Sergey Verlanov: Conversion centers for "servants of the people." PART 1
Despite the fact that first Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then his Servant of the People party ran for office promising mass arrests of corrupt officials, their numbers in power have not diminished. It's just that, as always, some have been replaced by others, while others remain untouched. And people like the head of the Tax Service, Serhiy Verlanov, remain firmly ensconced in their posts. Now he's dragging his old friends, deeply mired in corruption scandals, to the capital, and they're dragging their aides along with them. The new government pays no attention to this—apparently because the "Servants of the People" also need conversion centers...
Sergey Verlanov, a lawyer for tax evaders
Verlanov Sergey Alekseevich He was born on August 6, 1981, in Lviv, to Alexei Fedorovich Verlanov and Kira Mikhailovna Verlanova (née Semenovker). He is the eldest son and has a younger brother, Mikhail (born 1986). Based on available information about his parents, they are either native Lviv Jews or the children of Soviet specialists and officials who "arrived" in Lviv after the war. Interestingly, on Odnoklassniki, they have very few Lviv friends with Western Ukrainian or generally Ukrainian surnames—mostly with Jewish and Russian surnames. Therefore, it can be concluded that Lviv national patriots and "raguli" from the surrounding villages are not among their circle of acquaintances.
Sergei Verlanov (left) with his father (middle) and brother Mikhail (right), 2008
Almost nothing is known about the occupation of the Verlanov parents. Kira Mikhailovna graduated from the Lviv Institute of Trade and Economics in 1980 and then worked somewhere in her field. Alexey Fedorovich became a private entrepreneur in the 90s and opened a car repair shop. But if rumors and fragmentary information from sources are to be believed, Skelet.Org, he was connected to criminal circles, participating in some shady smuggling schemes (a typical business of the time). This is likely why, in 1998, they sent their eldest son, Sergei, to study law at Franko Lviv National University. Beginning in 2000, while still a student, Sergei Verlanov worked for his parents' and acquaintances' firms as a legal consultant specializing in tax matters. He later specialized in this area, becoming a highly skilled tax attorney, adept at tax evasion. And his services were in high demand!
Sergey Verlanov worked for "various companies" until 2008. For some reason, these aren't mentioned in his biography, perhaps to avoid casting a shadow on this "young professional's" past—even though he's already sufficiently compromised himself in the present. As for his own business, Verlanov couldn't boast of any ventures of his own. He was the founder of Sporthouse LLC (EDRPOU 35715262) and three public organizations: the Poker Players Association (34711243), the Ukrainian Poker Federation (35562941), and Taxacademy (41895533). For someone so adept at exploiting tax schemes, this is far too little. However, there's an explanation: some people "make money" by evading taxes in their businesses, while Sergey Verlanov does so by helping others do the same. Therefore, he simply had no need for his own companies.
Then, using both his own connections and his parents' connections, he landed a job at a branch of the international firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). PwC is a brand under which independent firms providing audit and consulting services operate in 158 countries worldwide. The brand is not flawless—in fact, quite the contrary, as PwC has repeatedly been embroiled in scandals involving "poor service" (the audit of Satyam Computer Services) and involvement in shady tax schemes (the Yukos affair). Therefore, it's not surprising that such a tax genius as Sergey Verlanov was hired by PwC.
Once again, Verlanov's biography doesn't explain (or conceal?) what exactly he did at PwC, working there from 2008 to 2015. For now, we can only guess. However, it was during this time that Verlamov's friends and colleagues—primarily his classmate Vasily Kostyuk—initiated a flurry of activity creating tax havens and conversion centers. And, of course, these converters used his services…
Vasily Kostyuk
The Lviv "Tobacco" Mafia
According to media reports, Vasily Vasilevich Kostyuk studied with Sergei Varlamov and also became a lawyer. However, his legal specialization raised many questions. He called himself a "human rights defender." Meanwhile, commissioned advertisements about his firm were filled with rather strange, repetitive stories: his clients often included victims of fraud, corporate raids, and credit debtors. According to Skelet.Org sources, Kostyuk wasn't a noble defender of the people, but rather part of a larger scheme to swindle people out of their money. He knew these swindlers and raiders—businessmen, officials, and even gangsters—who never missed an opportunity to take on "suckers." But these "raids" were different in that the law was on the victim's side, only they didn't realize it. And then someone advised the victim to contact the “famous lawyer Kostyuk,” who would solve her problem “for a small bribe.”
