Sergei Chebotar: The Unsinkable Old Corruptor. Part 1
Avakov's former deputy's attempts to conceal his corrupt past and whitewash his equally corrupt present have failed to justify the time and expense. NABU has finally come to Serhiy Chebotar regarding the scandalous "backpack case," and now he's busy rescuing his hard-earned assets from seizure. He's not losing hope of returning to power once again—if not in this one, then in the next..
But the flip side of this matter is the political war that has broken out in Ukraine between the "Maidan parties." Yatsenyuk's "People's Front"Turchinova and grouping Avakova has been squabbling for power with the "Vinnytsia people" and the "family" for a long time now Poroshenko, and both are under attack from the NABU, which is on a tight leash with the American FBI and plays into the hands of the "Washington boys." The future of Serhiy Chebotar depends largely on who wins this dogfight, the outcome of which is rapidly approaching.
Sergey Chebotar. The Man from the Grocery Store
According to Skelet.OrgDuring 2015-2016, Chebotar fought so long and diligently to clear his reputation of "paid defamation" that he also thoroughly obliterated his entire past biography, which he hadn't talked much about anyway. Consequently, Chebotar's entire life story in the period leading up to his first public scandal (the passport case) was reduced to the short adage "born, baptized, married." Nevertheless, some fragmentary information about this has survived.
Sergey Ivanovich Chebotar was born on September 9, 1952, but for some reason he concealed (or deleted) his birthplace from all available sources. It's not even known whether he served in the army or spent his time in something more exciting. However, in 1982, our hero entered the Ukrainian Agricultural Academy (now the National University of Bioresources), graduating in 1987, but not with the intention of becoming an agronomist on a collective farm. Sources Skelet.Org It was reported that around this time, Sergei Chebotar got a job as a butcher at a Kyiv grocery store, and soon became head of the meat department. The older generation of Ukrainians still remembers that getting such a position in the 80s required significant connections. Whether his parents, relatives, or his wife's family were behind this move remains unknown. But their influence was sufficient for the young specialist, Sergei Chebotar, to become head of the Gastronomtorg department at the Moscow District Executive Committee of Kyiv in 1990. Just then, the country entered a period of horrific food shortages, so Chebotar was literally sitting on a gold mine—thanks to which he significantly improved his financial situation and made a wealth of useful contacts. He was also elected to the Moscow District and Kyiv City Councils, holding these positions until 1994.
But Chebotar's fortunes were fickle. In 1993, he suffered a misfortune, his first high-profile scandal. It was hushed up and covered up, but Chebotar was forced to flee the country. Rumors abound: Chebotar is said to have "mixed up the rams" and "screwed up" with Kyiv's criminal "authorities," so much so that negotiations and a payoff failed to resolve the matter. Thanks to his many connections, Sergei Ivanovich didn't have to wander abroad in search of work: he was placed at the Ukrainian embassy in Poland as an economic adviser. A few years later, Sergei Chebotar also found success in Warsaw, heading the trade and economic mission there—that is, tapping into a very lucrative "stream," since in the 90s, a significant portion of Ukraine's imports came through Poland.
However, as they say, he managed to get into some kind of scandal there too, so his career as a businessman in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not develop.
Perhaps this was somehow connected to the scandalous case of Ukrainian child trafficking that erupted in the late 90s. At that time, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the participation of officials from other agencies, a conveyor belt of Ukrainian orphan adoptions by foreigners was established—and the adoptive parents paid hefty kickbacks for each child. No one cared about the identities of the adoptive parents or the subsequent fate of the adopted children, and soon the media reported that Ukrainian children were being purchased in this way by slave traders, pedophiles, and "black transplant surgeons." The scandal briefly erupted, but, having implicated prominent politicians from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the People's Movement, it was hushed up by Kuchma in the run-up to the 1999 elections (in exchange for political support for the right). So, later, information surfaced repeatedly, including from former employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, that Sergei Chebotar was once involved in "child trafficking" - perhaps specifically in this case.
By the end of the 90s, many of the capital's "authorities" had already been shot, and nothing was stopping Chebotar from returning to Kyiv. He entered the new century as vice president of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (USPP). Interestingly, at the same time, he was a member of the USPP board. Sergey Kaplin, Chebotar's current implacable antagonist. I wonder what they were fighting about back then? Another thing is equally surprising: the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (USPP) has always been a "get-together" for businessmen and officials from the Southeast (especially the Luhansk region), and if Kaplin's presence there was explained by his closeness to Prime Minister Pustovoitenko, then who, and why, installed Chebotar as its vice president? There's even a curious "rumor" about how, back then, at the turn of the century, Kaplin and Chebotar were supposedly on the same team, but then, for some reason, they fell out so bitterly that they became sworn enemies.
