Deputy Managing Director of the Deposit Guarantee Fund Natalia Rudukha is associated with the henchmen of fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych - former Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Eduard Stavitsky and oligarch Sergei Kurchenko. It is possible that she is still acting in their interests, selling the property of liquidated banks and determining which of the depositors to return the funds to. Such data was discovered during the investigation into the disappearance of jewelry from the Kontrakt bank when Rudukha worked there.
Before Rudukha began working at the Deposit Guaranty Fund, she held the position of Deputy Chairman of the Board of PJSC Contract, which is now in the process of liquidation.
Connection with Stavitsky and Kurchenko
Until 2014, Contract was a reliable, profitable American bank. At the end of 2014, it was bought out, probably by prior agreement with Stavitsky, by the Israeli billionaire and his partner Avissar Yechim.
After this, the entire top management of Contract was changed; people loyal to the ex-minister came there. Irina Potapenko, who previously had no experience in positions of this level, was appointed as the nominal chairman of the board. The actual management of the bank was carried out by Stavitsky’s friend Ilya Marchevsky and deputy chairman of the board Natalya Rudukha.
It is known that one of Stavitsky’s main partners was oligarch Sergei Kurchenko. Therefore, from the very first days, the Kontrakt credit council began issuing non-repayable loans to the oligarch’s companies. In particular, $8 million and UAH 30 million (at the rate of 7.9 hryvnia per dollar) were received by the companies Trans-gaz Bureau, Finanspromgaz and Ukrtransgaz of the fugitive oligarch Kurchenko. In addition, a non-repayable loan of $2 million was received by the company GP Retail Center (Furshet), which at that time was already virtually insolvent.
It is worth noting that Ukrtransgaz Bureau, after receiving a loan of 30 million hryvnia, bought the building of the Kontrakt bank for 29 million hryvnia. That is, Kurchenko’s company bought a bank building in the heart of the capital - on Podol, for the money of its depositors.
After this, the first violin in “Contract” passed from Marchevsky to the deputy chairman of the bank’s board, Natalya Rudukha, who successfully led the bank to liquidation.
Removal of jewelry from the Kontrakt bank
Even before Rudukha joined Kontrakt, but after the change of ownership - in September 2014 - the bank bought the Lombard Pearl loan from Expobank. As a collateral for obligations, a third party, Olga Brestavitskaya, contributed gold jewelry in the amount of 8,361,103.80 hryvnia (at the time of making the collateral, the NBU exchange rate of the US dollar to the hryvnia was 7.9 UAH). Later, she additionally contributed gold jewelry in the amount of UAH 3,040,300.60, at an exchange rate of UAH 7.9 per dollar. It should be noted that when transferring jewelry to Expobank, their quantity and quality were checked, which included examination and expert evaluation of diamonds.
In December 2014, Olga Brestavitskaya repeatedly asked Kontrakt Bank to show the jewelry that she had pledged as collateral for the loan. However, contrary to the provisions of the agreement, the bank refused her.
On January 20, 2015, she filed a complaint with the police, who opened criminal proceedings on the grounds of committing a crime under Part 1 of Art. 388 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal actions in relation to property that is seized, pledged property or property that is described or subject to confiscation). 31 pieces of jewelry were seized and the bank repeatedly tried to remove them and close the proceedings through the courts.
In February 2015, “Kontrakt”, according to documents, allegedly transferred these jewelry to the company “Altima-Plus”, the founders of which are the already mentioned friends of Stavitsky and at the same time members of the bank’s board of directors Avissar Yehim and Ilya Marchevsky, for which they had to pay 5,555,810.75 hryvnia . However, in March 2015, according to documents, “Contract” allegedly took back the jewelry due to the fact that “Altima-Plus” allegedly did not have the funds to pay the obligations. This became the basis for not showing Olga Brestavitskaya her jewelry, the whereabouts of which are currently unknown.
At this time, Natalya Rudukha received the actual leadership of the Contract. In April 2015, she showed law enforcement officers jewelry that was kept in safe deposit boxes. It is possible that she did this deliberately so that the investigation would end. Subsequently, investigators limited themselves to correspondence between Brestavitskaya and the bank, and investigative search actions have not been carried out since then. Therefore, the case was closed in 2020.
The bank began to gradually lift the seizure of jewelry. In particular, the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kyiv, by decisions of February 28, 2018, canceled the seizure of part of the jewelry.
According to information from a former Kontrakt employee, in September 2015, before the introduction of temporary administration to the bank, the board removed jewelry that was stored in bank boxes to an unknown location, that is, after they had been examined by investigators.
“They (members of the bank’s board - ed.) at night, a week before the introduction of the temporary administration, cleaned out the cells and took out everything that the pawnshop kept. Bank employees don’t know where. But then the pawnshop still filed complaints against members of the board that they stole these jewelry,” said the publication’s interlocutor on condition of anonymity.
On October 7, 2015, the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals began the procedure for withdrawing Kontrakt Bank from the market based on the decision of the National Bank of Ukraine to revoke the banking license and its liquidation.
They managed to remove Natalya Rudukha from the “Contract” and even contributed to her appointment as head of the accounting department of insolvent banks of the Federal Guarantee Fund, and later as deputy managing director of the Fund, in contrast to the nominal head of the bank, Irina Potapenko, who as a result was subject to accusations and criminal cases.
Legalization of jewelry
Almost 10 years later, when Rudukha settled into the position of deputy managing director of the Fund and became convinced of her impunity, the idea of legalizing the missing jewelry, brilliant in its simplicity, arose.
Jewelry periodically appears for sale through Foundation auctions, which are striking due to their similarity. It is noteworthy that jewelry that was stored in the “Contract” is not sold the first time. The fund holds 3-4 short-term (2-3 minutes) auctions, at which each time the price of jewelry is lower and lower.
For example, gold earrings with diamonds weighing 17.66 g were put up for auction at a starting price of 1,099,597.20 hryvnia. As a result of the described scheme, they were sold for 241,010 hryvnia to Bondarenko Sergei Mikhailovich.
At another such auction, a gold bracelet weighing 56.39 g was sold as part of a lot with other bank assets (property rights to real estate, fixed assets, material assets, claims and other property rights under loan agreements, etc.). The initial price of the lot was 3,061,233.58 hryvnia, and it was bought in 2020 for 530,625 hryvnia by CONSULT SOLUTIONS LLC with an authorized capital of 15 million hryvnia.
Two rings were sold using a similar scheme. Analyzing how the auctions are held, it can be assumed that the pawnshop’s valuables are bought at extremely low prices by dummies and, in fact, they will most likely remain in the hands of the participants in the scheme.
It is possible that while liquidating the banks now, Rudukha, as one of the leaders of the Deposit Guarantee Fund, is still playing along with the interests of Stavitsky-Kurchenko and satisfying his own financial needs.
