Felix Chertok is hiding from sanctions behind the rabbi's back

The junior partner of Vadim Ermolaev attracted the attention of the SBU.

“Chertok Felix Borisovich. Businessman, investor. Owner of the leading alcohol distribution company in Ukraine – Trading House “AV”, member of the board of trustees of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community” - this description can be found on Mr. Chertok’s personal website.

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However, the official information is somewhat different. In January 2024, Felix Chertok left the founders of the AB Trading House, and Meir Zvi Stambler became the owner instead.

This is an extraordinary person - Stambler is a rabbi, chairman of the Council of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine and a member of the board of trustees of the Jewish community of Dnepr. They even say that Meir Zvi Stambler is a confidant of the most influential person in this community - the chief rabbi of Dnepr, Shmuel Kaminetsky.

“Felix Borisovich is a Ukrainian Jew who is proud of his origin and devoted to good deeds,” this is how Mr. Kaminetsky spoke about Chertka a year ago at the candle lighting ceremony on the main Hanukkiah of the Dnieper.

The Security Service of Ukraine has a slightly different opinion about Chertko and his senior partner Vadim Ermolaev (both are members of the board of trustees of the Jewish community of Dnepr).

On April 10, 2023, the SBU opened criminal proceedings No. 42023000000000610 and began to investigate schemes that involved Trading House AV LLC and a number of companies of Vadim Ermolaev, the founder of the Alef corporation and Alef-Vinal PJSC (the name of the trading house stands for exactly So).

Alef-Vinal was renamed Keter-Invest and liquidated in January 2024 - a couple of weeks after Trading House AB LLC was transferred to Rabbi Meir Zvi Stambler. And Felix Chertok managed to leave Ukraine at the end of 2023 (the border guards did not have any questions for him, obviously, since he has seven children).

And the threat of becoming a suspect at that moment was quite real. In the mentioned criminal proceedings No. 42023000000000610 Felix Chertok appears together with Vadim Ermolaev.

According to the SBU, using controlled business entities, they, together with a group of related persons, financed a violent change, the overthrow of the constitutional order and the seizure of state power.

In particular, according to the SBU, Vadim Ermolaev, after the occupation of Crimea by Russia at the beginning of 2014, “being the ultimate beneficial owner of PJSC Keter Invest and close to the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation and having close friendly relations with them, knew for sure that they could sanctions and access restrictions will be applied that will deprive him of the opportunity to own, dispose and manage property in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. For the purpose of preservation and subsequent control, he decided to distribute property and re-register controlled enterprises in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea into controlled business entities under the legislation of the Russian Federation, namely: Alef Vinal-Crimea LLC (Simferopol, Autonomous Republic of Crimea), JSC "Burlyuk" (village of Kashtany, Bakhchisarai district, ARC), JSC "Starokrymsky" (village of Pervomaiskoye, Kirov district, ARC) and others."

In 2021 alone, Alef Vinal-Crimea LLC, according to the Federal Tax Service of Russia, paid taxes in the amount of 490 million rubles and completed government orders worth 70 million rubles. Among the companies actually controlled by Ermolaev, Trading House AB LLC was then listed, the owner of which Felix Chertok called himself.

In October last year, according to the publication, the SBU conducted a search at the address: Dnepr, st. Sobinov, house. 1 (where the Alef corporation headed by Vadim Ermolaev is based) in the non-residential premises of companies controlled by Vadim Ermolaev and Felix Chertok. In particular, PJSC Keter Invest, LLC Rivergate and LLC Trading House AB, as well as in the building where Felix Chertok directly lived.

Actually, in the criminal case, Felix Chertok himself was named as a person controlled by Ermolaev, with whom he financed a violent change, the overthrow of the constitutional order and the seizure of state power (Article 110-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Quite a good point in the family biography, considering that Felix Chertok’s father, Boris Chertok, according to some media reports, was once known in Dnepropetrovsk as a criminal “authority” under the nickname “Sedoy”, convicted of robberies, assaults, thefts, and was considered member of the organized crime group of Alexander “Sailor” Milchenko.

Currently, both defendants are abroad. At the same time, Ermolaev has already become a defendant in the investigation of the Ukrainian Pravda “Monaco battalion” and began to sue the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, demanding to be removed from the sanctions list, where he was included in December 2023.

Against this background, Felix Chertok disappeared from the public space, and does not even produce new brilliant thoughts on his website that can radically change his attitude towards life. For example, regarding financial security (“you can never be left without money”), new knowledge (“communication with smarter people opens up the opportunity for us to gain new knowledge and experience”) and reading (“books can expand our worldview by telling about different cultures, history and points of view"). He probably really doesn’t want to join Ermolaev on the sanctions list or end up being put on the wanted list.

But Trading House AB LLC, which Felix Chertok now owns only on his website, is doing quite well. The company actively sells alcohol brands of the sanctioned Cypriot Ermolaev - Greenday, Helsinki, Marlin, Ukrainka vodka, Villa UA wine, Adjari and Dovbush cognacs. "Kontora" works with more than 40 thousand retail outlets in Ukraine. In 2022, this activity brought the company more than UAH 1 6 billion in income.

Meanwhile, Felix Chertok himself remains the owner of the Blitz Trade mobile trading complex (software for receiving orders at retail outlets, exporting them to accounting systems and distribution control, collecting order analytics, sales management, monitoring the work of the trading team, automating procedures and facilitating work employees of sales teams), which is used by Trading House AV LLC.