The Kyiv Post has obtained documents confirming an undeclared transfer of $40 million by Ihor Kotvitsky, an ally of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, to a Panamanian company.
The documents add weight to corruption
accusations against Kotvitsky, a Verkhovna Rada member from Yatsenyuk’s
People’s Front party.
Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker from the Petro
Poroshenko Bloc, argues that the transfer of the funds, which were not included
in Kotvitsky’s declaration, took place due to protection from top officials who
belong to the People’s Front.
Kotvitsky denies the accusations.
On June 8, Ukraine’s Krym Petroleum Company
transferred a $40 million debt owed to Dutch firm Tiway FSU B.V. to Kotvitsky,
according to a copy of the debt transfer deal obtained by the Kyiv Post. On the
same day, Tiway FSU B.V. transferred its debt claim against Kotvitsky to
Panama’s Kingston Group S.A., according to a copy of the agreement on the debt
claim transfer obtained by the Kyiv Post.
Kotvitsky repaid the debt by transferring $40
million to Kingston in four tranches from July 29 to Aug. 11, according to a
bank document that can be seen below. Leshchenko said earlier this month that
the money had been transferred to Kingston’s account with a Swiss bank through
Ukraine’s state-owned Oshchadbank.
A bank document confirming the transfer of $40 million by Kotvitsky to Kingston Group S.A.
Kotvitsky did not initially include this
amount in his 2014 declaration but changed his mind and included it half a year
after the deadline for declarations expired, Leshchenko said.
Kotvitsky’s original declaration for 2014
Kotvitsky’s corrected declaration for 2014
Under Ukrainian law on money laundering,
Oshchadbank and the National Bank of Ukraine must have checked whether the
money was included in Kotvitsky’s declaration and whether its sources were
legitimate.
Oshchadbank told the Kyiv Post by e-mail that it had checked the transaction and submitted information about it to the National Bank of Ukraine “in full accordance with legal requirements.” It did not explain why the transaction had not been blocked and why it had allowed a transfer of funds that had not been included in Kotvitsky’s declaration.
The National Bank of Ukraine did not reply to requests for comment by phone or e-mail.
A source familiar with the situation confirmed
to the Kyiv Post that the transfer had taken place and that it violated
Ukrainian law.
The money that Kotvitsky transferred to Panama
had initially been deposited with Russia’s Sberbank during the 2013-2014
EuroMaidan Revolution and had remained there during 2014, Leshchenko said.
Sberbank did not reply to a request for comment.
Kotvitsky dismissed the accusations in a
Facebook conversation with the Kyiv Post last week but declined to comment on
whether the money had been transferred to Panama and whether his declaration
had been corrected.
“I could comment but everyone distorts
information in their own interests so much that I don’t even want to comment,”
Kotvitsky said. “Leshchenko wrote a nonsensical smear job. I’ll file a
lawsuit!”
Leshchenko argued that political protection
provided by other members of the People’s Front was the reason why the
transaction was not blocked by Oshchadbank or the National Bank of Ukraine.
“Kotvitsky is a member of the People’s Front,”
he said on the Shuster Live television show last week. “Oshchadbank is headed
by another representative of the People’s Front, Andriy Pyshny. A third
representative of the People’s Front, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is prime minister. I
think there was an agreement here to overlook this and allow the money to leave
Ukraine.”
Yatsenyuk’s spokeswoman Olga Lappo and Tetiana
Ozon, a spokeswoman for Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front, were not available by
phone.
Leshchenko also said, citing unnamed
“high-ranking” sources, that the money transferred by Kotvitsky could belong to
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. Kotvitsky and Avakov are business partners, he
claimed.
Avakov denied the accusations on Sept. 26.
“Leshchenko is a sophisticated manipulator who serves (Russian businessman Konstantin
Grigorishin),” Avakov claimed.
Andriy Demartino, a spokesman for the
Prosecutor General’s Office, declined to comment by phone on whether it will
investigate the accusations. The office has not yet replied to an e-mailed Kyiv
Post request for comment.
“I doubt that prosecutors will look into this
because the Prosecutor General’s Office has a very selective approach and
doesn’t open criminal cases against members of the government coalition,”
Leshchenko said on the Shuster Live show.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be
reached at [email protected]
