Vladislav Dreger: How one raider pecked out another raider's eyes. Part 1
On the list of Ukrainian raiders, he holds the honorable place of "second only to Korban." But although Vlad Dreger is inferior to him in the size of the enterprises seized and captured, he significantly surpasses him in cynicism and meanness, which he regularly displayed even toward his own associates. Formers of the bloody "17th Precinct" organized crime group have been plotting against each other for several years, and now they're even funding the separatists with their taxes, having high-ranking patrons in both Kyiv and Donetsk.
Vladislav Dreger. Under the Roof of the 17th Precinct
Vladislav Olegovich Dreger was born on February 3, 1973, in Slovyansk, then a little-known provincial town in the Donetsk region. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the Kramatorsk Industrial Institute (now the Donbass Machine-Building Academy), graduating in 1996 with a degree in management economics. According to his autobiography, Vladislav Dreger then went to work for the Slovyansk tax office, where he rose to the rank of head of the legal department in just one year. However, a year later, for some reason, Dreger quit his job at such a lucrative agency and transferred to the Slovyansk Oil and Fat Plant as deputy director of legal affairs.
The young graduate's successful career was due to his close ties to the Kramatorsk organized crime group "Precinct 17." Skelet.Org covered this group, infamous for its involvement in the murder of journalist Igor Alexandrov, in more detail in a story about Maksym Yefimov . A current member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, Yefimov hung out with the leaders of Precinct 17 in his youth and remains close to some of them. Yefimov also knew Dreger, although neither of them ever publicly acknowledged their connection. After all, they had such close mutual acquaintances as Dmitry German and Alexander Rybak: the former led a "hit squad" within the organized crime group, while the latter was a criminal businessman who invested Precinct 17's blood money into both legal and shady businesses. It was Rybak, German, and Konstantin Yavorovsky (a former Interior Ministry official) who joined them, who staged a bloody coup in the organized crime group in 1998, eliminating its former leaders, Yakovenko and Ermakov. And it was the attempt to publicize this information that cost Igor Alexandrov his life.
So, by the time he graduated from college, Vladislav Dreger was well acquainted with many of the "authorities" in the 17th Precinct organized crime group. It was these connections that helped Dreger launch a meteoric career in the tax inspectorate, which was abruptly cut short just a year later.
Apparently, he went far beyond the law, providing his acquaintances with necessary services. But his criminal friends didn't abandon Dreger; on the contrary, afterward, big business opportunities opened up before him. And Alexander Rybak introduced him to them.
Rybak controlled the business through UkrLiga CJSC (with an office in Slovyansk) and Donbass-Liga LLC. It was at UkrLiga that the young lawyer Vlad Dreger was hired. His areas of expertise included corporate law, securities acquisitions, stock manipulation, and corporate raiding. Dreger earned 120% of his fees: it was reported that with his help, Rybak "privatized" several large enterprises, including AIZ-Energia OJSC, which comprised three factories that were among the largest Ukrainian manufacturers of insulators and power transmission line fittings.
It was there, while working for the 17th Precinct organized crime group, that Dreger met and became close to his future business partner, Sergei Belogorodsky. According to Dreger himself, Sergei Belogorodsky, a native of Nizhny Tagil, Russia, arrived in Ukraine in the early 90s, allegedly fleeing conscription, and crossed the border on a bicycle, without a passport. According to other sources at Skelet.Org , Belogorodsky was associated with the Moscow-based Solntsevskie organized crime group and was hiding from prosecution. In Ukraine, this "refugee" was immediately picked up and warmed up by the local gang: he was issued a passport and given a job as a supply agent at Donbass-Liga LLC, and then as a commercial director at one of the enterprises of UKrLiga CJSC.
