“Pandora Papers” of Denis Kudin: how the deputy head of the State Property Fund transfers the money of OGHC to a common pocket with his best
man. Journalists of the Lenta.ua publication exposed the scheme of laundering funds from the state United Mining and Chemical Company (OGHC) by its curator at the State Property Fund, Denis Kudin. What is the intention?
The company’s money for the sold ilmenite “goes” to an intermediary – the company ESTRA Capital Limited. The beneficiaries and managing partners of this offshore company in Cyprus are personally Denys Kudin and his godfather, Vladyslav Voytenko, the first deputy head of the OGHC board, journalists write.
OGHC: PRIVATIZATION CANNOT BE “WASHED”
August 31, 2021 was supposed to be a landmark event for Ukraine and the State Property Fund, as the strategic state-owned OGHC was to be privatized as part of the Big Privatization campaign. However, given the fact that only 3 applications were received, of which only one company was admitted to the auction, the last one was canceled.
The State Property Fund of Ukraine has set a new date for the auction – October 29, 2021, but it seems that the privatization of the iconic Ukrainian enterprise will be canceled this time as well. And there are several reasons for this. But about everything in order.
In the team of the chairman of the Federal State University Denis Sennychenko, the issue of privatization of the OGHC is overseen by his first deputy – Denys Kudin, who was appointed to this position in July 2020. It is noteworthy that before being appointed to such a high state position, Denis Kudin headed the Retail Sales Directorate of VOG Retail LLC. Of course, selling key Ukrainian enterprises at auctions is practically the same as selling hot dogs and coffee at WOG gas stations and in Intercity cars. By the way, on March 2, 2021, Denys Kudin was appointed head of the supervisory board of Centerenergo. Such a rapid career growth of Denis Kudin is not only surprising, but also raises a lot of questions.
But let’s return to OGHC, because it is a key company of Ukraine on the world market of ilmenite, which is so necessary for the production of titanium. Taking into account the fact that for a long time its key enterprises Irshansky GOK and Volnogorsk GMK were leased from the disgraced oligarch Dmitry Firtash (until 2014), supplying it to the “Crimean Titan” with ilmenite for the production of titanium, the process of OGHC privatization is “a war not on life, but to death.” The “tentacles of Firtash” remained in the management of OGHC in the form of people controlled by him. And the people of Mykola Martynenko (Ruslan Zhurylo and Yury Pertsev), who “washed out” the OGHC, also still have a colossal influence. Maybe that’s why the first
In April 2021, a native of Kryvyi Rih (not surprising, right?) Voytenko Vladyslav, who is a creature (drum roll…) of Denys Kudin, was appointed first deputy head of the board of the OGHC by order of the head of the Federal State University of Ukraine. After all, they worked together at VOG Retail LLC, developing cafe-shops at gas stations. At the same time, Vladyslav Voytenko has no experience in the realization of titanium-containing raw materials, because of his previous work experience. The second appointee is Vitaly Petrash, who is currently the deputy head of the board of the OGHC. This professional also comes from a fuel company. He never dealt with titanium, but managed to work in such structures as “Techoil”, “Oleum Standard” and “Unisystem”, which figured in criminal cases about financial fraud and causing losses to the state. Another strangeness of these personnel reshuffles is that
As we can see, such a normal company of managers has gathered under the leadership of the acting head of the OGHC board Yehor Perelygin, who recently replaced the second acting head of Artur Somov. These professionals failed the first request for the Big privatization of OGHC at the end of August, and something tells us that on October 29, 2021, the situation will repeat itself.
The point is that the replacement of the so-called professional management “watching” on the eve of the privatization of state-owned enterprises, in current Ukrainian realities, means either the “Dembel agreement” in the form of laundering revenue and withdrawal of liquid assets, or preparation for the appearance of “suddenly arising temporary problems” with the sale and artificial delay of privatization.
If we return to the curator of the Great Privatization of the OGHC, the vice-president of the Federal State University, Denis Kudin, and his relationship with Vladyslav Voytenko, we will find that they are connected not only by working relationships in the past, but by family ties in the form of nepotism and a common offshore Cypriot company in the present.
ECHO PANDORA PAPERS: ESTRA CAPITAL LIMITED, CYPRUS
On October 3, 2021, the “Pandora’s Archive”, namely 11.9 million documents collected by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), was published. We will leave offshore companies affiliated with Volodymyr Zelenskyi unrated, as this is not the subject of our article. However, the documents contain an interesting Cypriot company ESTRA Capital Limited, the beneficiaries and managing partners of which are Voytenko Vladyslav Sergeevich and Kudin Denys Igorevich. Today, the first deputy head of the OGHC board and the first deputy head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine conduct business, owning the Cypriot offshore. Not only that our MBA holder from the London Business School and Columbia University, Denys Kudin, employed his “old friend” Vladyslav Voytenko in a state-owned company,
We publish this document for the first time so that the Ukrainian public and potential investors who will take part in Big Privatization clearly understand who they are dealing with in Ukraine and why our country is not attractive for investment.
After all, as follows from the document, this is not just a conflict of interest of a public servant, but also a direct corrupt activity that causes damage to the state. It is noteworthy that it follows from the document that Denys Kudin is involved in the activities of another offshore company, namely CONNAX Trading Ltd. (British Virgin Islands). By the way, by the irony of fate, in his declaration submitted on March 3, 2020 (resigning from Odessa Port Plant JSC), Vladyslav Voytenko indicated that he is a beneficiary of both ESTRA Capital Limited and CONNAX Trading Ltd. (https://declarations.com.ua/declaration/nacp_ebfd8831-e68a-4e22-8ed4-da6a8edc02cd),
The activity of a chain of offshore companies in which ESTRA Capital Limited is associated with beneficiaries Vladyslav Voytenko and Denis Kudyn, as we can see from the published document, falls under the high risk of AML Regulation. Simply put, the chain company is used to “launder” money.
Only in our country is it possible for the first deputy head of the board of state company JSC “OGHC” Vladyslav Voytenko and the first deputy chairman of the State Property Fund Denis Kudin to be the beneficiaries of an offshore company, laundering money and “laundering” OGHC. The operations carried out within the framework of this offshore chain are actually interesting. It is precisely known that they are associated with ilmenite ore. But about that in our next publication. In the meantime, summarizing, we can draw the disappointing conclusion that the problem of the Bolshoi privatization of OGHC lies in the reluctance of Kudin & Voytenko to lose access to such a “delicious trough”, because these are not hot dogs with coffee.