Yuri Cherdyntsev
The United States, the European Union, the UN Secretary-General, and even the Pope—who hasn't lobbied for Ukrainian grain exports? But do Kyiv's allies and partners know that they're protecting the interests not only of the Ukrainian state but also of the smuggling kings who have latched onto it? Through their schemes, the bulk of grain traffic, as well as many other goods, passes. As a result, millions and billions of dollars, never reaching the budget, end up in the pockets of corrupt officials, and Ukraine is once again forced to beg... And Yuriy Cherdyntsev is now responsible for this.
According to information published online , 70% of grain exported via the Black Sea "corridor" passes through shell companies owned by Vadim Alperin, a man known as the "king" of Odessa smuggling . Let's take a closer look: at the Olympex terminal in the Odessa port alone, Alperin "earns" approximately $22 million monthly. This means his annual profit already amounts to $250 million—assuming stable port operations, of course. And Alperin isn't the only such terminal, nor is he the only "king" of Odessa smuggling, simply the most famous and scandalous. What colossal sums are slipping past the Ukrainian budget! Pensions for the elderly, new housing for refugees, salaries for the military, weapons and fuel—this money could have gone toward necessary and noble causes, but will instead be spent by the corrupt officials who stole it on gold, villas in Spain, mansions in Britain, and vintage sports cars. Moreover, Ukrainians won't even notice this, because the era of building "golden palaces" near Kyiv is over, because thieves now prudently hide their stolen goods abroad—where their children and relatives already live, where they themselves will one day flee.
The Story of Grand Theft
To understand how such a thing is even possible, we must first consider what smuggling is. Unless we're talking about transporting prohibited goods (weapons or drugs), the primary goal of smuggling is always the same: to avoid or minimize duties and fees. It's just a matter of choosing the right methods. When we talk about smuggling, most of us imagine the classic example, where cargo is carefully hidden from customs and border guards. It's transported via back roads or disguised as crates of fruit. This is very risky, because contrary to popular belief, the people in uniform actually know their business. And if a smuggler doesn't negotiate with them in advance, they run the risk of being included in the lucrative statistics of successful anti-smuggling efforts. But there's another kind of smuggling, a "scheme," almost legal one, where cargo is openly transported through customs—and then processed in such a way that duties are practically negligible. Of course, the exporter (or importer) still has to pay a kickback to the person running these schemes—but even then, they still profit. Moreover, in recent years, these kickbacks have also been legalized in Ukraine—either as fees for services rendered by the processing firms or as income for the intermediary firms involved in these schemes. So, Alperin's aforementioned income represents only a fraction of what Ukraine has lost to its budget.
However, these schemes cannot be carried out without an agreement with government officials, since if they were protecting the interests of the state, they would have stopped the activities of smugglers and schemers long ago. This primarily concerns the management of customs (in this case, Odessa), which is at the very least aware of all these "deals," and more often than not, orchestrates them itself. It is well known that Odessa Customs was corrupt even during Soviet times, and since the 90s, smuggling and corruption have become a regular occurrence there. The position of its chief is not simply a lucrative one; it "feeds" both the person sitting in that chair, those with whom they "work," and those who cover for them.
Nothing changed after the first or second Maidan, or after 2019—each new government simply tried to put its own people in the chair and implement its own plans.
Conflicts arose with those who had long been entrenched in customs and were operating under their own schemes—either local "smuggling kings" or representatives of corrupt clans from the previous government. As a rule, local corrupt officials never lost control of the Odesa Customs Office because they are adept at reaching agreements with any new government. Occasionally, they would cede a portion of the "pie" to visiting outsiders—but these outsiders are temporary, maintaining their influence as long as they can rely on high-ranking Kyiv officials or influential oligarchs. A new redistribution of this "pie" always begins with a replacement of customs leadership (chief, deputies), because each interested party pushes their own people into these positions. Therefore, it's not surprising that the leadership of the Odesa Customs Office changes so frequently. Mostly, the managers are protégés of "external" corruption clans, not those from Odesa. But their deputies hold on longer and, according to available information, "work" directly with local smugglers. Behind this distribution of positions, one can discern a certain system, possibly the result of some kind of "deal" regarding the division of spheres of influence.