The investigation into the murders of Yakovenko and Ermakov forced their immediate liquidator, Dmitry German, to flee to Europe, and the subsequent murder of Igor Alexandrov also forced Rybak to flee—he was subsequently arrested in 2006 and found to be the mastermind behind the crime. The court ordered the confiscation of all his property, but by that time, the assets of UkrLiga and Donbas League had already been plundered by Rybak's former henchmen, including Dreger and Belogorodsky. Thanks to the fact that the 17th Precinct organized crime group had once again changed leadership, and the group itself was under close scrutiny from law enforcement and the media, associates Dreger and Belogorodsky were able to "steal" part of Rybak's capital and go freelance (moving to Donetsk) without having to explain themselves to the "brothers." However, Skelet.Org sources reported that their connection with the organized crime group (which still exists today) was not severed, and Dreger maintained some "business contacts" with his old acquaintances for a long time. This included using the gangsters' services to resolve "sensitive issues"—in other words, he used them. It is said that former members of the 17th Precinct are also among his numerous bodyguards.
Raider Kings
Having several shadowy figures behind him was essential for Vladislav Dreger, as he decided to continue and develop the business Alexander Rybak had introduced him to—the corporate raiding of enterprises. Only through this method did Dreger manage to become a multimillionaire and become one of the leading businessmen in Donbas (certainly below Akhmetov and Taruta ).
Having moved to Donetsk, Dreger founded the Heavy Machine Building LLC, and beginning in 2001, he began taking over the Koksokhimoborudovaniye (Koksokhimoborudovaniye) plant. Dreger and Belogorodsky's final takeover of the plant dates back to 2005, and by 2006, it was reported that the partners had divided the enterprise between themselves as follows: Belogorodsky received a controlling stake, while Dreger retained 12%. As with their other joint assets, a brutal war would subsequently break out between them for control of ZKHO.
The seizure and subsequent division of DOPAS, the Donetsk Regional Enterprise of Bus Stations, was a highly publicized and scandalous affair. This enterprise, founded in the Ukrainian SSR, comprised over 80 bus stations. In the 90s, it was privatized by the workforce, creating DOPAS OJSC, whose controlling stake quickly became concentrated in the hands of management. But even they were unable to hold on to it when DOPAS was attacked by Dreger and Belorodsky in 2003. They seized the enterprise through a two-pronged scheme. First, the main shareholders (V.L. Konovalova, L.A. Solovey, N.L. Arestov, V.Yu. Litvinenko, and L.V. Borodinov) literally had their acacias stolen. The theft was accomplished through forged signatures on share sale orders. The Dnipropetrovsk-based dealership firm "Ukrinvest," the Kyiv-based investment fund "KOOP-Invest," and the Donetsk-based CJSC "Registrar" were involved in this criminal scam. The shares were then transferred through proxies (homeless individuals) to Dreger and Belogorodsky, who then staged a sham shareholders' meeting (themselves and their associates). Following this, the assets of DOPAS OJSC were transferred to DOPAS LLC, a company founded by Dreger and Belogorodsky (which became DOPAS Private Joint-Stock Company in 2009). Dreger retained a controlling stake in this company, while Belogorodsky became a minority shareholder.
It should be noted that in 2003, the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor's Office opened criminal case No. 67-1072 regarding the misappropriation of shares, which successfully languished until 2007 and was closed by Interior Ministry investigator Anna Koval.
Dreger did not stop there, and in the following years, through raider takeovers, he annexed the enterprises of Donetskavtotrans OJSC and several ATPs (in Konstantinovka, Artemovsk, Snezhnoye and Torez) to DOPAS, absorbed individual bus stations and small transport companies, gradually monopolizing the bus transportation market in the Donetsk region. His auto transport empire rapidly expanded, and included the following: "Transport Union of Donbass," "Auto-Express," Magistral-2003 LLC, Donbass Bus Stations LLC, Donetsk Stations LLC, Donbassavtoservis, Sever-Avto LLC, and others. The successful business of this Slavyansk native in the "Donetsk gang"'s domain was explained by the fact that Dreger's associates included Alimzhan Idyatovich Bakhteyev, the husband of Tatyana Bakhteeva , who in turn was a "family friend" of Zhigan Taktashev (she worked with his wife) and a close acquaintance of such figures as Akhat Bragin, Rinat Akhmetov, and Gennady Uzbek. Thus, Dreger's entry into Donetsk was secured through the employment of Alimzhan Bakhteyev (he held an unspecified position at DOPAS) and a scheme that paid a portion of the profits to the Bakhteyev and Taktashev families. It was reported that part of this scheme included a monopoly on refueling all vehicles controlled by Dreger's companies at UNT-Vostok gas stations—owned by entities associated with the Taktashev, Bakhteyev, and Valitov families, including businessmen Igor Filippenko, Andrey Adamovsky , and Nikolai Gavrilenko (the current head of Ukrtransnafta).
