Medvedchuk's former partner and owner of Konik Group Sergei Samusev appears to be evading taxes in Ukraine and has a business in Russian-occupied Crimea
Evades taxes in Ukraine, but willingly replenishes the coffers of the aggressor state? Medvedchuk’s ex-partner and owner of the notorious Konik cottage town Sergei Samusev, in all likelihood, not only evades taxes in Ukraine, but also has an operating business in Russian-occupied Sevastopol. The developer sells VIP estates nominally for pennies, although the cost of such houses in Kyiv near Koncha-Zaspa on marketplaces starts from UAH 30 million.
Why, despite open criminal proceedings against Konik, in particular for tax evasion, seizure of community lands, water and forest resources, are these cases stalled in the courts and at the highest levels of law enforcement agencies?
Do the numerous officials and servants of Themis living in villas from Sergei Samusev have anything to do with this? And how do developers associated with the traitor Medvedchuk do business in occupied Crimea?
Recently it became known from the media that Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Verbitsky allegedly lives in a house worth half a million dollars, bought six times cheaper. We are talking about a two-story townhouse in the elite cottage town of Konik. This “closed” VIP village is associated with Medvedchuk’s ex-ally and companion Sergei Samusev.
This is a well-known Ukrainian businessman and luxury real estate developer, who became famous primarily thanks to his partnership with the traitor to Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk. Together they started a business in the Golden Gate Corporation back in the 1990s. This structure, in addition to constructing towns for millionaires like Koncha-Zaspa, also built roads and infrastructure facilities, using budget funds - mainly during the period when Medvedchuk was in power and Samusev worked as his adviser.
Subsequently, the corporation was disbanded, Medvedchuk ended up in Russia, and Samusev continues to build estates for millionaires. At the same time, probably evading taxes, as stated in criminal cases.
One of the most famous objects of Samusev today is the capital’s cottage town “Konik”.
Its name sounded throughout Ukraine not because of the elite buildings, but due to the barbaric extraction of sand and the change in the riverbed of the Dnieper, which StopKor has already talked about more than once.
According to media reports, the notorious ex-chairman of the constitutional court Tupitsky, and the deputy mayor of Kyiv Prokopov, and many other politicians, businessmen, athletes and other “celebrities” who are able to shell out half a million dollars for an estate live here. This list also included Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Verbitsky, who, according to fellow investigators, also lives in Konik.
We are talking about a two-story townhouse. As Schemes found out, Verbitsky lives in a house that his nephew purchased by proxy from an Odessa businessman for more than 2 million hryvnia - a price that, according to market prices, is six times lower. The cost of such real estate starts from 18.5 million hryvnia.
“Konik” is a territory reliably closed to mere mortals.
You cannot get here either through the checkpoint or through the adjacent bank of the Konik river of the same name, despite the law on free access to water bodies. To look beyond the fence, StopCor's team went undercover, posing as buyers who wanted to buy property here.
“Most of the cottages in Konik are already occupied, and there are not enough plots to develop a successful business in the area. As specialists from the sales department told us, there are not enough vacant houses here, and they showed us a small house of the “family” type, which costs from 400 thousand dollars, and the so-called quadrexes, that is, a quarter of the house, costing about 750 thousand dollars, and this is almost 30 million hryvnia. That is, Prime Minister Shmygal needs to work for more than 30 years to earn a quarter of this house, and President of Ukraine Zelensky, according to his declared salary, is generally 88 years old,” comments Alla Martyn.
What does tax evasion have to do with it?
Considering the real cost of houses, if almost a fifth of the money from the sale of housing in Konik, as required by law, went to the budget in the form of taxes, the deductions would be considerable. However, as expert Oleg Getman explains, until recently many businessmen abused gaps in the law and paid 5% tax instead of 18%.
“Previously, the tax was uniform, this 5% regardless of the number of acquisitions. And this was abused in a certain way by builders and developers. And about a year ago there was a change regarding the third purchase. And now on the third purchase the tax for legal entities is 18%,” he notes.
