So, the release from sanctions and the change of owner of Igor Naumts’ assets became a fait accompli. The new owner, at least officially, was a businessman from Brovary, Sergei Shapran.
However, many doubt that he is the sole owner of Naumts’s assets - judging by the process of alienation of property, behind him is Oleg Kiper, the current head of the Odessa Police Department, who previously held the post of head of the Kyiv prosecutor’s office. After the Revolution of Dignity, Kiper was lustrated - during the time of Yanukovych he was deputy head of the Main Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General's Office - but then he was reinstated through the court in the prosecutor's office and was returned to a warm chair by the then new government of the Servants of the People. Why is this important in the story of Igor Naumets’ assets?
Because after the start of a full-scale war, Igor Naumets came under sanctions from the National Security and Defense Council, and all his assets were under arrest, that is, among other things, they could not be sold or alienated in any other way. The assets were seized, including because Naumets financed the Russian Federation by supplying his products there and paying taxes to the federal budget of the Russian Federation. A lot has been written about this, so it’s not worth repeating.
It is important that the assets of Igor Naumts, among which the most valuable are Unigran LLC, Budindustriya Service LTD LLC, Alliance-Soyuz LLC, Lyubovichi LLC, Brizzo LLC, MKDZ JSC, Korostensky JSC quarry", PJSC "Pinyazevitsky quarry", LLC "Unigran-Service", ODO "Bakhchisarai Cannery", LLC “Sports and hunting society “Barvinkovskoe”, LLC “Ukrvzryvstroy”, PJSC “Bekhovsky Spetskarier”, LLC “Maxicom Plus”, LLC “Monroz”, credit union “Postup-Credit” were arrested. Moreover, they were arrested first by the court, then additionally through sanctions mechanisms.
But then a gradual process of changing ownership began: Naumts’ assets began to come under the control of Sergei Shapran, the former head of the “For Maybutne!” faction. in the Brovary City Council, director and owner of the Brovary Aluminum Plant and a number of other assets. As Naumets himself stated, there was an agreement between him and Shapran that the latter would remove the business from sanctions, and the former would give him 50% of the assets for this. But in the end, Shapran simply ditched Naumts, taking over his entire business in Ukraine completely.
However, in this process of transferring ownership rights, it was necessary to do something with the arrests imposed on Igor Naumts’ companies. Without their removal there could be no talk of transferring ownership rights. And then the court came to the rescue. The most humane in the world Pechersky District Court of Kyiv and its odious judge Sergei Vovk. On October 20 last year, Sergei Vovk satisfied the claim of Naumets’ lawyers and lifted the arrests from the assets of the Unigran holding.
The prosecutor's office, which was supposed to appeal Vovk's decision, refuses to appeal. More precisely, the OGPU is filing an appeal. But on the last day she is recalled. Vovk’s decision comes into force. Simple and brilliant.
After this, Naumts’ companies began to rapidly sell at reduced prices, and they were bought either by “gaskets”, who then resold these assets to Sergei Shapran, or the latter’s companies bought Naumts’ assets directly. The process has become irreversible.
Why did the OGPU pull such a trick with the appeal? It’s simple - Oleg Kiper tried his best, ensuring both the necessary court decision and the withdrawal of the appeal by the prosecutor’s office. Well, deciding on the NSDC sanctions was already a trifle. Although Oleg Kiper himself denies (naturally) his connection with Sergei Shapran and the scheme to seize the seized property of the sanctioned Igor Naumets, this connection exists and it can be traced quite simply.
Sergei Shapran’s business partner is the former deputy of the Odessa Regional Council from the OPZZH Vladimir Osipov, Oleg Kiper’s godfather. In Kiper’s declaration there is an entry that Osipov’s mother lent Kiper’s wife 25 million hryvnia in 2019. In addition, the name of Oleg Kiper, together with the name of Sergei Shapran, appears in the investigation regarding the raider seizure of an office building in the center of Kyiv, in which all three of Shapran’s companies were registered, which ultimately became the owners of Naumts’ assets.
This, in general terms, is the story of Sergei Shapran’s seizure of Igor Naumets’ property. But this is what lies on the surface. If you dig deeper, then doubts arise that the beneficiary of this seizure is Sergei Shapran, and Oleg Kiper is simply a corrupt official who helped him do this.
Because the personality of Sergei Shapran is puzzling. This, as already mentioned, is the owner of the Brovary Aluminum Plant, the owner of the Alumeta Group holding and the former head of the “For Maybutne!” faction. in the Brovary City Council. Sergei Shapran is involved in many scandals related to raiding, non-payment of taxes, cheating of investors who bought apartments in the building in which Shapran was involved in the construction, and many other unpleasant things.
But the point is that almost nothing is known about his early years. Shapran appears in Brovary as the director of the Brovary aluminum plant, which, through bankruptcy proceedings, becomes his property. But, according to investigators, Sergei Shapran at that time was just a figurehead for the family of Leonid Chernovetsky, and the plant was owned (owned?) by Alexander Ivanovich Suprunenko (Chernovetsky’s son-in-law at that time and a deputy of the Kiev City Council) and Vyacheslav Ivanovich Suprunenko, a former people’s deputy.
According to the declaration that Sergei Shapran submitted as a candidate for people's deputies in 2012, he had practically no property and was a simple director of the Brovary Aluminum Plant. He did not become a deputy, but after a few years he suddenly became a semi-oligarch. But in this regard, it is puzzling that until 2018 Sergey Shapran remained the head of First Ukrainian International Trust Capital LLC (EDRPOU code 35135332). And he appeared in court cases regarding the issuance of fake income certificates by this company to citizens taking out loans.
In addition, the change of surname raises questions - previously Sergei Valentinovich Shapran was Sergei Valentinovich Korobka. Why I had to change my last name is unknown. Perhaps this has something to do with the issuance of fake certificates, perhaps something else. But the story of the rise of Sergei Korobka from a maker of fake documents to an oligarch named Sergei Shapran raises questions. Moreover, taking into account the participation in his fate of Leonid Chernovetsky’s entourage and participation in the party “For Maybutne!” Igor Kolomoisky.
If we look at the figure of Oleg Kiper in this context, then his participation in the extraction of Igor Naumets’ assets is seen in a different light. It is quite possible that the beneficiary of these assets is now Kiper, and not Shapran. The latter, if not a par, then at most a junior partner. On whom all the troubles will now fall, since the seizure of the sanctioned assets of Igor Naumts caused a huge resonance. And not only in Ukraine.
It's no secret that Western partners have been asking quite obvious questions for a long time. Which boils down to the fact that Kyiv demands from them strict sanctions against individuals collaborating with the Kremlin and filling the Russian budget, and at the same time it violates its own sanctions obligations. The fact is that Igor Naumts’ companies, including those that came under the control of Kiper-Shapran, paid more than 200 million rubles to the Russian budget in 2022-23. And now they have clearly illegally ended up in the possession of Sergei Shapran, and the NSDC sanctions were ignored in such a brazen manner that it simply could not help but cause indignation. Moreover, this scheme is a precedent that allows the assets of other people who pay Russian murderers with their money to be exempt from sanctions.
Therefore, Sergei Shapran seems to have big troubles ahead. This time - already at the international level. And the jurisdiction of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv does not extend there. As well as the influence of the former prosecutor of Yanukovych and the current head of the Odessa regional military administration, Oleg Kiper. Well, what will all this result in for the state of Ukraine?