Nikolay Gavrilenko
Dreger not only seized bus stations and bus companies, but also ruthlessly fleeced passengers and other bus operators operating in the Donetsk region. Specifically, he included a 20% "station fee" in ticket prices, plus a 10% fee for some services allegedly provided by DOPAS to the operators (in reality, no services were provided). As a result, interregional tickets sold in Donetsk were 20-30% more expensive than return tickets sold in Poltava or Kharkiv. In 2009, this led the Prosecutor General's Office to send a reprimand regarding DOPAS's operations to Volodymyr Logvinenko, Chairman of the Donetsk Regional State Administration . However, Dreger easily extricated himself from the situation by appealing to his patron, Tatyana Bakhteyeva.
But Dreger's involvement in the automotive industry wasn't limited to the Donetsk region. By 2010, he already owned 70% of the shares of NOPAS OJSC, a similar enterprise in the Mykolaiv region, and also seized control of the bus stations in Kherson and Odesa.
The next high-profile victim of corporate raiders in 2004-2006 was the Zuevsky Energomechanical Plant (ZUE) collective enterprise. Its troubles began back in the 90s, but whether its longtime director, Stepan Portnov, was solely to blame is difficult to say. For example, the media reported that Portnov attempted to bring the plant's products to international markets, even Western ones, but was told they would not cooperate with a collective enterprise, only with private ones (that's what a "free market" looks like in the West). Meanwhile, chaos and corruption reigned in the Ukrainian market, and corporate raiders also became interested in the Zuevsky plant. Then Dreger and Belogorodsky approached Portnov, introducing themselves as the owners of ZKHO and "industrialists." They placed a large order at the plant, and then offered to help him in a friendly manner—to ward off raiders, to re-private the company so that Western partners wouldn't shun it, and even to act as guarantors for a 30 million hryvnia loan from Mriya Bank. As their fee, they each asked for 12% of the plant's shares, but assured Portnov that 51% would remain his.
Having persuaded the old man, they created Zuevsky Energomechanical Plant, a closed joint-stock company, to which all the utility's real estate and equipment were then transferred. The proceeds were transferred to the account of a shell company, ChP TanLar, and were supposed to be used to purchase equipment, but... they disappeared. Then Vladislav Dreger transferred Portnov's shareholding (51%), but in such a way that Portnov could not fully manage it himself! Portnov tried to protest, but criminal case No. 67-2036 had already been opened against him for the illegal sale of the enterprise. This case was handled by the same Anna Koval, meaning Dreger controlled it (keeping it in limbo) and used it to blackmail the old man Portnov for over a year. And when Portnov tried to sell his shares in the fall of 2007, he was unable to retrieve them from the manager. Then, the plant's management changed: Portnov, who had been fired as director, suddenly returned and became chairman of the supervisory board, and Vladislav Dreger instructed Anna Koval to finally close criminal case No. 67-2036, apparently having reached some kind of compromise with Portnov. After this, Koval resigned from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and took a job as head of the Financial and Economic Security Department at Donetskavtotrans, applying her skills and connections to "resolve the issues" surrounding Dreger's corrupt dealings.
However, by February 2008, Portnov, having come to his senses, rushed to the media and the National Security and Defense Council (to Turchynov ), calling for protection from the raiders. But it was too late, and soon Portnov also lost his position as head of the supervisory board – he was replaced by Dmytro Sazonov, a longtime acquaintance of Dreger (they had studied together at the institute) and the manager of many enterprises. It seemed the raider partners had won again, but just a few months later, a dispute arose between them that would ultimately cause a falling out between Dreger and Belogorodsky, turning them into bitter enemies.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Vladislav Dreger: How one raider pecked out another raider's eyes. PART 2
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