What about Samusev?
As stated in the case materials, which came to the editorial office of StopCor from its own sources, for the sale of real estate he paid tax not as an entrepreneur (18%), but as an individual (5%). According to the State Fiscal Service of the Kiev region, this lasted 16-20 years, which is why the fiscal authorities initiated criminal proceedings regarding Samusev’s evasion of taxes on an especially large scale. In addition, according to our data, Samusev’s people registered real estate on paper at a nominally much lower price in order to minimize taxes.
“When we go to real estate sales sites, the amounts here are simply cosmic – about a million dollars for these cottages. But in fact, according to the documents, they are legally worth several million hryvnia. This scheme allows you to evade paying taxes, and in the future, these owners who purchase this property do not have to show its full value,” notes human rights activist Roman Lytvyn.
One of the brightest cases is Kirill Timoshenko’s purchase of an estate in the cottage town of Samuseva.
“As the media wrote, the ex-deputy head of the OP purchased a house in Podgortsy for allegedly 5 million hryvnia, while the minimum price of a cottage in the town of Samuseva called “Alpiyka” started at 13 million. According to our data, in the same 2020, a businessman was at home nominally issued for 7, 5, and less than 2 million hryvnia, while, let us emphasize once again, they were sold, according to media reports, from 13 million,” notes the journalist.
This tax evasion scheme obviously exists today, which was actually confirmed to StopCor by a specialist from the sales department of the renamed Golden Gate company, which today is called ZV Development.
To find out at what stage Samusev’s tax evasion case is at, the editors of StopCor sent a request to the State Tax Service and the Economic Security Service, since the fiscal service had already been liquidated.
As it turned out, the case was apparently liquidated along with the State Fiscal Service. Because, as the tax office noted, the production of fiscal taxes should be investigated by the Economic Security Bureau, but the Bureau of Economic Security reported that they did not have and do not have any case involving Samusev or his companies.
Journalists also turned to Sergei Samusev himself for clarification. But he, cutting off that all this was a lie and a provocation, hung up, without giving him the opportunity to ask other important questions, including about business in the occupied Crimea.
As evidenced by information and analytical platforms, other Samusev companies at one time appeared in criminal proceedings related to tax schemes. In particular, the company GRAND VINDIGO, formerly called AMC TROIKA and partly owned by Samusev, formed a tax credit with partners to withdraw funds and evade taxes. It is noteworthy that most of the companies with a tarnished reputation were subsequently renamed and rewritten to others.
What does this have to do with an annexed peninsula and an aggressor country?
Most of these companies now belong to a certain Valentina Zhezhulova, who owns more than a hundred companies in different parts of Ukraine, although there is no mention of her as the person who owns such a business empire in the media. However, Samusev surprisingly did not rewrite the majority of Sevastopol companies re-registered under Russian law, did not leave the founders, and remains the current owner and beneficiary. We are talking, in particular, about the companies “Sevastopolstroy”, “Sevzhilstroy”, “Albireo”, “Invest Zuid”.
And although most of these companies, according to Russian analytical platforms, have apparently already been liquidated in the Russian Federation, one of the most famous, Sevalstopolstroy, still operates under the laws of the aggressor country. Now this company is building housing in occupied Sevastopol, paying taxes there and receiving budget subsidies, and the company’s activities are being lobbied, as the media write, by the so-called ex-governor of Sevastopol Dmitry Ovsyannikov.
It is noteworthy that the co-founder of the Sevalstopolstroy company is the offshore Cypriot company Monerey Limited. This same offshore company is also a co-owner of another Sevastopol business, Samusev; Bushtinsky Timber Mill and PJSC Global Skade, which belonged to the owner of Konica; the TRACTINGSTROY company of business tycoon Tigipko; company "SMART-SOFT", which was founded by the Golden Gate Corporation. That is, theoretically, Samusev could receive income from the activities of companies in Russian-occupied Crimea through a Cyprus offshore company, experts suggest.