Sergei Chebotar. From Medvedchuk to Turchinov
The milestones in Serhiy Chebotar's biography speak volumes about his numerous connections and ability to work for several masters simultaneously. In 2000-2001, he was an advisor to Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, and in 2001-2002, he remained in that position under Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh; in 2001, he received a job in the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, when it was headed by Vladimir Litvin, and continued to work there under Viktor MedvedchukHis responsibilities included liaison with law enforcement agencies and coordination of judicial reform; in Chebotar's hands, these became instruments of corruption and blackmail.
Later, several Administration employees even wrote a collective letter of complaint, detailing the personnel intimidation orchestrated by Serhiy Chebotar in 2002-2004. Taking advantage of Medvedchuk's policy of combating the impending "color revolution," Chebotar decided to carry out a purge of sorts within the Administration. He began investigating colleagues (especially subordinates) for possible connections to foreign organizations, embassies, and intelligence agencies. This wasn't out of patriotism or loyalty, but purely for mercenary reasons: Chebotar extorted money from those on whom he had managed to dig up some incriminating evidence.
Serhiy Chebotar extended his reign of terror beyond the Administration: his victims included businessmen and company executives who supported Viktor Yushchenko. However, sometimes Chebotar's actions were nothing more than corporate raids. For example, he initiated a large-scale raid by regulatory authorities on Truskavetskurort OJSC. According to various sources, Skelet.OrgChebotar had a hand in the large-scale election fraud of 2004, in particular by putting pressure on local courts and threatening to fire their chairmen.
But despite all this, after the first Maidan, Chebotar "inherited" the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, outlasting Zinchenko and Rybachuk. It was said that this happened thanks to Turchynov, whom Chebotar approached with a large briefcase of various compromising materials on certain people. And from 2005 onward, Chebotar again oversaw the work of judicial and law enforcement agencies at Bankova, taking full advantage of his position, earning a reputation in certain circles as a notorious "fixer."
Sergei Chebotar: The Unsinkable Old Corruptor. Part 1
Chebotar was removed from Bankova only when Victor Balogh, with whom he didn't get along. He received a new position as head of the department for the activities of justice and law enforcement agencies in the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, in March 2007, when Viktor Yanukovych headed the Cabinet, that is, at the very height of the government crisis. He remained there. Yulia Tymoshenko (They said it was at Turchynov's request.) As we can see, Serhiy Chebotar has never been known for his political integrity, and his life's credo is to hold a good position under any government.
Sergei Chebotar
Oil and passports
After so many years of various machinations, sooner or later Chebotar was bound to be embroiled in a major public scandal. And this happened in 2008, twice! Then, while still in the Cabinet Secretariat, Chebotar was also promoted to sixth (!) deputy minister of the Cabinet of Ministers. This position eloquently testified to the fact that the Ukrainian government's bureaucracy continued to expand by leaps and bounds. However, times were changing, and instances of corruption quickly became publicly known through the media, primarily online.
Sergei Chebotar: The Unsinkable Old Corruptor. Part 1
First, in March 2008, Chebotar became a participant in the next confrontations around the Kremenchug Oil Refinery, which was owned by the company Ukrtatnafta" Two parties were vying for control: the Privat Group, which already controlled the plant through the new head of Ukrtatnafta, Pavlo Ovcharenko, and minority shareholder (1,5%), Gennady Korban, and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who stated that she wanted to "return the plant to the state" by transferring 18% of Ukrtatnafta shares to the state-owned enterprise Naftogaz (in addition to the existing 43%). However, as the media reported, Tymoshenko actually wanted only to lay her hand on these shares, and at the same time transfer the plant to the control of her protégé. Sergei Pashinsky, who was a raider like Korban. Chebotar's role at the time was to organize a meeting of Ukrtatnafta shareholders, with the aim of removing Ovcharenko and subsequently seizing the refinery, which was guarded by Internal Troops. He later personally reported the events to Tymoshenko in an official letter, complaining about Baloha, the head of the presidential secretariat, who had sided with Korban and Privat. In this extremely dirty and convoluted affair, Chebotar's name constantly appeared in the media—and thus he gained his first notoriety.
A few months later, Sergei Chebotar became embroiled in a high-profile passport scandal that ultimately led to his dismissal. The scandal stemmed from the activities of the state-owned enterprise "Resursy-Document" (which produced and issued documents), which had been managed since 2004 by Vladimir Shvachko, a man with a highly odious reputation who had turned the enterprise into a source of his own enrichment. And not only his own, since its continued viability was always ensured by the protection of very high-ranking officials—which, of course, came at a price.