But these "minor details" were a thing of the past, and around 2012, Vasyl Kostyuk became a specialist of a different kind and on a larger scale: he became one of the people who created and maintained conversion centers in the Lviv region. As you might guess, Kostyuk began doing almost the same things as his classmate Verlanov, but with the difference that Kostyuk directly carried out these operations through his shell companies, while Verlanov was involved in constructing the schemes and providing legal cover for them.
This entire mafia is well-hidden; its tax schemes only recently began to be uncovered, so it's difficult to say where it all began. However, one of its longest-standing participants is the scandalous Lviv businessman Grigoriy Kozlovsky. After graduating from the Lviv Institute of Trade and Economics in 1994, Kozlovsky took a job at the Lviv Tobacco Factory, then owned by the Ukrainian-American joint venture R.J. Reynolds Tobacco-Lviv. Almost immediately, Kozlovsky helped management resolve the complex task of clearing a large shipment of raw materials through customs, for which he was appointed deputy department head, and later became commercial director. Since 2010, Kozlovsky has been the factory's director and controls several tobacco companies parasitizing on it, most of which were created for sophisticated smuggling, tax evasion, and currency conversion schemes.
Grigory Kozlovsky
Grigory Kozlovsky
In the period 2011-2013, the Lviv tobacco factory created double scam, working simultaneously for both smugglers and conversion centers. It worked like this: the factory (through Kozlovsky's tobacco companies) sold individual cigarettes and the documents that accompanied them. The cigarettes were purchased by smugglers for cash, and the documents that accompanied them were sold to the converters, who used them to carry out their own schemes. At the same time, "excess" cash was dumped on these same conversion centers, and then this money, along with the fee for the documents, was returned to Kozlovsky's companies as laundered non-cash money.
It was through these tobacco-factory-linked conversion centers that Vasyl Kostyuk rose to prominence, becoming one of the most notorious currency exchangers in the Lviv region. And somewhere behind him, tax lawyer Serhiy Verlanov humbly huffed and puffed. But there was another key player in these schemes: Orest Vityk, who until 2012 worked in the Lviv Regional Tax Office's personal tax department, and then suddenly became deputy head and head of the excisable goods control department—primarily cigarettes. Completing this picture is the fact that Orest Vityk, according to media reports, is… a classmate of Serhiy Verlanov and Vasyl Kostyuk. At the very least, they all attended university at the same time. So, now we understand what unites these "three musketeers" of Lviv corruption!
Orest Vityk
It was Vityk who covered up these schemes on behalf of the tax authorities (later the Ministry of Revenue, then the State Fiscal Service, then the State Tax Service). The higher Vityk's position, the more widespread the corrupt officials' operations. When Vityk was appointed deputy head of the Lviv State Fiscal Service in 2016, Kozlovskyi transferred several key companies to his trusted partners, Serhiy Ponomarev and Andriy Chernyy, and an illegal VAT refund scheme (tens of millions of hryvnias annually) was also launched.
Vladimir Tsabak
The precaution was not in vain: the Lviv Tobacco Factory is considered one of the main producers of contraband products shipped to Europe, and these flows increased sharply after the second Maidan. After all, in 2019, even the factory searches took place, conducted by State Security Service and Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers. However, this had no impact on the criminal schemes rife there, nor on the fate of their "protector," Vityk, who was soon promoted to Kyiv—after all, his friend and classmate, Serhiy Verlanov, has been the head of the Tax Service of Ukraine since May 2019.
But the ranks of the "musketeers" continued to grow, and Vladimir Tsabak, another classmate of Sergei Verlanov, became the new head of the Lviv State Fiscal Service (Customs Service) in November 2019!
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Sergey Verlanov: Conversion centers for "servants of the people." Part 2
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