The thieves' "Family" began evacuating its assets long before the Maidan.
Yanukovych's team began withdrawing assets from businesses several months before fleeing the country. According to information from the Register of Court Decisions, over four billion hryvnias were siphoned off from Real Bank, controlled by the former president's entourage, to unknown companies last year.
On May 2, a luxury yacht under the Panamanian flag arrived from the harbor of the Greek island of Patmos and departed shortly afterward from the shores of the "Pearl of the Mediterranean," Rhodes. A typical cruise for locals, but for the four-deck VIP yacht Bandido, this was her first cruise in over a year.
A vessel with a telling name and a price tag of 6 million euros impressed Ukrainians several years ago when it appeared at Oleksandr Yanukovych's Balaklava yacht club. Journalistic investigations followed, claiming the yacht belonged to the president's son.
Bandido's May voyage across the Aegean Sea was recorded by online resources tracking maritime movements. While the yachting voyage was underway, a tragic event occurred in Ukraine: clashes in Odesa claimed the lives of approximately fifty people. A few days later, fugitive former President Viktor Yanukovych would blame the Ukrainian authorities for these deaths. Whether the former official learned of the Odesa tragedy in the Mediterranean or near Rostov-on-Don is unlikely to be determined.
Vessel traffic monitoring reveals something else: the "presidential" yacht left Ukraine last spring, bound for Patmos, where it has been moored for over a year. The island is home to holiest Christian sites—the Monastery of St. John the Evangelist and the Cave of the Apocalypse, where the apostle heard the voice of God. This makes it a significant neighbor for the Yanukovych family, who have long demonstrated their piety.
It was in the spring and summer of 2013 that the head of state's inner circle began actively withdrawing assets from Ukraine. Against the backdrop of the capital flight that began then, the expensive yacht now seems like a drop in the bucket. The first instance court has uncovered some details of this major exodus.
According to information available in the Unified Register of Court Decisions, over four billion hryvnias were siphoned off from Real Bank alone, which is part of Kurchenko's business structures, last year. The money was siphoned off in the form of loans to little-known companies.
"Guys, delete this number. I'm tired of repeating it, there's no Fashion Mobile here," replies a male voice on the phone number listed in the Simferopol company's registration details. This company received a 470 million hryvnia loan from Real Bank exactly one year ago and hasn't repaid a penny.
The financial institution has three dozen such borrowers. The debts began accumulating in the spring of 2013, when the bank began actively issuing multimillion-dollar loans. In Simferopol alone, 1,5 billion hryvnias flowed into the accounts of ten local firms with no business history or market presence in 2013.
On the topic: Kurchenko and the "Family" withdrew more than 4 billion from Real Bank alone in a year.
The NBU came to the rescue, providing the bank with refinancing of almost a billion hryvnia in November 2013. Real Bank's generosity auction accelerated with the onset of the Maidan, when Yanukovych's entourage was already packing its bags.
The bank's haste to part with its money is illustrated by a 400 million hryvnia loan issued to the Kyiv-based firm Progress Inside during the short break between the New Year holidays, on January 3, 2014. Representatives of this and other borrowing companies are impossible to contact: the phones in their offices are either not answered or the numbers are disconnected.
Anything publicly available about the borrowing companies does not reflect well on the financial institution. Some of them were featured in investigations into Serhiy Kurchenko's dubious business activities. For example, Ukrenergorynok, a company close to him, borrowed 30 million hryvnias from bankers, even though, according to media reports, the previous year it had earned over 1 billion hryvnias through shady gas sales schemes.
Kurchenko wasn't the only one in a hurry. The SMIDA information disclosure system contains a revealing report from December 13, 2013. A shareholder of the Komsomolskaya Central Processing Plant withdrew over 160 million hryvnias from the company's authorized capital. This occurred a couple of days after the Berkut's failed attempt to disperse the Euromaidan protests.
On topic: As soon as the Maidan began, Yanukovych withdrew 160 million from his coal company
PJSC Komsomolskaya is the legal successor to the Donbas Settlement and Financial Center, one of the largest coal traders in the country with a multi-billion dollar turnover. The company includes five coal processing plants and is directly linked to Oleksandr Yanukovych's MAKO Holding Corporation.
Moreover, before former head of state Yanukovych's flight, a wave of changes swept through the nest of companies famous for their involvement in the Mezhyhirya project. Tantalit, the company that owns the residence, was acquired by Party of Regions MP Serhiy Klyuyev.
In December, the architectural and construction company Inteb, which had designed the living quarters of Yanukovych's presidential residence and hunting grounds in Sukholuchye, initiated liquidation proceedings. Dellit, the security firm responsible for Mezhyhirya, filed for closure even earlier, in July 2013.
Apparently, everyone in the former leader's inner circle was preparing for major changes. How else can one explain the risky venture that law enforcement agencies are now accusing Oleksandr Klymenko, the former head of the Ministry of Revenue and Duties, of? According to information from the Unified Register of Court Decisions, the Prosecutor General's Office determined that, at the direction of a top official, a chain of shell companies was created last year to evade taxes. As a result, the state budget lost 126 million hryvnias.
On the topic: Oleksandr Klymenko: Yanukovych's "laundress." The income and bribes of the fugitive ex-minister.
Meanwhile, while large sums were being withdrawn from banking institutions linked to the former president's team, the Vesti holding company, loyal to the previous government, was receiving multi-million dollar infusions. In May, the media outlet's office was searched in connection with a 17 million hryvnia tax evasion case.
Thanks to the investigation, the case materials were submitted to the court and became publicly available, revealing the inner workings of the media project. The funds were provided by Kurchenko himself, through the Simferopol-based firm Torggazstream LTD (part of Serhiy Kurchenko's Gaz Ukrainy 2009). According to information from the court records, over 90 million hryvnias were transferred to the Vesti media project in 2013 alone.
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