Vladimir Shvachko
In 2007, the media reported on the machinations of Shvachko and his Resursy-Document company. Essentially, what was revealed was what Ukrainians applying for international passports had been facing for several years: a system of extortion that significantly increased the cost of obtaining a passport. Moreover, fees for "additional services" were transferred to the accounts of Dobrobut Insurance Company, Prosto Strahuvannya Insurance Company, and other companies controlled by Shvachko and his brother-in-law, Yuriy Prudnikov. They "earned" between 100 and 350 hryvnias on each passport—at a time when international passports were being issued in the hundreds of thousands! However, Shvachko's "sharashka" company, as they say, ignored the media reports. Troubles befell him only after this profitable business was snatched away from him by Vasily Nikolaevich Gritsak, a member of the Party of Regions and former head of the logistics department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (not to be confused with the SBU member Vasily Sergeyevich Gritsak), whose first wife was his niece. Leonid KravchukGritsak lobbied for the EDAPS consortium, seeking to transfer the rights to produce international passports to it, and therefore advocated for a transition to new passports: first with a polycarbonate page onto which data and photos were laser-applied (adopted in 2007), and then to electronic passports with chips and biometric data. Shvachko, lacking the capacity to produce such passports, defended the old, paper documents from the 1994 model, with paper pages and glued-in photos. Furthermore, media reports indicated that Shvachko's 1994-model paper passports were selling well on the black market, fetching up to $5.
EDAPS received an order to print the plastic pages of the new passports, but Shvachko's company persisted in the market and staked its claim to the entire document issuance system. Then Gritsak went all-in, initiating an audit of the Resursy-Document state enterprise, which uncovered embezzlement of 4,43 million hryvnias. This allowed the Party of Regions, literally in the final days of Vasyl Tsushko's team's tenure at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to decide to liquidate Resursy-Document. However, the government changed, and Shvachko was in no hurry to implement the "old regime's" decision: Resursy-Document continued to operate until the spring of 2008, and then, with the assistance of the new Minister of Internal Affairs, Yuriy Lutsenko, it was replaced by a new state enterprise, Document—effectively a clone of the former enterprise (they even shared the same registration number).
One might wonder, what does Chebotar have to do with this? But he, along with the new Deputy Prime Minister, Turchynov, began actively lobbying for the creation of a separate State Migration Service (SMS), which would be responsible not only for issuing passports but also many other documents, including driver's licenses.
Moreover, in 2009, Chebotar and Turchynov attempted to create a separate registry for the State Migration Service, while simultaneously blocking the creation of the Unified Registry of Ukraine. The same State Enterprise "Document" was tasked with creating the electronic registry for the State Migration Service, and they hired some students off the street to do it—in other words, with blatant violations of all procedures and laws regarding the privacy of Ukrainian citizens' personal data. At the time, the media noted that this registry could be used by Tymoshenko's team to attempt election fraud.
This service was, in fact, created by Cabinet of Ministers decree, several times in a row, as these decrees were vetoed three times by President Yushchenko (the war between the prime minister and the president was already in full swing). At the same time, Chebotar repeatedly sided with the interests of the State Enterprise "Document." For example, it was Chebotar who actively delayed and blocked Ukraine's transition to biometric passports—which would have been manufactured by EDAPS—and advocated for regular paper passports, manufactured and issued by the State Enterprise "Document." He also pushed through the decree of Kambin, which in July 2009 transferred 10 million hryvnias from the reserve fund to "Document" for the alleged compilation of a registry of state migration service personnel. The fate of this money is unknown, since Shvachko, as noted above, entrusted the compilation of the registry to unemployed young people recruited from the streets for pennies.
Moreover, Chebotar later insisted (in an official letter to Turchynov) that the Cabinet of Ministers, through Resolution No. 1184 of October 20, 2009, authorize the issuance of 50 (Chebotar had requested 90) old-style 1994 passports, ostensibly for Ukrainians with specific religious beliefs (which did not include the Ukrainian citizen identification code). It should be noted that these passports were in demand on the black market.
Finally, in January 2010, in the midst of the elections, an attempt was made to raid the Ukraina Printing Plant by members of Tymoshenko's team. It's worth remembering that, firstly, the Ukraina Printing Plant was then controlled by the EDAPS consortium and Gritsak, and secondly, the plant was producing ballots for the presidential elections. Tymoshenko's team claimed that the Party of Regions was printing counterfeit ballots at Ukraina to rig the elections, and they attempted to seize control of the plant. Serhiy Chebotar, who practically coordinated the takeover, was also involved. However, the election issue was the least of his interests, as the plant itself, which Vladimir Shvachko had long coveted, was at stake.
But big politics brought about changes: Yanukovych won the 2010 elections, after which Serhiy Chebotar was fired, and a few months later Volodymyr Shvachko's business collapsed, leaving EDAPS dominating the document issuance system. However, after the second Maidan, everything changed again: EDAPS was crushed (not without the help of Chebotar, who became Avakov's deputy), and the State Enterprise "Document," headed by Shvachko, regained control of the passport system. And judging by their recent advertising (the express passport service costs 3500 hryvnia), they are doing well!
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Sergey Chebotar: The Unsinkable Old Corruptor. Part 2
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