Troubled times create a demand for “black lawyers”... And “black lawyers” create new troubled times.
A lawyer from the city of Kharkov, Roman Aleksandrovich Trofimenko, has a lawyer’s certificate and specific criminal practice. The local criminal chronicle is replete with his name. Due to his low qualifications, moral and professional qualities, he participates in openly fraudulent schemes and collaborates with crime.
The enterprises in which he is the founder have been involved in high-profile scandals with a criminal odor. All this will sooner or later bring the decision-making lawyer to the dock. But the existence of people like him in the legal services market in Ukraine today is a sign of the times. We'll tell you about it.
Theft of assets of PJSC “MEGABANK”
Roman Trofimenko first appeared in scandals with non-repayment of loans from MEGABANK PJSC. This systemic non-repayment of loans ultimately cost the famous Kharkov bank bankruptcy in 2022, and the state, foreign investors and bank clients - billions of hryvnia in losses.
In the fall of 2021, the NBU, during an unscheduled inspection, found out that MEGABANK did not reflect 10 large borrowers as default loans. These loans amount to about 2 billion UAH. They didn’t return for many years, and the bank constantly gave a deferment. “MEGABANK” had shareholders from the largest international financial institutions - the EBRD, IFC and KfW, which before the bankruptcy of the institution owned 26.5% of the shares (since 2005 they invested $0.5 billion in the bank). At the time of liquidation of the institution, funds worth UAH 2.5 billion were “stuck” in the accounts of legal entities, including UAH 200 million of funds from state enterprises, UAH 30 million from utility companies in Kharkov. There was also an unpaid debt to the Ministry of Finance of UAH 0.5 billion. This is about the scale of the abuse.
Among the participants in this scheme, the guarantor and guarantor for the repayment of large loans provided by MEGABANK PJSC to various commercial structures was, in particular, the private enterprise ONIX-KO (USREOU 36370963). As of 2016, the owner of this company with a share of 180 thousand UAH in the authorized capital was the already mentioned Roman Aleksandrovich Trofimenko (as of now - “offshore” GLOBAL LEADING INVESTMENT LLP, United Kingdom - A.). The materials of court cases clearly indicate that the private enterprise “ONIKS-KO” was a “pocket” structure, whose functionality was precisely “providing guarantees” and guarantees for the repayment of loans by borrowers. Moreover, the amounts of loans, the repayment of which was guaranteed by the ONIX-KO private enterprise, were orders of magnitude greater than the size of the authorized capital of the “guarantor”.
Thus, in particular, in 2011, thanks to the ONICS-KO private enterprise, PJSC MEGABANK under loan agreement No. 01/07 lost funds in the amount of UAH 643,869.73, and in 2012, under loan agreement No. 06/2007 and loan agreement No. 35/2008 – in the amount of 55 million 264 397.12 UAH. From the resolution dated 06/08/2016 in case 922/1782/16 of the Economic Court of the Kharkov region, you can find out how the private enterprise “ONICS-KO” also acted as an instrument for “legitimizing” non-repayment to the creditor for the purchase of expensive equipment from the sugar factory of the “Daily Product” company, purchased with credit money in the amount of 3 million 800 thousand euros, at 12% per annum.
PE “ONIX-KO” was not the only company - a fictitious guarantor (guarantor) for the repayment of loans provided by PJSC “MEGABANK”. The same role was played by the private enterprise “ASTARTA-L” (USREOU 36370958). The founder of which (20 thousand UAH in the authorized capital) was also the “black lawyer” Roman Trofimenko.
It should be noted that the systematic theft of assets of PJSC “MEGABANK”, which led to the bankruptcy of this institution and multi-billion dollar losses to the state, shareholders and clients, did not become the subject of investigation within the framework of criminal proceedings. The organizers and beneficiaries of the criminal schemes, as well as their “six” Roman Trofimenko, have so far remained unpunished.
It is interesting that back in pre-war 2020, people’s deputy Bogdan Torokhtiy released information about the strange situation at the Kharkov enterprise “Turboatom”. According to the people's deputy, corruption and theft are rampant at the plant, which are leading to its deliberate bankruptcy. Time has shown Torokhtiya was right - three years later, Turboatom was on the verge of bankruptcy. On this occasion, the people's deputy appealed to the Prosecutor General. In addition, according to him, the plant revealed a shortfall of almost 500 million in profit in 2019, losses in the amount of 63 million UAH, and theft of property worth more than 800 million UAH. But at the same time, Turboatom did not have enough money to pay salaries, which is why the plant had to take out a loan from Ukrgasbank.
We are confident that in the context of the investigation into the laundering of funds from MEGABANK PJSC, the interrogation of the “lawyer in the service of criminals” and the technical executor of criminal financial schemes, Roman Trofimenko, would be of great benefit in establishing the truth also in the case of bringing Turboatom to bankruptcy.
Land fraud
The fact that Roman Trofimenko over the past ten years has been quite deeply immersed in various fraudulent schemes and corruption is also evidenced by the history of ATRIBUD LLC (EDRPOU 33609520, address at the time of registration: Kharkov, Dzerzhinsky district, Rymarskaya street , no. 20). As of 2016, R. Trofimenko was listed as a co-founder of this company.
