Al Jazeera investigation reveals trade in Yanukovych’s frozen assets among 3 Ukrainian oligarchs

The absurdity of his corruption was amazing.

It sounds like an agreement between criminal bosses. You can sign it with your blood

They use London as a safe haven.

It’s a kind of business you know…

We simply didn’t have confirmation and this looks like confirmation.

It just shows the way these guys do business, the genius of it really.

The first thing I saw was a machine gun pointed at me.

The information you’ve presented is what I call the pipe through which dirty money from Russia, Ukraine and other countries all flow through.

KIEV, UKRAINE, 2014

At the beginning of the revolution nobody knew how it was going to end.

I helped them to break the paving stones, brought them food and supported them.
All because I believed that my nation is capable of achieving a brighter future.

The goal of revolution was not only striving toward the EU. The goal was also to have fair play and the fair rules of the game and the revolution was against corruption.

It was a great relief because there had been many deaths and sacrifices.
We had all witnessed this first hand.

Ukraine hasn’t had a leader for centuries.

When it comes to leadership, always betrayals or quarrels.

The day he ran away from the country the entire Ukrainian Treasury in it’s accounts had a few thousand dollar dollars. So the point is that entire treasury was robbed.

DARIA KALENIUK

ANTI-CORRUPTION CAMPAIGNER

It took three years to build from scratch. It cost more than $2 billion.

The extend… the sort of absurdity of his corruption was amazing. It’s a six storey log cabin, I think the biggest log cabin in the world, set in a, frankly amazing estate. So enormous that if you’re going to walk around it, you’re not going to get round it in a day.

OLIVER BULLOUGH

Writer specialising in corruption

I was in shock.
The lakes, the ducks and all the luxury.
Yanukovych was just a gangster. They love bling.

The chandelier used to be covered in silver leaf.
He didn’t like it so they took it to Russia, where it was changed to gold leaf.
Documents say it cost €200,000.
This and the other chandeliers have Swarovski crystals.
With the tables and flowers, it comes to around $600,000 to $700,000.
Here’s a Steinway piano with a John Lennon autograph .
The label under the cover says that it is the second of a limited edition of 25.
This is the gym where nobody ever trained.
It was built just in case.
Every day up to 1,000 employees worked here, not including  security.
The 24-hour operation cost over $100,000 a day.

Yanukovych did not keep money on his name.

Even his main house where he spent the last years of his life in Ukraine it was registered under charity fund, not on Yanukovych himself.

SERHIY LESHCHENKO

UKRAINIAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

Unbelievable.

it sounds like an agreement between criminal bosses, you know. You can sign it with your blood.

You can’t trade seized assets. It’s the point of seizing them that you can’t trade them.
As a lawyer I read this document and I understand that it’s not a legal document. I wouldn’t expect any court to enforce such a document

It just shows the way these guys do business. I mean, the genius of it really.

The Quickpace deal involves two oligarchs agreeing to buy the company and its 160m in frozen assets from a mysterious seller.
The contract is unsigned, but our evidence indicates the deal went ahead.
They treat Quickpace like buying a bankrupt company – and agree a knock-down price of just $30m.
They throw in a private jet as part of the payment.

This is a really interesting discovery… this is distressed debt, basically. You get these companies who, if someone’s refusing to pay their debt, they but it for, you know, 20p on the pound, and then do their utmost to get it back and make a profit on it.

If you have influence over the courts, which, you do in a corrupt jurisdiction like Ukraine, you can use that influence to try and release the assets and, and make your money out of it.

The majority of judges in Ukraine they are themselves engaged in corruption.
they are still those appointed under Yanukovych

These are really, really complex investigations. You’ve got to go through thousands and thousands and thousands of documents.

It’s following the money and working out essentially the route the money takes

JON BENTON

Britain’s National Crime Agency, 2009-2016

Is it legal to be trading frozen assets or to be planning for their movement?
JON BENTON

It’s a criminal offence.
The whole idea is I’ve frozen the asset ’cause I think it’s the proceeds of crime.
Its like trading in stolen goods that have been taken by the police.
You’re putting the cash in the getaway car aren’t you?  

Oligarch is a, a term that most people didn’t know 20 years ago. It’s kind of come out the Russian system, out of the Russian privatisation program,  these are extremely rich people…

BILL BROWDER

INVESTMENT FUND MANAGER

He loves horses. He’s a flamboyant oligarch who likes spending money on expensive things like they all do.

Onishchenko, like a lot of Ukrainians made money in  the gas business.

I start to produce gas in Ukraine, actually I did one of the biggest company in Ukraine that was sold three years ago.

You know Donald Trump?
ALEXANDER ONYSCHENKO

Yeah. He’s doing a horse competition in Palm Beach. Also he was the owner of this contest…Miss Universe. He did this once in Moscow and I met him there. We have a good relationship.

Hobbies: Tennis, languages.

