Petr Vovchuk
The prosecutor's office assessed the state's plans to purchase the Ukrainian National Stevedoring Company as an attempt to embezzle 200 million hryvnias from the budget. This amount of damage is specified in the criminal case file, the text of which was reviewed by Glavkom.
Investigators suspect two top managers of the agricultural operator State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine (SFGCU) of attempting to embezzle millions of dollars: board chairman Petro Vovchuk and his subordinate. Also charged in the case are Odesa City Council members Stanislav Yakovlev and Yuriy Kruk. The latter also heads the state-owned Illichivsk Commercial Sea Port. According to media reports, law enforcement agencies have allegedly made similar accusations against his brother, Vyacheslav Kruk.
The suspicions stem from a media-high-profile deal that was never completed due to law enforcement interference. As the Security Service recently reported, law enforcement officials prevented the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine from completing the purchase of more than 50% of the authorized capital of the Ukrainian National Stevedoring Company (UNSC). The Antimonopoly Committee approved the deal in late summer.
Yuri Kruk Jr.
Yuri Kruk Jr.
According to Forbes, the new asset was intended to expand the company's grain handling capabilities for export. However, the publication noted that UNSC is currently not technically ready for this, as it specializes in handling unitized, not bulk, cargo.
The planned acquisition by the State Food and Grain Corporation is hardly attractive for another reason. The stevedoring company is unprofitable and unable to repay even its relatively small debt to the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority. Back in the spring of this year, UNSC, in its insistence on an installment plan, cited its dire situation: the company ended 2013 with a loss of 8 million hryvnias, and as of December, it had only 8 hryvnias in its accounts, while wage arrears reached almost 400 hryvnias.
Another fact suggests that the State Food and Grain Company was buying a pig in a poke. The Ukrainian National Stevedoring Company was established in the early 2000s on the basis of Berth No. 14 of the Odessa Sea Trade Port. UNSC General Director Anatoly Mogilny clarified to Glavkom that private companies cannot own or lease berths in Ukraine—the company merely uses the port under a contractual agreement with the state. UNSC owns only warehouse space and port equipment. Together with its sister freight forwarding firm, the Ukrainian National Transport Company, the companies form a transport holding company whose facilities can handle up to 150,000 tons of rolled metal, paper, lumber, citrus fruits, and automotive equipment. The UNSC terminal handles vessels with a draft of up to 10 meters and a length of up to 250 meters. Mogilny claims he is not privy to the details of the deal with GPZKU, does not have information on the financial performance of the company he manages, and does not know the source of the 200 million hryvnias, which apparently represented a share of UNSC's authorized capital of over 50%. The top manager advised addressing all these questions to the owners of the stevedoring company.
UNSC's founder is the Cypriot company Grandbis Holdings Limited, but media reports indicate that the real owners are the Odesa-based Kruk family. Among them are Yuriy Kruk, a well-known member of parliament from the Party of Regions (who left the faction last winter), and his sons, Yuriy Kruk and Vyacheslav Kruk (the former is an Odesa deputy and director of the Illichivsk Commercial Sea Port, the latter is also a local city council member). According to Mogilny, Yuriy Kruk Jr. was previously among the company's owners, but he is unaware of who is currently behind the Cypriot founding company. At the time of publication, Glavkom had not received any comment from the Kruks.
The Ukrainian National Transport Company is located at the same address in Odesa as UNSC, and they share a website. According to the State Enterprise Information and Resource Center, this freight forwarding company is officially owned by Yuriy Kruk Jr. and Stanislav Yakovlev. Now they are also facing a joint criminal case on suspicion of attempting to embezzle millions from the state treasury.
At the end of September, both were arrested but subsequently released on bail. Bail was set at 365 hryvnias for each. Petro Vovchuk, the chairman of the state corporation's board, also paid the same amount and remained free. Investigators demanded that all suspects in the "200 million case" be remanded in custody, as they face up to 12 years in prison and confiscation of property. However, this argument failed to convince the judges. Neither did the prosecutors' arguments that there was a risk the suspects would flee the country through the uncontrolled eastern borders and have their property transferred to proxies.
On the website of the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine, the suspect Vovchuk is still listed as the chairman of the board.
On the website of the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine, the suspect Vovchuk is still listed as the chairman of the board.
As a reminder, the SBU previously reported that during searches at the Ilyichevsk port and the State Food and Grain Company, documents were seized indicating that certain State Food and Grain Company executives had illegally opened accounts in foreign banks and registered offshore companies for use in illegal activities.
Eric Naiman, managing partner of the investment company Capital Times, previously commented on the high-profile arrests:
"...a search is underway at the office of our company, Capital Times, which I link to the Kruk case in connection with the planned deal. Capital Times is acting as a consultant for the seller in this deal. Yuriy Kruk owns a stake in the seller's company. By court order, we provided documents of three employees and their computers to the investigative team consisting of the prosecutor's office and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)—everything related to the PZKU deal. However, now they are attempting to search (partially seize) other documents and the company's computers. This threatens to cause material and moral damage to the company and its clients." The illegal methods of our system continue. The Yanukovych era is over, but the dirty people and methods remain. I also don't rule out the possibility that this is an attempt to influence me after my criticism of the authorities' recent actions (although I think this is simply a banal attack on the Kruk family, and they are trying to extract money from us or information about other clients under the guise of a "special operation"). Glavkom contacted a financial expert, but Naiman declined to comment on the matter.
Law enforcement agencies may have their own counterarguments, as the controversial purchase was made by a company with debts several times greater than the value of the stake in UNSC being acquired. According to media reports, SFGCU's losses from January to June exceeded 600 million hryvnias, and the company's debt, including obligations to the Export-Import Bank of China, is approaching 20 billion hryvnias. Before joining SFGCU, Petro Vovchuk, the head of the state grain corporation, spent five years as deputy chairman of the board of the state joint-stock company "Khlib Ukrainy," the parent company of the State Food Corporation. Furthermore, for the last four years, under Yanukovych's rule, he headed the SFGCU Land Fund division, which was responsible for land acquisition throughout Ukraine.
Politrada
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