“Cypriot companies in many cases are just gaskets. When there is a certain number of unknown beneficiaries and there is some pound, some hired director. The company can withdraw money to Cyprus when the beneficiary of these withdrawn funds is a citizen of any other country,” comments Oleg Getman.
StopCor, for its part, sent a corresponding appeal to the SBU and the Crimean prosecutor's office so that they could find out whether Samusev receives income from business on the Russian-occupied peninsula. However, whether they will check the facts we have identified is questionable, given the influential connections of the owner of Konik and the lack of movement in other, no less egregious cases involving Samusev or his companies.
One of the most famous is regarding the illegal alienation of community lands, unauthorized washing of sand and changing the bed of the Konik River.
As Roman Litvin recalls, the owners of the town made a beach for themselves through illegal reclamation and actually seized the lands of the water fund, lands of communal property. At the same time, all criminal cases opened as a result of recording these dubious actions were stopped at the moment of seizure and subsequently the appointment of environmental assessments. However, illegal mining has now been stopped.
At the same time, arbitrariness in this area in the Goloseevsky district of the capital continues. After all, having seized the lands of the water fund, they took over the forest lands. In particular, as StopCor was informed by the Kyiv prosecutor's office, they are pursuing a case in court regarding the illegal privatization of part of the Koncha-Zaspovsky forestry with the seizure of the Konik River and the canal from the Vita River.
“The regional forestry enterprise ignored our request for the alienation of forest fund lands. The disputed area, we emphasize, borders on Konik and land that, according to the real estate register, belongs to Samusev himself,” notes Alla Martyn.
As noted in the Department of Land Resources of the Kyiv City State Administration in response to our request, disputed areas are not taken into account in the cadastre, and in early April of this year, Kievzem turned to the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor's Office regarding violations of land legislation.
According to documents, the owner of the illegally alienated lands that were seized is Inna Nebesnaya.
The fact that she is most likely just a figurehead can be evidenced by the fact that the woman was already a suspect in the Cherkassy case of illegal seizure of enterprise property. In addition, according to Ukontrol data, the lady is associated with about a hundred companies.
“This may indicate that Nebesnaya is a fictitious owner of the business and the indicated land plots, whose services, it is possible, were used by the owner of Konica,” the journalist suggests.
In addition, as the prosecutor’s office noted to StopCor, the State Bureau of Investigation is conducting another proceeding on the illegal transfer of capital plots to housing construction cooperatives and illegal sand mining. According to the court register, we are talking specifically about the Konik housing cooperative, because the person involved in the case is ZV Development, which, according to the proceedings, is involved in the seizure of more than a hundred hectares of capital land and the unauthorized construction of houses.
A similar case of sand reclamation, in which the developer’s company was involved, but in the Brovary district, was also investigated by the Brovary police. As stated in the production materials, officials of Samusev’s company “GIDROECORESURS” are involved in the illegal reclamation of sand on the shore of the Pogrebsky Starik reservoir in the Gulf of the Desna River.
But why is there no significant movement on any case and at what level exactly are they being blocked?
Who can help a businessman stay afloat? Before the full-scale invasion, the media wrote that Medvedchuk was his patron. Also Samusev’s business partner, at least previously, was billionaire Tigipko. And in his cottage towns there live many influential people, such as judges, law enforcement officers, Klitschko’s deputy and people involved in the Office of the President, for example the ex-deputy head of the OP Tymoshenko. Also in Konik, according to media reports, lived the former coordinator of the “Big Construction” program from the OP, Yuri Golik. People's Deputy from the pro-government party Galina Yanchenko also publicly supports Samusev today.
“I never tire of admiring our Ukrainian entrepreneurs... During the war, they don’t close down their business, but on the contrary, they open new production facilities and create new jobs... The other day I visited such an enterprise. The owner, businessman Sergei Samusev, built this plant,” she said.
So, isn’t it thanks to influential friends that things are slowing down regarding Samusev? We will continue to monitor and report on this topic.
