Svyatoslav Nechitailo and his "Bayadera" family: two billion for Putin from the "Gorlovka poisoners" family. PART 2
CONTINUED. BEGINNING: Svyatoslav Nechitailo and his "Bayadera" family: two billion for Putin from the "Gorlovka poisoners" family. PART 1
Bayadere schemes
Svyatoslav Nechytailo and Natalia Bondareva's holding company still uses similar "techniques." For example, in 2015, the Prosecutor General's Office inspected the products of Bayadere's Nikolaev Koblevo Cognac Factory, with the analysis performed by Romanian laboratories (Ukrainian ones were simply no longer trusted). It turned out that Koblevo cognac had little to do with cognac, as it was made not from pure wine spirit (with a C3 alcohol content), but from a mixture of grain spirit (C4), which is of completely illegal origin (Turkish).
The aging of this surrogate in oak barrels was also called into question: it appears the spirit was simply colored with caramel (if only caramel!) and bottled. Such are the "traditions" that exist at the enterprises of Sergei Nechitailo and Natalia Bondareva! However, in this same scam, according to Skelet.OrgSome other Ukrainian cognac producers (Shustov, Bolgrad, Jean-Jacques, Borisfen), working through shell companies in Cyprus, Moldova and Georgia, also participated in the alcohol trade.
Svyatoslav Nechitailo and his "Bayadera" family: two billion for Putin from the "Gorlovka poisoners" family. PART 2
However, the counterfeit trade isn't the only source of Bayadera's colossal income. Its owners have long been among Ukraine's wealthiest individuals: in 2011, their combined net worth was estimated at $476 million, and the family business continued to grow rapidly! They also profit handsomely from tax manipulation, which Natalia Bondareva is well versed in, particularly VAT. Consolidated data on the Ukrainian alcohol market shows that between September 2013 and August 2014 alone, the National Vodka Company (a division of Bayadera) underpaid the state budget by 218 million hryvnias.
A criminal case was even opened on this matter in 2014, the existence of which everyone involved has now tried to forget. Meanwhile, the case had some piquant details: it was somehow connected to the companies of Iryna Barakh, the wife of Anatoliy Matios, who was appointed Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine in 2014. And so, on February 15, 2015, the Solomensky District Court of Kyiv issued a ruling denying the seizure of the assets of the companies belonging to Barakh and Matios, and simultaneously exonerated the chief accountant of National Vodka Company LLC from criminal liability. Let us emphasize – one decision in one case! What were they doing together, what schemes did they create?
Svyatoslav Nechitailo and his "Bayadera" family: two billion for Putin from the "Gorlovka poisoners" family. PART 2
This only emboldened Bayadera's owners to continue their tax evasion. Ultimately, in January 2016, a new criminal case was opened against the National Vodka Company for deliberate tax evasion totaling 240 million hryvnias. However, it appears this case, too, was safely shelved, as it has yet to receive any further action.
The National Vodka Company's "oil" corruption scheme was also quite intriguing and scandalous. It began with APK Vostok LLC and FG Lider, which allegedly grew sunflower crops on leased fields in the Krasnoarmeysky and Mariinsky districts of the Donetsk region. This territory was formally seized by separatists, but in reality lies on the front line, making agricultural work there questionable, and the origin of the crop raises numerous questions. These companies then pressed the oil and sold it to SFS-Trade LLC, owned by oligarch Sergei Tishchenko, who in turn was "under the protection" of a notorious fixer and coordinator of numerous corruption schemes. Sergei PashinskySFS-Trade then sold the oil to entities affiliated with the National Vodka Company (Nechitaylo and Bondareva) and ECO-Market (Bondareva), which then exported it to the offshore firm Apollo Management Limited (Seychelles). While National Vodka handled the oil exports, ECO-Market also sold the beans and cake.
During this scandal, it was revealed that the aunt and nephew had already managed to move their companies offshore. For example, the majority owner of the Bayadera holding company is Fadel International Inc. (Marshall Islands), and the National Vodka Company is owned by Miranda Enterprises Limited (Marshall Islands). This not only helps them avoid paying taxes in Ukraine but also keeps the full list of the company's shareholders secret.
Svyatoslav Nechitailo and his "Bayadera" family: two billion for Putin from the "Gorlovka poisoners" family. PART 2
But while Nechitailo and Bondarev consider paying taxes to the Ukrainian budget to be bad form, they regularly contribute to the Russian budget, and their revenues are growing rapidly. Back in February 2015, at the height of the battle for Debaltseve, Bayadera decided to make a major investment in the Russian economy. And, having registered its subsidiaries, Bayadera Group LLC and National Vodka Company LLC, in the Russian Federation, according to Skelet.OrgBayadera bought a distillery in Veliky Ustyug. Not only did it buy it, but it also invested tens of millions of rubles in its modernization—apparently from the money it hadn't paid into the Ukrainian budget. And by 2015, the Veliky Ustyug distillery was operating, increasing production and contributing half a billion (!) rubles to the Russian budget. The following year, Bayadera tripled these figures, gifting Putin another 1,55 billion rubles! It's safe to assume that Bayadera's tax payments to the treasury of the occupying country of Crimea will increase even more in 2017, giving Putin enough money to pay the Wagner mercenaries sent to Donbas.
