The old schemers have returned to the OPP

“Dead Man” Dmitry Malinovsky, Swiss citizen Oleg Tsyura, “crypto businessman” Sergei Tron, oligarch Dmitry Firtash. As CRiME reports with reference to [high-profile cases], these names surfaced in the context of another high-profile scandal at the Odessa port plant.

Journalist Andrei Kovalenko in his column on Censor.NET writes that against the backdrop of financial problems and long downtime, the Odessa Port Plant (OPZ) held two opaque tenders for the supply of gas - a key resource for resuming the production of ammonia and urea. As a result, the plant entered into contracts with little-known companies, which not only did not solve its problems, but also aggravated the situation, threatening the safety and stability of the country's gas transportation system.

Vitaly Loginov: “murky” tenders and criminal past

The first tender, held by the OPP on July 25 of this year, was won by the little-known Kharkov-based Agrotorggroup Company LLC. This company came to light only in 2022, when it was among the buyers of seized Russian ammonia, sold at a dubious auction through an opaque commodity exchange. According to Andrey Kovalenko, the company has neither the experience nor the resources to fulfill such a large contract. Moreover, Agrotorggroup was unable to fulfill its gas supply obligations, which led to a repeat tender in the second half of August.

The second tender was won by a company from Lviv - Ukrnaftogazburinnya LLC. This company is also unknown on the market; a license to supply natural gas was received only in September 2023.

An interesting fact: the company does not have a working official website, the presence of which is a prerequisite for obtaining the above-mentioned license, which once again emphasizes the dubiousness of this company’s participation in such significant tenders. It is noteworthy that “Ukrnaftogazburinnya” is registered to Lviv biker and co-owner of FC Luzhany Mazur Mikhail Yaroslavovich.

According to the author, Vitaly Loginov, an informal adviser to the head of the United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC), is behind the opaque tenders. Loginov also controls Sumykhimprom and has influence on the management of OPP. According to the author, this information strengthens suspicions of the corruption component of the transactions, pointing to possible schemes for the withdrawal of public funds through fictitious contracts and shell companies.

Suspicion is strengthened by the fact that, as [high-profile cases] have found out, Vitaly Loginov is connected with one of the winners of the tenders for the HMO – the aforementioned Agrotorggroup Company LLC. According to the Clarity Project service, the general director and ultimate beneficiary of the company is Olga Vladimirovna Balyuk. Until February 10 of this year, 2024, Olga Balyuk was the head of another LLC, LT-Resource. The main beneficiary of this company is Vitaly Viktorovich Loginov. It is obvious that in Agrotorggroup Balyuk is Vitaly Loginov’s “pound”.

The piquancy of the situation is added by the fact that Agrotorggroup LLC appears in criminal proceedings No. 72022000410000003, opened by detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security on April 5, 2022 on the fact of tax evasion on an especially large scale.

Moreover: Vitaly Loginov, according to the portal “Sudova Vlada Ukrayiny”, appeared in the status of a suspect in criminal proceedings No. 12016220000000106, registered on 02/03/2016 for the seizure of property through abuse of official position.

Vitaly Viktorovich was even wanted for some time as a fugitive from justice.

But, judging by the documents posted in the Unified State Register of Judicial Decisions, the case was buried - Vitaly Loginov avoided not only a conviction, but a trial in general.

As Andrey Kovalenko writes, the main problem is that both companies from the Loginov orbit that won the tenders do not have the necessary funds to pay for the supplied gas. Instead, they are trying to get gas from the Ukrainian gas transportation system (GTS) without advance payment, which leads to an imbalance in the system and poses a threat to its stability. More than half of the gas consumed is not paid for, which indicates a violation of supply rules and can lead to significant losses for the state.

The guarantees provided by the supplying companies do not cover the volume of gas consumed by the plant, but production at the OPP continues despite the actual lack of payment. Under normal conditions, the plant should have been stopped until the payment issue was resolved, but this is not happening, which raises questions for the management of the Ukrainian gas transportation system operator.