Let's refresh our memory. In January 2015, as Skelet.Org previously reported, Volodymyr Perederiy became the temporary head of Odessa Customs , appointed there by the notorious corrupt official Serhiy Tupalsky . Then, from May 2015 until 2020, Perederiy held the position of first deputy, working closely with Alperin. Meanwhile, his immediate superiors changed one after another: Yulia Marushevskaya (Saakashvili's man), Alexey Vasilenko (Nasirov's man) , Alexander Vlasov ( Prodan's man ), Tupalsky himself (from December 2018 to February 2019), and Igor Reznik (Granovsky and Khomutynnik's man ). Reznik, incidentally, is not only known for his high-profile corruption scandals (such as the "disappearance" of thousands of tons of grain or the smuggling of bauxite), but also for his biography. He began his career with a degree from medical school (specializing in nursing) and rose sharply after marrying Olga Kononova, the daughter of the head of the Kharkiv district administration, whom her father first appointed a judge in the administrative court of his district, and then a judge in the Commercial Court of the Kharkiv region.
Vitaliy Zakolodyazhny served as head of the Odesa Customs Office until August 2022. He shared a "business" with Valeriy Falkovsky, who, like Alperin, was a "sanctioned" smuggler and became notorious for a number of corruption scandals, two of which occurred after the war began. For example, in April 2022, a large shipment of designer clothing and shoes (Versace, Armani, Prada, Lois Viton, Chanel) arrived at Odesa Customs. It was appraised at the price of "bazaar rags" (T-shirts and shirts at 54-75 hryvnias, leather belts at 14 hryvnias) to pay the minimum duty. However, even this seemed excessive to the smugglers, and they decided not to pay anything at all. So they pulled off an ingenious scheme: taking advantage of Cabinet Resolution No. 186-r of February 26, 2022, they officially confiscated the cargo as contraband and then allegedly sent it to soldiers of the 122nd Troops of the Special Operations Brigade. Of course, the ordinary soldiers never received any Armani T-shirts, and the cargo "disappeared"—according to Skelet.Org , it safely reached stores in the capital, meaning it cleared customs with zero duty.
Whether the command of the 122nd Brigade (which was supposed to officially accept the cargo) was also involved in this scheme, in addition to Zakoldyazhny, remains unknown—no one dared cast a shadow on the Ukrainian army. This is yet another case of "patriotism" becoming a smokescreen for villains! And just a month later, a truly outrageous incident occurred at the Odessa customs office. Zakoldyazhny intentionally delayed customs clearance of cargo belonging to Avia Cargo, which was unwilling to pay him "baksheesh" (up to $1000 per container) for expedited clearance. Similar practices had existed at the Odessa customs office before, but under Zakoldyazhny, they became the norm. Ultimately, Avia Cargo stubbornly refused to pay bribes or use the services of private intermediaries who offered to quickly and officially "resolve" the matter in a matter of hours, and filed complaints with law enforcement. And then this happened: on Zakolodyazhny's orders, Avia Cargo containers were moved to the Euroterminal site, which was then… hit by a Russian missile . And it was a very precise strike: of the seven containers that burned, six belonged to Avia Cargo. Could this really have been a coincidence? But counterintelligence wasn't interested. Zakolodyazhny was, of course, soon fired, but he didn't end up "in the basement."
Since August 2022, Mykhailo Miroshnichenko has headed the Odesa Customs Office. He previously served as Deputy Head of the Zhytomyr Customs Office (under Natalia Tkachuk) and then as Head of Internal Audit at the State Customs Service of Ukraine. His tenure was quite fruitful: between 2016 and 2020, he transferred four (!) Kyiv apartments (65, 143, 150, and 68 square meters) to his mother-in-law, along with four expensive foreign cars (including a Lexus and a BMW X5). Public outrage ensued, and in November 2020, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) conducted a search of Miroshnichenko's home (they also searched the home of the aforementioned Reznik), but Miroshnichenko escaped with only a slap on the wrist.
And so, in 2022, he took over the Odessa customs office, where a scandal soon erupted over the export of so-called "black grain."
However, the consequences of this scandal were long in coming: it was only in February 2024 that Danylo Hetmantsev, head of the Verkhovna Rada Tax Committee, reported the facts to the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine (BES), which conducted searches only in May of this year—by which time Miroshnichenko had disappeared without a trace. Moreover, this involved just one company, which had used a "black grain" export scheme, in which Odessa customs officials issued false certificates for products, reducing the export duty from 10% to 2,7-3,6%. This allowed the company to "save" 13 million hryvnias in duties! However, according to Hetmantsev, approximately 110 companies used the same scheme! The approximate amount of losses to the state is not difficult to calculate. Perhaps this is precisely how Miroshnichenko got caught, either by not sharing with someone, or by someone deciding to remove him from this very lucrative (in every sense) position.
