On August 19, the Kyiv Economic Court began hearings on the bankruptcy case of Nikolai Lagun, a scandalous fugitive banker who has repeatedly been the focus of investigations.
The former owner of Delta Bank, whose financial institution owes the state and depositors, according to various estimates, from 1.2 to 1.5 billion dollars, is now hiding from Ukrainian justice in Vienna and asking to be declared bankrupt. This is probably how he tries to avoid a refund.
As they write in the media, Lagoon finds himself in a situation where he initiates his own bankruptcy. In 2015, the National Bank classified its Delta Bank as insolvent. According to the Deposit Guarantee Fund, the financial institution has suffered losses due to the withdrawal of assets since 2011 due to lending to related parties and their transfer of funds received abroad under fictitious contracts.
An approximate estimate of the damage caused by the owner of Delta Bank is about $1.5 billion. In particular, this amount includes UAH 23 billion in the FGFVO lawsuit against Lagun, as well as Lagun’s debt to Sberbank admitted in court for UAH 5.5 billion. In addition, in his bankruptcy filing, Lagoon additionally admitted UAH 2.152 billion in other debts, including almost UAH 1.5 billion in debt to Ukreximbank.
In July 2023, Lagun filed a bankruptcy petition, which states the impossibility of paying debts in the amount of UAH 7.7 billion and proposes to write off liabilities in the amount of about UAH 6 billion, since the current financial situation allegedly does not allow the banker to pay off his debts.
So, the list of property that Lagun proposes to use for settlements with creditors includes apartments and land plots in Crimea, plots in the Kyiv and Chernigov regions, securities of companies associated with Delta Bank, as well as a collection of wristwatches from dozens of different brands - Omega, Panerai Luminor, Rolex, Greubel Forsey, Audemars Piguet, FP Journe, Girard Perregaux and others.
The list of 240 watches is included in the list of the debtor's assets that was added to the bankruptcy petition. The list also notes that the collection was seized in accordance with the Search Protocol dated 08/08/2018 in one of the numerous criminal cases. If a bankruptcy case is opened, in the ruling on opening proceedings on the debtor's insolvency, the court must introduce a moratorium on satisfying creditors' claims, as well as appoint a debt restructuring manager.
Lagun, who now lives in Vienna, was put on the wanted list by the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kyiv in the fall of 2023 in the case of withdrawing funds from the bank in excess of $76.5 million. At one of the meetings, where he personally appeared via video link, Lagun stated that is being treated in the capital of Austria and has no plans to return to Ukraine yet
We note that the fall of Delta gave rise to about 600 criminal cases, and in 2021 Nikolay Lagun was even charged with embezzlement of more than 1 billion UAH. However, as of today, none of these cases have reached their logical conclusion.
Who can help Lagoon hide his assets from justice?
Also, investigations were carried out in the media, as a result of which it turned out that one of the hiding places where national law enforcement agencies and international investigators should look for Laguna’s assets is the fortune of the Kyiv lawyer Anna Gutsalyuk, who is close to him, who has been accompanying the ex-banker’s business and his affairs for years.
Anna Vladimirovna Gutsalyuk is a non-public lawyer in the capital. However, it can play one of the leading roles in concealing assets in the case of one of the largest bank failures in the history of independent Ukraine, and, quite possibly, throughout Eastern Europe. Unlike Nikolai Lagun, as well as the entire top management of Delta Bank, who is accused and debtor in cases of theft of multi-billion dollar flows transferred by the financial institution to offshore jurisdictions, Gutsalyuk and his law firm do not appear on these lists. She regularly represents the interests of Laguna, his Ukrainian businesses and offshore structures in Ukrainian courts.
In the same tandem, he and Gutsalyuk founded Birayt Advocacy LLC, a law firm whose lawyers represent Laguna and his firms in litigation in Ukraine. A number of other agricultural companies are also registered with Gutsalyuk - All Green LLC (44910517) and Agrien LLC (45077686) - both through the Cypriot Ecovel Limited. This Cypriot company also founded Ridds LLC (42879774) in Ukraine. Gutsalyuk has other agricultural experience from Ferrara-Agro LLC and Ferrara Group - these are the companies of the father of her child, Alexander Romanovsky. It is quite possible that the agricultural assets are in fact the business of Laguna, re-registered as Gutsalyuk.
Who else is involved in the $1.5 billion case?
We remind you that, as StopCor investigators found out, the then NBU officials and the head of another now liquidated financial institution, Avant-Bank, Evgeniy Bevz, could have had a hand in the high-profile bankruptcy of Delta and the withdrawal of funds to the Russian Federation.
What is the Foundation's role in providing contributions to this story?
There is evidence that the Fund probably did not show sufficient interest in the return of the Laguna Billion, although these funds were actually sought by an independent law firm. But the Fund, which held a tender for services to search for Delta assets, chose another participant.
In the end, the winning company “returned nothing. All they did was a concept, a document on the search and return of assets.”