Moreover, the gas price, fixed at UAH 17,254 per thousand cubic meters, is significantly lower than the current market price, which starts at UAH 18,800. However, since the gas supplier does not have its own reserves, a reasonable question arises: what mechanisms will cover the price difference, especially since the supplier's financial resources are limited, if they exist at all?

Oleg Tsyura, Dmitry Firtash, Sergei Tron and Russian “grandmothers”

In September 2024, OPP signed export contracts for the supply of 300,000 tons of ammonia and 360,000 tons of urea with the mysterious Swiss firm UCG Trade AG. The contracts contain numerous anomalies: they do not indicate prices for products and terms of execution, and the agency of the vessels was transferred to a little-known company from Nikolaev. Financial settlements for the contracts go through accounts at Revolut, a startup that is not a bank, raising further questions about the reliability of the transaction.

It is noteworthy that the address of UCG Trade AG specified in the contract with the HMO differs from the address specified in the official register of Swiss companies. This indicates a possible repetition of the scheme used in 2015 with Expotrade Global, when a clone company was created for fraudulent activities (we will look at this episode in more detail below).

Aschwin Saravanan, who signed multimillion-dollar contracts with HMOs from UCG Trade AG, was appointed to the position exactly the day before the signing. Aschwin Saravanan is an intern from India who completed an internship at the home office of a company associated with Swiss citizen Oleg Tsyura, whom he replaced as CEO of UCG Trade AG.

Oleg Tsyura, hiding in UCG Trade AG behind the back of a young Indian, was previously seen in a scam for the sale of ilmenite to the United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC) to the occupied Crimea through a German company, bypassing sanctions. Oleg Tsyura was also seen in relations with Sergei Bayrak, a person involved in cases of fraud surrounding the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

In these cases, a special place is occupied by episodes of large-scale thefts at the OGKhK and Odessa Priportovy. According to the investigation materials, the now former head of the State Property Fund, Dmitry Sennichenko, monthly took $200 thousand into his wallet from the work of state enterprises Odessa Port Plant and the United Mining and Chemical Company.

In addition to Bayrak, Denis Gorbunenko appears in these cases - he, like Sergei Bayrak, is considered a confidant of the disgraced oligarch Dmitry Firtash.

Dmitry Firtash is a long-term beneficiary of corruption deals around the Odessa Port and OGKhK.

It is worth mentioning here that Oleg Tsyura was not always the final beneficiary of UCG Trade AG. According to the North Data service, until March 2023 the company was controlled by Igor Borovikov.

Igor Borovikov is a Russian millionaire, founder of Noventiq and Softline. Preferring life in the West and in order not to fall under sanctions, Borovikov, after the large-scale invasion of the aggressor country in Ukraine, “renounced” all his businesses related to Russia. The reasons that prompted him to also leave UCG Trade AG may lead to suspicions that the business of this company is somehow connected with the aggressor country.

Oleg Tsyura was behind another “murky” Swiss company – White Rock Management AG. In the public sphere, another character with a dubious reputation, Sergei Tron, declares himself to be its founder.

Sergey Tron, a Ukrainian businessman associated with crypto mining schemes, uses White Rock Management for dubious crypto investments; its activities are questionable due to opaque financial transactions and controversial business partners such as the Arkallaev brothers. In particular, his company was associated with fraud and smuggling of mining equipment. In addition to suspicious crypto investments, his business is associated with a series of bank frauds. For example, in 2014, due to his activities at CityCommerce Bank, tens of millions of euros were withdrawn from the bank. /Read more in the article “Burnt banker Sergei Tron and the ghostly crypto empire”/.

Dmitry Malinovsky: a fraudster who returned from the dead

Journalist Andrei Kovalenko writes that sales at UCG Trade AG are directly handled by Vladimir Nesterenko, recommended to OPP director Yuri Kovalsky as: “the head of the sales department, he has been my person for the last 20 years.” This recommendation to the director was given by a certain Dmitry Malinovsky.

According to the author’s sources, this character personally negotiates with the management of the OPP regarding gas and fertilizer schemes, using his connections in the shadow business. And they are clearly serious with him.