And here's an amazing coincidence: in the same Veliky Ustyug, a very small town (only 31,6 thousand residents), there is another large alcohol company, "Russian North", whose owner is "Global Spirits" Evgeniya Chernyak (and Yuri Ivanyushchenko). And judging by the fact that they're not trying to set each other on fire or sue each other, it's quite possible that Yura Yenakievsky or Armen Gorlovsky are involved in both companies. Incidentally, the latter mysteriously disappeared in an unknown direction just before 2015, when his vodka companies were beginning to establish themselves in Veliky Ustyug. Furthermore, the choice of region also prompted some speculation: why Veliky Ustyug, which until recently was known only for its age (founded in the 13th century) and as the residence of Father Frost (since 1999)? Could it be that in 2014-2015, the Vologda Oblast, where Armenians were a handful, suddenly attracted the interest of Armenian diaspora organizations with the direct support of the Armenian government, proposing a large-scale economic program (from agriculture to metallurgy) to the Vologda governor? And didn’t he interfere in this program with his vodka companies and Armen Sargsyan?
Svyatoslav Nechitailo. Deadly ersatz products from "ECO-Market"
Svyatoslav Nechytailo has been a co-owner of Bayadera since he was an adult, but his mother and aunt ran the company, and after Olga Nechytailo-Ridzhok's death in 2012, Natalia Bondareva took over the reins. Nechytailo's own brainchild is the ECO market chain, a sort of continuation of his kiosk business, founded in 2003—just when the family moved from Horlivka to Kyiv. However, Svyatoslav Nechytailo opened his very first ECO-market in Chernihiv. There were reasons for this, some connections to the region, and one of these was reported in the media when in 2016 another scandal erupted around ECO-market, this time related to a deadly disease.
What happened was this: two customers at Kyiv's ECO-Market fell victim to botulism, the outbreak of which reached epidemic proportions in Ukraine between 2014 and 2017. Smoked and dried fish were the primary sources of the illness, but the ECO-Market case was unique and sent shivers down the spine, as the contaminated canned meat, "Home-Made Chicken 'Zdorovo'," from the Perviy Ryad brand, sold there was contaminated. Of course, in reality, there wasn't much meat in the canned meat, as the Perviy Ryad line of canned goods is a cheap, ersatz product for the poor, which is precisely the market for ECO-Markets. But even "meat" canned goods made from cartilage and skin must be produced using technologies that prevent the development of botulism bacteria—that's why we all trust store-bought canned goods. More precisely, they trusted – until this shocking incident.
The case didn't progress further only because the ECO-Market administration blamed the manufacturer of the ill-fated canned goods—they said, "We didn't know!" However, in reality, ECO-Market and the manufacturer (Chernihiv-based JSC "Ritm") had much more in common. Products under the "First Row" brand are manufactured by order of ECO-Market exclusively for sale within the ECO-Market retail chain. This means these canned goods weren't purchased from a wholesale warehouse; Nechitailo's managers entered into a production agreement with the manufacturers, stipulating both the cost and the technology.
But the "First Row" brand's product line isn't limited to this pseudo-chicken stew. It has two distinctive features: all canned goods are made from cheap, low-quality ingredients, and they're all produced by small, unknown manufacturers—often just "canning factories" operating in rented premises. At first glance, this seems like a petty scam, but the scale of this business is such that it suggests the existence of schemes for producing and selling ersatz products that generate billions in revenue. And not just through chain stores for the poor, like "ECO." Those who recently served in the Ukrainian army can confirm that army dry rations are of similar quality—the kind you can only eat after a forced three-day "diet." And these rations are produced by the same obscure "factories" commissioned by contractors who win Ministry of Defense tenders.
The scheme is incredibly simple: if you can make vodka and cognac from cheap, illegal alcohol, then why not make stewed meat and canned vegetables from illegal raw materials or even waste? And the use of small producers for this purpose is understandable: no self-respecting company with a popular, respected brand (like Chumak or Veres) would want to participate in such scams and lose its reputation by producing canned crap. But unbranded, shell companies have nothing to lose; even if they are shut down, they'll move their equipment to new premises and reincarnate as another LLC. As for the health of unsuspecting customers, that's always been the last thing on the minds of the "Horlova poisoners" family. Even when he was selling bootleg vodka in his kiosks in the early 90s, Svyatoslav Nechitailo treated his customers like animals—and that attitude hasn't changed to this day. This is evidenced by the numerous complaints and horrific reviews from customers of "ECO-markets." They spare neither adults nor children.
The security guards at the "ECO-Markets" are far worse than the infamous security guards at the "Karavan" shopping center, and in some stores, customers easily mistook them for thugs. In particular, these same individuals guarded the "ECO-Market" (and frightened customers) in 2014 in Krasnoarmeysk (now Pokrovsk), becoming YouTube stars.
That same year, 2014, ECO-Market became a fixture on mainstream television as Ukraine's worst and most problematic retail chain. This was sparked by the show "Inspector Freimut," whose host visited the ECO-Market in Kyiv's Troyeshchyna district. Olga Freimut's reaction to what she saw was, shall we say, quite nervous.
Then, "ECO-markets" became the subject of shows like "Revizor" and "Podrobnosti," and all of Ukraine learned about how they relabeled expired products, what else you could find in cheese packaging, and what rotten stuff they dumped in the produce section. It seemed as if the "signature style" of these markets had absorbed all the worst aspects of Soviet grocery stores and market stalls of the 90s.
But Svyatoslav Nechytailo obviously doesn't watch television, because after these scandalous television revelations, he still hasn't cleaned up his stores. Perhaps because he simply doesn't need it, and he runs his stores specifically to sell rotten and junk to Ukrainians, because that's how he makes his profit?
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
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