A neglected steel mill in Warren, Ohio, allegedly owned by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, caught fire on Aug. 11.
Now, the Ohio Fire Marshal’s Office suspects that the plant was intentionally burned down.
“Based on our scene investigation, we believe it was intentionally set,” Brian Bohnert, spokesman for the State Fire Marshal’s Office in Columbus, told the Kyiv Post on Aug. 17.
The plant linked to Kolomoisky is currently negotiating an undisclosed environmental settlement with the State of Ohio. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, waste from Kolomoisky’s factory was flowing into the nearby river and severely contaminating the area.
“The judge is still reviewing the consent order filed in June and we are in a holding pattern until then,” Lucas Sullivan, Ohio Attorney General’s deputy press secretary, told the Kyiv Post.
Kolomoisky didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Kolomoisky’s US business
Warren Steel Holdings is one of at least 22 U.S. properties owned by Kolomoisky through shell companies according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
On Dec. 30, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize real estate in Cleveland, Ohio that was allegedly acquired by Kolomoisky and his associate oligarch Gennady Boholyubov using funds embezzled from Privatbank, Ukraine’s largest bank, which the two oligarchs owned before its 2016 nationalization.
In August 2020, two civil forfeiture complaints were filed in Florida involving properties in Louisville, Kentucky and Dallas, Texas. The U.S. Department of Justice asserts that those properties were also acquired using funds misappropriated from PrivatBank.
Read More: US sanctions Kolomoisky for ‘significant corruption’
“All three properties are alleged to be subject to forfeiture based on violations of federal money laundering statutes,” the U.S. Department of Justice statement reads.
According to Privatbank, $747 million of the laundered money ended up in the U.S. and was used to buy real estate and metallurgical plants in many states, through a group of companies known as Optima.
A total of $5.5 billion were vacuumed from Privatbank by its previous owners according to forensic firm Kroll.
Privatbank is now suing Kolomoisky and his associates in the Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that $653 million was laundered into the Optima schemes and $96 million into other properties.
Ohio fire
Despite being long neglected the Warren Steel Holdings plant has frequently appeared in the news.
Kolomoisky bought the plant in 2008, according to the ICIJ. In his hands, the plant was in a sorry state.
In 2011, an explosion at the plant seriously injured five workers. In the aftermath of the explosion, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration found a total of 17 safety violations.
The plant was shut down in 2016, leaving 162 employees out of work.
Yet, the plant didn’t disappear from the news.
A 2020, cross-border investigation known as the FinCEN Files, led by ICIJ, found that Kolomoisky used money vacuumed from Privatbank to buy U.S. based property.
At least $490 million was wired through Deutsche Bank to companies set up in the British Virgin Islands. These companies were later used to buy U.S. real estate and businesses.
Between 2007 and 2013, Kolomoisky and Boholyobov bought a skyscraper in Cleveland, a shuttered Motorola plant and the former headquarters of Mary Kay Cosmetics in Dallas.
“In his wake, Kolomoisky and his associates left a trail of empty, boarded-up buildings, unpaid property taxes, dangerous factory conditions, unemployed workers, and at least four steel mills that filed for bankruptcy,” the ICIJ wrote.
Warren Steel was one of these properties, purchased for $13.6 million. An additional $21 million was then poured into the mill’s bank accounts, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Weeks after the plant closed, a local court greenlighted a temporary restraining order against Warren Steel, which was “abandoning hazardous chemicals and wastewater on its site.”
Since then, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began cleanup of the waste, which posed a threat to the nearby Mahoning River.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office was in talks to reach a consent order with Warren Steel Holdings. They reached a settlement deal in June but the court had not made a decision before the fire.