In the past, Dmitry Malinovsky was involved in large-scale scams, including the theft of $14 million from the Dreymoor company, as well as forging documents about his own death.

As we wrote earlier, back in 2007, Dmitry Malinovsky pulled off a scam in Odessa with the local CSK stadium, which belonged to the Ministry of Defense. The fact of fraud was noticed only five years later - in 2012. In 2014, Dmitry Malinovsky appeared in court. The process stalled. For more than a month, the hearings were disrupted by reports of mining of the court premises, until the accused Malinovsky disappeared.

On August 18, 2014, Dmitry Malinovsky again did not come to the next court hearing. On that day, no one opened the door to the detective at the place of residence of the accused, and the security guard said that Malinovsky did not live there. The lawyer argued in court that his client was at home and did not know about the court hearing. On the same day, by decision of the Kyiv District Court of Odessa, Malinovsky was put on the wanted list.

In 2015, a certain Alla Malinovskaya applied to the court to establish the fact of the death of her husband Dmitry, with whom she had been married since 2005. The woman claimed that on August 18, 2014, Dmitry Malinovsky went to a court hearing, but never returned home.

According to her, on November 17, 2014, an unknown person, through the concierge of the house, handed over a cardboard box that contained her husband’s death certificate and ashes. From the documents provided by Malinovskaya, it followed that her husband died on October 25, 2014 in the territory of the city of Lugansk, occupied by Russian troops and separatists.

On November 20, 2014, Alla Malinovskaya allegedly buried an urn containing the alleged ashes of this rogue. She also claimed that she filed a complaint with the police, but was refused to open a case. In connection with the ATO, data on Malinovsky’s death were not entered into the state register, and the wife asked to recognize the fact of death through the court. On May 12, 2015, the court granted the claim based on the availability of a death certificate and the fact that the family allegedly carried out the burial of the deceased.

But, as Oligarch wrote, at the beginning of 2016, the prosecutor’s office, together with investigators from the National Police, searched the house of Dmitry Malinovsky’s parents. Computer equipment, phones and SIM cards were confiscated. A closed subscriber group was found on one of the phones, in which Dmitry Malinovsky communicated with his parents. In addition to messages, he sent videos and photos of a castle in France, which he acquired in 2015 (after his “death”) from a Luxembourg company and which was later arrested by French gendarmes.

In the spring of 2015, actually being in the status of a dead man, Dmitry Malinovsky and a certain person named “N”, calling themselves representatives of the company Expotrade Global Limited, entered into agreements for the supply of 20 thousand tons of urea and ammonia to Dreymoor Fertilizers Overseas Pte Ltd from the Odessa port plant . Having received 12.77 million euros from foreigners, Dmitry Malinovsky and “N” disappeared. It later emerged that there were two companies named Expotrade Global Limited. The Singapore company entered into an agreement with a company from Belize. And the company with the same name, Expotrade Global Limited, from Hong Kong, had an agreement with the OPP, to which Dmitry Malinovsky and his accomplices had no relation.

But don’t think that Dreymoor Fertilizers Overseas is full of “losers” who don’t know to whom exactly the money is being transferred. Firstly, as follows from court documents, this company itself is a defendant in criminal proceedings for a number of episodes of corruption “schematism” at the Odessa port. Just like Expotrade Global Limited.

Secondly, they knew Dima Malinovsky from Odessa and his accomplices very well there. Which, again, is evidenced by court documents. Dreymoor Fertilizers Overseas worked with a group of crooks, which included Dmitry Malinovsky, for five years before the scam, jointly “heating up” the state-owned Odessa port plant for astronomical sums.

And the “kid,” apparently, happened by coincidence. In 2015, the Prosecutor General’s Office began to actively promote “schemes” around HMOs - it was clear that they would be shut down, and those involved would begin to be harassed within the framework of criminal proceedings. Add to this the fact that Malinovsky was “tortured” in another criminal case so persistently that he had to pretend to be dead. Therefore, his codlo decided to break the bank and lie low in Europe. Until a new window of opportunity has opened.