Mikhail Miroshnichenko
It's also interesting that Mykhailo Miroshnichenko's wife is involved in business. While before he became head of the Odesa Customs Office, this businesswoman officially earned around half a million hryvnias a year from real estate rentals (plus 10,320 hryvnias in state social assistance), in 2023 her income skyrocketed to 5,75 million! All thanks to her new company, Smart Engineering Technologies LLC, which manufactures weapons and ammunition. This begs the question: was this company honestly assembling drones for the Ukrainian Armed Forces or was it engaged in some kind of customs fraud related to the supply of weapons and components? Based on her husband's reputation, the latter option clearly suggests itself.
Sergey Grinchishin
Finally, in August 2023, Serhiy Hrynchyshyn was appointed head of the Odesa Customs Office . As the media described him at the time, he was a "veteran of the customs and smuggling service." His corruption began in the early 90s, when he was one of the managers of the Kotovsk meat-packing plant. According to Skelet.Org sources , Hrynchyshyn had long had a stake in cigarette and alcohol production in the unrecognized Transnistria (where he has numerous long-standing connections) and also controlled the supply route to Ukraine. Some of the cigarettes cleared Odesa customs and were then shipped virtually legally to Europe. All that remained was to take personal control of this contraband—and Hrynchyshyn did, with the direct assistance of Odesa Military State Administration head Oleh Kiper (who himself once began as a prosecutor in the same Kotovsk region). Independent media reported that not long before, Hrynchyshyn, while serving as deputy head of the Transcarpathian Customs Service, had been caught importing iPhones and iPods into Ukraine almost duty-free. But no one paid attention to this, just as they did to the corrupt past of Kiper, who was purged in 2014 and reinstated in government service in 2019. Odesans have already given him the telling nickname "Oleg 20%."
Oleg Kiper
Yuriy Cherdyntsev. Connection to Kolomoisky and "black registrars"
Thus, corruption in the leadership of the Odesa Customs Office has long been the norm, and periodic replacements do nothing to address this problem. On the contrary, new bosses and deputies quickly master new schemes, adapting quickly to changing conditions. Therefore, it would be naive to assume that Yuriy Gerasimovich Cherdyntsev, who has arrived, is any different from his predecessors. Perhaps only in the fact that, as an Odesa resident, he is an insider for local corrupt officials and oligarchs, whose connections you will now learn about...
Yuriy Cherdyntsev's public biography is very scant. This is because he has left too much of a mark during his career , and is now trying to start over from scratch. It is only known that he was born in Odesa, where he attended Secondary School No. 56 and graduated with a degree in forensic science from the Law Academy. Oh yes, he is also known by his nickname "Yura Cherdak"—but this information, of course, is not part of his biography. The first surviving mention of him in the media dates back to 2015, when Cherdyntsev became embroiled in his first scandal: while working at the Main Territorial Department of Justice in Odesa Oblast (a branch of the Ministry of Justice), he deposited half a million hryvnias into a savings account, despite a salary of 36,8 hryvnias.
The National Anti-Corruption Agency (NAPC) took an interest in Cherdyntsev, but he escaped with a minor harassment.
He then used the same "explanation" for his entire fleet of five foreign cars. Cherdintsev bought his first, a brand-new Subaru Impreza, back in 2006 for $50, allegedly on credit. But he didn't give a clear answer about the four more cars he acquired in the "post-Maidan period." Yuri Cherdintsev later became more sophisticated, and in his 2022 asset declaration, he claimed to own "only" three cars.
One of Cherdyntsev's sources of "additional income" was the services he provided to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky (now under trial). For example, in 2017, the Pechersky District Court seized the assets of Kolomoisky's company, Agroterminal Logistics: the Borivazh grain terminal, located in the Odesa region, which Kolomoisky used in bank collateral schemes. Specifically, the oligarch received a refinancing loan from the National Bank against it, which he never repaid. The final debt to the state amounted to 3,5 billion hryvnias, while the terminal's collateral value was 5,54 billion! Kolomoisky defended himself in his typical manner, severing previous contracts through court orders—and this is where Cherdyntsev, an official from the Ministry of Justice, came in handy.
But Cherdintsev's main job during that period, as deputy head of the Justice Department, was overseeing the work of notaries and registrars. Among them were the so-called "black" and "stolbovy" (pronounced "pillar"). What's the difference? The activities of "black" notaries are always illegal; they fictitiously legalize outright fraud, extortion, and corporate raids, and therefore walk the line, constantly risking investigation. "Stolbovy" refers to notaries and registrars legally employed by government agencies or private firms officially controlled by the Ministry of Justice—in other words, they are corrupt officials operating within the system, with reliable cover. Even if they are caught red-handed, the system protects both the performer and the legality of their transactions. In this case, the system was led by Yuri Cherdintsev.
Stanislav Ivanov, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED : Yuri Cherdyntsev: Odessa's Gateway to Smuggling. PART 2
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