Sergey Kurchenko
The criminal cases brought against the wanted founder of VETEK are stuck in the Prosecutor General's Office. And rumor has it that Kurchenko has every chance of reaching an agreement with prosecutors to shift the blame entirely to the perpetrators.
Law enforcement agencies began investigating the "young oligarch" Serhiy Kurchenko, who fled to Moscow immediately after the collapse of Viktor Yanukovych's regime, early in his professional career. According to sources at SLED.net.ua, Kurchenko was under investigation in 2010-2011 by the Security Service of Ukraine, then headed by Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, a close associate of Dmytro Firtash. The SBU became interested in the liquefied gas distribution schemes established by Kharkiv companies affiliated with him. As intelligence officers discovered, more than 50 companies were involved in the scheme, and at its apex was a firm created by Kurchenko, Gazukraina-2009, registered to a front man. Kharkiv residents participated in specialized auctions selling liquefied natural gas produced by Ukrnafta and Ukrgazvydobuvannya for public consumption. They purchased it at starting prices, cutting out all competition, and then resold it at two to three times the price, generating $30-40 million in profits per month. However, the case was never brought to fruition due to the intervention of Kurchenko's main patron, Artem Pshonka—Viktor Yanukovych's godson and the son of Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka. As a result, all cases were closed, and the evidence of the scam, which had led to Kurchenko facing a lengthy prison sentence, was destroyed.
This year, several agencies simultaneously began investigating Kurchenko—primarily the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office. On February 24, the Main Investigative Department of Avakov's department launched an investigation into the illegal actions of officials of the VETEK group of companies, founded by Kurchenko after his public appearance in 2012. As SLED.net.ua has discovered, investigators established that, in 2013-2014, petroleum products were imported into Ukraine under the guise of onward transit. In reality, they were sold within Ukraine without paying the required taxes, fees, and charges. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this criminal scheme involved companies controlled by Kurchenko, through which petroleum products were imported into the country and then, using fictitious documents, supposedly re-exported to offshore companies. In fact, they were stored at oil depots located in the Kirovohrad, Rivne, Cherkasy, Odesa, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Khmelnytskyi regions, and sold to domestic consumers on behalf of Gazukraina-2009 LLC, and later Gazukraina-2020 LLC, a representative office of Soprema Trading, and Trading House Vetek LLC, for a total of approximately 36 billion hryvnias. The scheme also involved the Odesa Oil Refinery, which Kurchenko purchased from Lukoil in mid-2013. It allegedly received imported petroleum products, which he then shipped under export documents.
On the topic: Kurchenko plans to return to Ukraine and has already "resolved" all issues. Except for smuggling (documents)
At the same time, the Prosecutor General's Office became involved. In the spring, it announced an investigation into Kurchenko's involvement in a fictitious deal concluded with Naftogaz Ukrainy in December 2012 for the acquisition of petroleum products by Gazukraina-2020 LLC, which caused the state-owned company nearly 400 million hryvnias in losses. During the investigation, VETEK's cash, movable property, and immovable property worth 2 billion hryvnias were seized, and Kurchenko was placed on an international wanted list.
Several months have passed since then, but law enforcement has yet to make any progress in the investigation. SLED.net.ua has learned that the investigation into the most high-profile cases involving Kurchenko and VETEK has been taken over by the Prosecutor General's Office's Main Investigative Department, which was appointed head of the Lviv Prosecutor's Office in August of this year. His first deputy was Svyatoslav Lahanyak, another former Lviv Oblast Prosecutor's Office alumnus. Since then, the investigation has become increasingly focused on identifying those responsible. This may be due to the increased activity of the Kharkiv schemer, who is rumored to be desperately trying to reach an agreement with the Prosecutor General's Office leadership. And, as the recent scandals involving Vitaliy Yarema and his deputies have shown, they can be considered people who are not immune to "everything human." Kurchenko's main goal is to shift the blame from him to the perpetrators, who will bear the brunt of the schemes of their boss, who has fled to Moscow. And he's already achieved some success in this field. SLED.net.ua will reveal exactly what these successes are in an upcoming publication.
To be continued
Roman DMITRYUK, SLED.net.ua
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