I used to beat people up. I don’t like it when someone lies to me.

I never threaten anyone but when we were refurbishing, I told the workers not to smoke.
When I arrived, they were smoking.
I asked them again not to smoke.
REPORTER (FEMALE)

And they continued?
PAVEL FUCHS

Yes, and they had to eat their cigarette butts.
REPORTER (FEMALE)

How beautiful. After that?
PAVEL FUCHS

Then they stopped smoking.

Mr and Mrs Fuks publish social media snaps with a high-profile jeweller and his wife.
Jacob Arabo was jailed for 2 years in 2008 in a US money-laundering case.
Fuks socialises with influential politicians.
A Russian MP from President Putin’s party –  now a senior banker.
The Mayor of Ukraine’s second city – Kharkiv – left in a wheelchair after a mafia-style assassination attempt.

They, all operate as a kind of transnational clan. They’ll have their lawyers in Cyprus, they’ll have their money in Latvia. It’s an international structure which they’ve created since the fall of the Soviet Union, which is very, very resilient and very hard to penetrate.

It’s for raids.
It weighs 12 kilos.
The Americans gave them to us.

Resistance is very strong from the elites who are in power.
The more we investigate, the more resistance we face.

17:01:00-17:05:00

ARTEM SYTNYK

DIRECTOR, ANTI-CORRUPTION BUREAU

All of us involved in this process knew it was going to be difficult.
We’ve chosen our cross to bear.
If we fail, Ukraine fails.
Unfortunately, not all the ruling class see it this way

I’m wanted in Ukraine, that’s why I’m now in Europe.
Actually, this case is political motivation case.

ALEXANDER ONYSCHENKO

OLIGARCH

Would you say you are against corruption?
ALEXANDER ONYSCHENKO

Yeah.
WILL JORDAN

But you paid bribes, you’ve been corrupt.

I have been not corrupt,I did just instructions what the president say.
In our country, there is no other way.

These assets were owned by former President Yanukovych.
Later Onyschenko and Fuchs the Russian businessmen bought them.

A man whose business empire spans the globe..

London is an international financial centre

We don’t just have the professional services that can be hijacked and used.

We also then have all the trimmings where you might wanna spend your money.

In London you can buy anything. Um, you buy yourself a mansion in Kensington, you buy yourself a load of fine art at Sotheby’s, you buy yourself a yacht at the London Boat Show

If anyone ever comes to ask them a question, they just sort of throw their hands up in the air and say, I don’t know, I was just a nominee director.

Hello is this Chesterfied group?
I came to ask you some questions about Pavel Fuks?

So effectively, you have these cut out characters that depersonalise and distance the money from any of the real perpetrators of the situation.

We emailed and called you but you didn’t respond.

You can create a company in the UK for £13 and it takes you, I’ve done it, about nine minutes.

Hello?

No one checks the information that you provide, literally no one. And there are 350,000 companies created by company formation agents in the UK every year.

If you’ve got a company formation agent registered and that company formation agent is forming companies for you then that’s immediately suspicious. It’s a huge… huge alarm bell.

JON BENTON

Britain’s National Crime Agency, 2009-2016

In other words creating companies for its’ owner

It makes perfect sense. I mean, if I was an oligarch, I’d do that. Yeah, own your own company formation agent, why not? Sell them to your mates, give them… here you go. It’s like, it’s like a Christmas present. Here you go, here’s a London company with a bank account. It’s brilliant.

There is kind of business. You can buy cheap and try to fix the problem to make the money.  

He is unbalanced and unhinged. He’s a vengeful person, unprincipled and ruthless.

Unbelievable. It sounds like an agreement between criminal bosses. You can sign it with your blood.

He is unbalanced and unhinged. He’s a vengeful person, unprincipled and ruthless.

Since Ukraine became independent in 1991, it has been essentially looted by its elites again and again and again, and the tactics they use are essentially always identical.

OLIVER BULLOUGH

Writer specialising in corruption

Some as loans referenced “redistribution of means”
Some as payments for building materials
Home electronics
… Some for cars
motorbikes –
even parquet flooring.

The philosophy of money launderers is to create a situation where the money has moved through so many different companies and so many different countries, in so many different accounts thereby effectively laundering it because nobody has the resources to figure it out.

BILL BROWDER

INVESTMENT FUND MANAGER

It was wired to an account in Frankfurt with Commerzbank.

Onto Deutsche Bank in New York.

It ended up at Baltic International Bank in Latvia, in the account of a

shell company, Foxtron Networks Limited,
Foxtron, like Quickpace,is registered in Cyprus.
None of the banks appear to have raised a red flag – what’s called a suspicious activity report.

It’s very easy for a bank to fill out a suspicious activity report, they just effectively press a button. The trouble is who’s digesting this suspicious activity reports and the answer is in many cases, nobody.

based in Moscow and

run by Bill Browder.

