Alexander Shepelev
Apparently, someone very influential has a vested interest in keeping certain events of the past shrouded in secrecy. This concerns the theft of millions of dollars that occurred several years ago. It began before "Victor the Bloody" came to power. It continued under him, and likely still hasn't stopped. The head of financial intelligence, Igor Cherkassky, may know more.
At the beginning of July, the capital was rocked by a scandal: a notorious banker (former co-owner of Rodovid Bank, former people's Alexander ShepelevHe feigned illness and fled with his escort during a hospital checkup. The incident resulted in a serious debriefing and serious embarrassment for high-ranking officials of the State Penitentiary Service. But the incident soon began to be forgotten – reports of the escaped thief of hundreds of millions disappeared from the news feeds under the pressure of front-line reports.
According to investigators, Alexander Shepelev, together with businessman Pavel Borulko (more about it: Pavel Borulko: A Forgotten Legend of Banking Fraud) in 2008-2009 organized a fraudulent scheme to embezzle hundreds of millions of hryvnias in public funds for the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) refinancing. Furthermore, Shepelev, like Borulko, is implicated in several cases of organized murders and attempted murders.
As a reminder, Pavlo Borulko, who served as Viktor Yanukovych's aide during his premiership, was implicated in the theft of UAH 620 million from the Deposit Guarantee Fund. Investigators determined that these funds were embezzled by a group of individuals led by Pavlo Borulko, the owner of the National Standard, European, and Vladimirsky banks.
According to the website "Argument," after successfully embezzling funds allocated for recapitalization, National Standard and European banks were scheduled for liquidation. But P. Borulko also decided to snatch a share from the Deposit Guarantee Fund, which is replenished by contributions from all Ukrainian banks. This Fund pays compensation of up to 150 hryvnias to individuals who lost their savings as a result of a bank's bankruptcy. The swindler decided to take advantage of this.
On August 20, 2009, the day before their licenses were revoked, 1339 new accounts were suddenly opened at National Standard and European banks, primarily in the names of residents of the Cherkasy and Donetsk regions. Money was immediately transferred to the accounts, which, as it later turned out, came from the accounts of companies controlled by P. Borulko and his accomplices. The bankrupt banks immediately used this money to cover their fictitious debts to third parties, effectively returning the money. However, as a result of this operation, the "depositors" gained the right to demand 444,2 million hryvnias from the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals. And they successfully exercised this right. The real "depositor" was, in fact, P. Borulko himself and several of his trusted persons and associates: the chairman of the supervisory board of the European Bank, Mykola Novokhatko, the chairman of the board of the European Bank, Vladislav Astapenko, the chairman of the supervisory board of the National Standard Bank, Konstantin Krivenko, and the then chairman of the board of UkrBusinessBank, Sergey Arbuzov.
Pavel Borulko
The scammers didn't even bother with secrecy. So-called "depositors" were bussed to the bank, each given 40 to 100 hryvnias for their efforts, and then asked for a signature on an account opening application and a photocopy of their passport. Later, when the bank finally "folded," P. Borulko and Co. hired some Moldovan migrant workers, handed them photocopies of the passports of the people in whose names the accounts were opened, and took the Moldovans to the Deposit Guarantee Fund, where they each applied for 150 hryvnias in compensation.
But the greatest recklessness was demonstrated by Sergei Arbuzov. Since he was working in Donetsk at the time and couldn't devote the time to finding a sufficient number of reliable "Moldovans," Arbuzov sent subordinate employees of Ukrbusinessbank to the Fund, acting on behalf of the "depositors," using power of attorney.
It's no surprise that the "family," having come to power in 2010, itself utilized the schemes developed by Shepelev and Borulko. And on a much larger scale. But that's a different story.
Let's get back to our sheep. That is, to the bankers.
As soon as the chips were down, Pavel Borulko fled to Belarus. The Prosecutor General's Office, having gathered sufficient evidence, asked Lukashenko's "eagles" to extradite the fugitive. But they refused, vaguely citing that Borulko's extradition could somehow undermine their country's sovereignty.
Having lost his parliamentary mandate and, consequently, his immunity, Alexander Shepelev headed to Hungary. There, he stubbornly pretended to be a political refugee, but they didn't believe him and deported him to Ukraine in March of this year. As mentioned above, he spent just over three months in the Lukyanivske pretrial detention center. Now he's disappeared.
Those in the know will tell you that you can't just hand over suitcases of cash to the right officials and run away unhindered if you're the main suspect in a scandalous criminal case. First, you'd have to pay a very high price. Second, it's not a given that they'll catch you, and Shepelev is unlikely to have enough money left over to tempt the powers that be. We'd venture to guess that someone very influential has a vested interest in Alexander Shepelev's disappearance.
In investigative journalism (and not just journalism), a simple tool called the "timeline"—a comparison of the dates of events—is used to answer the burning question "who benefits?"
So, the Shepelev and Co. scams date back to 2008-2009. At that time, Oleksandr Shepelev himself was not only a banker, but also a full-time member of parliament in the Verkhovna Rada. He represented the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. At that time, the BYuT was the ruling party, and Yulia Tymoshenko was prime minister. The country was in the midst of a financial crisis, banks were collapsing into bankruptcy, and the government generously provided them with refinancing, which the bankers successfully plundered. And all of this was happening under the noses of the State Financial Monitoring Service, the financial intelligence agency within the Ministry of Finance. At the time, the State Financial Monitoring Service was headed by Ihor Cherkassky, a former BYuT member of parliament.
Igor Cherkassky
Financial intelligence at the time simply couldn't have been unaware of the shenanigans of Shepelev, Borulko, and their ilk. But there was no noticeable reaction. Were the agency's officials in on it? Or was there orders from above to turn a blind eye? Something suggests both. Moreover, it's doubtful that the swindling bankers were "working" solely in their own interests. They were not birds of a feather. Moreover, in 2008-2009, the National Bank allocated refinancing to banks manually. Not everyone who needed it could receive it, but only those who could. And the "treat" was given not only to those close to Yulia Volodymyrivna, but also to members of the Yanukovych "family." It's fair to say that the banking crisis of those years made many influential people significantly richer than they had been during the economic stability.
Then Yanukovych came to power. Stealing increased even more, but only those personally close to the "dictator" were allowed to do so.
After the victory of Euromaidan, some of those marginalized by the "family" schemes, while not personally returning to power, gained influence over decision-making at the highest levels. And they're unlikely to need Alexander Shepelev's testimony in court.
And Igor Cherkassky was again appointed head of financial intelligence.
Compromising material1
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