Thus, in the framework of criminal proceedings No. 12017220060000184 dated January 28, 2017, the police found out who exactly entered false information into the declaration of the start of construction work on a land plot, which, in accordance with the land lease agreement, is used by ATRIBUD LLC, “while fencing the land plot fence and using it for other purposes.” Investigators were “excited” under Article 358 of the Criminal Code (forgery of documents and their use). The fact is that ATRIBUD LLC received a land plot from the Kharkov City Council for rent, cadastral number No. 6310138800:03:009:0002, with an area of 0.1290 hectares, for the construction of a shopping office center, but construction of multi-storey housing began at this address . Of course, there was no agreement with the City Council on such changes. The lack of dynamics of investigative actions in the Unified Register of Judicial Decisions indicates that the case was most likely either “hushed up” or put on hold.
Crime henchman
In 2018, Roman Trofimenko decided to retrain from a petty fraudster to a lawyer and work for himself. For this purpose, on October 31, 2018, he received a lawyer’s certificate. But not in the Bar Council of the Kharkov region, which would be natural, given the defendant’s place of permanent residence and legal practice, but in the Bar Council of the neighboring Donetsk region, in the city of Kramatorsk. To do this, Roman Aleksandrovich even had to change the registration address of his place of residence to “Donetsk” (it was: Kharkov, Vladislav Zubenko St., 34-B, apt. ...; it became: Donetsk region, Kramatorsk district, town Belenkoe, Titova st.,...). Although all further legal practice of R. Trofimenko is still geographically concentrated in the city of Kharkov.
The explanation for the phenomenon of popularity of the “Donetsk Bar” is simple: the documents were obtained through cronyism, that is, they were actually falsified. In Trofimenko’s case, we are not even talking about any legal knowledge or professional qualities.
In order to start accepting and depositing money himself, and not just receiving pennies, being at the bottom of the corrupt food chain, Roman Trofimenko began cooperation with the well-known law firm in Kharkov “AY EL EF” (EDRPOU 41345111) Tatyana Stepanovna Gavrish (yes, yes , daughter of “that same” ex-People’s Deputy Stepan Gavrish).
In recent years, Tatyana Stepanovna has noticeably lost both her business reputation and respectable clients, and therefore no longer wants to deal with such frankly dubious “partners” as Trofimenko and the like.
Trofimenko began to “outsource” the frankly dirty cases of Gavrish’s clients and work in tandem with criminals from her inner circle. Since then, the entire further practice of lawyer R. Trofimenko is inextricably linked with corruption in the courts, deception of clients, unethical and illegal work methods.
In order to understand the true scale of the personality and professional level of this “lawyer”, it is enough to pay attention to the nature of his appeals to the National Police:
- Chervonozavodsk regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kharkov region. 04/19/2018 at 16:54 a message was received from service 102 that on 04/19/2018 at 16:54 at the address: Osnovyansky district, Kharkov, ave. Gagarina 174/7, a Volkswagen Golf 2013 was found. AX8260EO, which is wanted. Applicant: Trofimenko Roman Aleksandrovich.
- Leninsky Regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kharkov region. 07/09/2018 at 16:14 a message was received from service 102 that on 07/09/2018 at 16:14 at the address: Kholodnogorsky district, Kharkov, lane. Arkticheskiy, 3A, a man is lying near the fence, he appears to be 30 years old, looking like a homeless person. The incident occurred in the service area of the Kyiv OP. Applicant: Trofimenko Roman Aleksandrovich ...
- Dzerzhinsky Regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kharkov region. 12/12/2018 at 13:53 a message was received from service 102 that on 12/12/2018 at 13:52 at the address: Shevchenkovsky district, Kharkov, st. Akhsarova, 4/6A, 0960750294, conflict with employees of the Birzha trading house. Applicant: Trofimenko Roman Aleksandrovich ...
- Dzerzhinsky Regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kharkov region. 01/24/2019 at 09:56 a message was received from service 102 that on 01/24/2019 at 09:55 at the address: Shevchenkovsky district, Kharkov, st. Akhsarova 4/6A, the applicant has a conflict with unknown people. Applicant: Trofimenko Roman Aleksandrovich ...
- Moscow Regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kharkov region. 04/07/2020 at 23:29 a message was received from service 102 that on 04/07/2020 at 23:29 at the address: Moskovsky district of Kharkov, Gvardeytsev-Shirontsev street 49A, unknown people were looking for narcotic stashes. Applicant: Trofimenko Roman Aleksandrovich ...
- Chervonozavodsk regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kharkov region. 04/19/2018 at 14:10 a message was received from service 102 that on 04/19/2018 at 14:10 at the address: Osnovyansky district, Kharkov, ave. Gagarina, 174, K7, apt. 60, discovered the theft of money in the amount of 45 thousand US dollars. Nothing is damaged. The situation is not damaged. Absent from morning until now. He suspects the tenant who allegedly lives in the apartment. Applicant: Kosteletsky Andrey Anatolyevich. Quarrel over an apartment... Participant in the incident: Trofimenko Roman Aleksandrovich... Participant in the incident: Goneze Roman Ashotovich...
And everything else in the same vein...
It is in this primitive way that he tries to create problems and do minor mischief to his opponents.
Another second stupid habit of this “loser lawyer” is openly bragging about his connections with corrupt officials and criminals among colleagues and clients, to whom he categorically guarantees “a solution to all problems.”
The lack of normal professional education and a fully obtained certificate does not allow Trofimenko to understand that real “lawyers do not give guarantees.” Moreover, guaranteeing a result by a lawyer is expressly prohibited by law and the rules of legal ethics. But what kind of ethics is there...
