequently, the overall situation with the Karamanits group's debt obligations indicates the presence of criminal offenses (forgery, fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy, and embezzlement). Given the circumstances of Bank Forum's bankruptcy, the facts uncovered regarding the Karamanits group can be considered one of the contributing factors to its bankruptcy. If an objective pre-trial investigation is instituted as part of the criminal proceedings, documented evidence of collusion between the Karamanits family and the former management of Bank Forum in the embezzlement of the bank's funds will be uncovered.
The result of such illegal actions was a catastrophic financial situation with the payment of deposits to clients of PJSC Bank Forum, who are the main victims of the Bank's "bankruptcy."
According to banking experts, the number of affected depositors of PJSC Bank Forum exceeds 135,000. The official website of the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals (https://www.fg.gov.ua) contains information on the funds allocated by the state to pay off deposits to clients of PJSC Bank Forum: UAH 3 billion 41 million allocated; UAH 2 billion 835 million already paid; UAH 206 million 700 thousand remaining to be paid. The primary funds for repaying this type of debt are provided in the form of loans from the Reserve Funds of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, i.e., from the State Budget of Ukraine.
Instead of getting their just deserts, the Karamanits family continues to operate in Kryvyi Rih, and Kostya Karamanits himself is running for mayor on the Renaissance party's ticket. This party's city council list includes people who are accomplices to the Karamanits family's crimes: accountants for shell companies, directors of shell companies, and even the person who physically provided loans to the Karamanits family at the local branch of Forum Bank. It would be great if this list could be used to jail them for ten years or so for financial fraud. As for the defrauded depositors of Forum Bank, the Karamanits family may be the individuals who owe you the deposits of the defunct bank.
Oleg Boyko, Antikor
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