Sergei exposed it, he was then arrested, tortured and killed in prison.

BILL BROWDER

INVESTMENT FUND MANAGER

Fynel Limited is one of the central parts of the apparatus. It’s like the spigot on the pipe.
Fynel is effectively a nominee company that is the director for a number of very crucial points in this money laundering network.

Rich Ukrainians funnel their money offshore to Cyprus and then onwards, beyond, and then bring it back again, so it looks like foreign investment, so you can’t really tell who owns it.

I am looking at a company called Quickpace.
CHRISTINA SARRIS

It is no longer with us, Quickpace. The client sold it.
I remember it because it was an August closing and it was a nightmare.

CHRISTINA SARRIS

LAWYER & OFFSHORE EXPERT

Western banks have had a hard time making money over the last few years

Companies are brilliant. Some people call them getaway cars, for corrupt money. I have heard them better described as armour plating.

Hello there,

My name’s Will Jordan, I work for Aljazeera.

We’re doing an investigation into Ukraine.

This Hertfordshire office has registered over 1500 companies, so the people who work here just run a post box service.
With the director, secretary and address all being proxies – finding out who really owns a company can be almost impossible…

If you own something in your own name, then you can just look on the company register, on the property register

Hello. I wanted to ask about a couple of companies, Fincorp Resources?

The information you’ve presented is what I call the pipe. This is the pipe through which dirty money from Russia, Ukraine and other countries in that part of the world, all flow through.

He was given control of a chunk of the gas trade, he made a lot of money for himself, and then he cut back most of it then to his political patrons

which was, you know, Yanukovych, or Yanukovych’s son.

Kurchenko was just businessman but I can say a very talented, corrupt guy, because he used very tricky schemes, very unusual schemes to steal money.

SERHIY LESHCHENKO

UKRAINIAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

Kurchenko is always asking when we will arrive. If you don’t answer immediately, you’ll be fired.

It was the worst job I’ve ever had…

Former driver for Sergei Kurchenko

He swears. He screams at his employees. He fires two to three people every month. He is very inadequate.

Former driver for Sergei Kurchenko

He is unbalanced and unhinged. He’s a vengeful person, unprincipled and ruthless.

It was an unusual interview.

IVAN GOLUNOV

JOURNALIST

He is guarded by Alpha Group – former counter-terrorism special forces.

They have fought in wars and have state medals. They are armed with rubber bullets.

There are five cars, 18 people in the convoy.

The cars are fitted with signal blockers with a 200-metre range.

Kurchenko had an argument with some Chechen guys in a restaurant. After that he stepped up his security.

He already works for the Russian government.
In our interview in 2014, he tried to show that he’s not scared of working in Crimea, that he’s capable of doing business there.

In most countries you have the government. You have criminals and you have businessmen.

In Russia, all of those distinctions have effectively disappeared.

It’s the interest of Russia to destroy the Ukraine from inside. It’s against the interest of Kremlin for Ukraine to succeed in anti corruption.

It was one of the businessmen from the ex government yeah.

Sergei Kurchenko ?

Yes, yes, yes.

It is alike a kind of business you can buy cheap and try to fix the problem to make the money.

It was like normal business but this one has not happened yes? We didn’t buy.

You didn’t buy that ?

The client sold it right –I remember it because it was an August closing.

Onyschenko and Fuchs the Russian businessmen bought them.

So it never happened?

No it never happened.

On a direct line, Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Holodnitsky gets orders
from the President of Ukraine about who to prosecute or exonerate.

If I were in your chair, I

would sign and my hand would not shake.

You are blushing, sweating, and going pale.

He gathered around him another ten MPs and organised this farce.
I’m ashamed for Ukraine that you were witness to this circus.

NAZAR HOLODNITSKY

ANTI-CORRUPTION PROSECUTOR

We are witnessing old traditional corrupt system trying to do everything possible to destroy this this new agency.

If you were to weigh the pressure, it would be more than a ton.

What chances do you think there are of seeing Mr.Onishchenko behind bars?

NAZAR HOLODNITSKY

You might as well look at tea leaves.
As law enforcers, we are doing everything to bring him to justice.

So what chance do you think there is that you will ever go to prison?

I don’t know. Like we say in Ukraine nobody can be sure about prison.

It’s kept at an airport.
I can’t say where but it’s being kept.
Let’s leave it at that.

Did they seize one of your private jets?

No this is bullshit, yeah….they seized nothing from me. Nothing zero.  

Ever since the revolution I’ve been sleeping  badly.

I feel despair and anxiety.

Everyone gets away with it. If you look at the amount of money that’s stolen in developing countries globally every year, it is estimated at a trillion dollars, with a T. How much is recovered of that? Out of every thousand dollars, 25 cents

It’s all just a charade. The corruption goes on. It’s greater than under Yanukovych.

TATIANA SACHEVSKA

VOICE COACH, KIEV OPERA