On July 1 and 2, the Bureau of Economic Security conducted searches on the territory of a metallurgical plant in Brovary, owned by the current deputy of the Kyiv City Council Roman Yaroshenko, former deputy Andriy Zayts, and businessmen Vyacheslav and Oleksandr Suprunenko, all from the group of the former mayor of the capital Leonid Chernovetsky. The companies LLC “ALTEG” 46124815 and LLC “BRAZ” 44443894 systematically evaded taxes, which, in fact, was the reason for the visit of law enforcement officers.
Several reputable publications, including “Epravda” reported on the investigative actions at the metallurgical plant. But for some reason, the BEB itself has not yet reported on the searches and their results.
Rumor has it that the territorial department of the Bureau in the Kyiv region is interested in “settling the issue” without suspicion and further promoting this story. The Kyiv region prosecutor’s office is pursuing the same goal. Simply put, local BEB officers and prosecutors are now trying to “settle” with the owners of the Brovary metallurgical plant outside the law.
And this is not just another classic corruption case about tax evasion or “covenanting” with law enforcement agencies – the criminal history of the Brovary metallurgical plant has been going on since the beginning of the 21st century. And the exposure of tax crimes at the Brovary plant, about which for some reason the investigators of the Bureau of Economic Security in tandem with prosecutors have been silent for two weeks, could be the beginning of a new investigation into the large-scale embezzlement of municipal property by the former mayor of Kyiv Leonid Chernovetsky and his inner circle. Especially considering that some of these people are still sitting in the Kyiv City Council and have a direct influence on the fate of Kyiv residents.
The scheme to seize the “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant” was implemented for over 20 years
In the early 2000s, the then mayor Chernovetsky and his “young team” embezzled a lot of metropolitan lands and municipal enterprises that belonged to the territorial community of the city of Kyiv. One of such objects was the former municipal enterprise “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant” in Brovary.
The appropriation of the “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant” (as well as a number of other objects) involves the former son-in-law of “Lionya Kosmos” Vyacheslav Suprunenko, the “regional” Oleksandr Suprunenko (Vyacheslav Suprunenko’s brother), their loyal friend and business partner Roman Yaroshenko, who is a current deputy of the Kyiv City Council, as well as former deputy of the Kyiv City Council Andriy Zayets.
The goal of this scheme was simple – to obtain private ownership of a land plot with an area of over 26 hectares and the property complex of the “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant”. It includes eight objects in Brovary with a total area of 122,000 sq. m at the following addresses: Independence Boulevard, 30/1; Independence Boulevard, 30/1-a; Independence Boulevard, 30/1-b; Independence Boulevard, 30/1-d; Independence Boulevard, 32; Independence Boulevard, 32-a; Independence Boulevard, 32-b; Independence Boulevard, 32-v. And the “young team” did achieve this goal – the property of the former KP “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant” illegally passed into the ownership of the structures of the Suprunenko brothers, Zayets and Yaroshenko.
Mechanism of illegal privatization
After Leonid Chernovetsky came to power, controlled persons were appointed to management positions of “tasty” objects, including “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant”. This allowed controlling financial flows, creating conditions for the artificial bankruptcy of the enterprise and its withdrawal from the communal property of the territorial community of Kyiv.
Roman Yaroshenko and Vyacheslav and Oleksandr Suprunenko were at that time deputies of the Kyiv City Council and members of the budget commission. They had a real influence on the budget financing of the Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant.
Yaroshenko, who was the chairman of the Kyiv City Council budget commission, did not initiate or support the “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant” financial assistance, budget loans and the program to support the enterprise, which artificially created a deficit of funds. Instead of budget financing, the KP was forced to take loans from OJSC “KB “Khreshchatyk” with the transfer of the entire real estate complex as a mortgage. And further return of funds was not planned, since the purpose of the scheme was to seize the property of the utility company, which triggered the mechanism of seizure of the facility by Yaroshenko, the Suprunenko brothers and Zayts.
The property of “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant” was transferred to their structures through the related LLC “AKIRA”, PJSC “CREDERI GROUP”, LLC “Investments of the New Century”, LLC “Industrial Properties Investment” and LLC “PRIMA-DIVES”.
After that, there were long trials, even the former head of the Main Department of Industry, Energy and Communications of the Kyiv City State Administration was tried, but in 2023 the case was closed without a verdict due to the statute of limitations. In the same 2023, the Pechersk Court of Kyiv canceled the arrest and the ban on alienation and disposal of the complex of buildings of the former “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant”. And a year later, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine allowed LLC BRAZ and the fund General Investments from the orbit of the Suprunenkos, Zayets and Yaroshenko to acquire the assets of their own LLC Industrial Properties Investment in the form of a single property complex of the former KP.
Today, the actual owners and controllers of the complex “Kyiv Aluminum Building Structures Plant” remain Roman Yaroshenko, Andriy Zayets and Vyacheslav Suprunenko – the property of the KP they squeezed out belongs to them through their LLC BRAZ, LLC ALTEG and the fund General Investments. By the way, Yaroshenko and the Suprunenko brothers are registered in the same house in Kyiv, their apartments are located nearby, which once again confirms (and already confirmed) the household and business ties of these individuals.
In fact, the actions of Yaroshenko, Zayets and the Suprunenko brothers have all the signs of an organized criminal scheme: starting with the artificial bankruptcy of a once successful municipal enterprise and, as a result, its illegal privatization. It is worth recalling here that Vyacheslav Suprunenko is an “experienced privatizer” of the capital’s municipal property, for which he even received the nickname “the milkmaid of Kyiv”. He implemented all his schemes with the help of loyal comrades, whom he placed in the necessary positions with the consent of Chernovetsky.
Searches at a privatized factory may launch a new investigation into the Kiev racketeering scandal during the time of “Lyon Kosmos”
And this story, perhaps, would not have been remembered or investigated for many more years if not for the searches at a privatized municipal plant and the suspicious silence of this story by law enforcement officers, which only increases interest in the case. And, accordingly, forces us to dig deeper.
“Ekonomichna Pravda” reported, citing sources, that during searches in the structures of the Suprunenkos, Yaroshenkos and Zayts, investigators discovered underpayment of real estate tax for a total of 8.9 million UAH; underpayment of VAT in the amount of 23.5 million UAH; the presence of unaccounted scrap for a total of 39 million UAH; the presence of other unaccounted goods for 286 million UAH.
In addition, hundreds of tons of aluminum scrap were found, which, by all accounts, were purchased for cash and for which there are no documents. In addition, the defendants in the case hid the real area and scale of the production complex in the reporting in order to avoid paying real estate tax.
To do this, the Suprunenky, Zayets and Yaroshenko used a network of controlled intermediary companies: LLC “UKRMETSORT”, LLC “SHTABMET”, LLC “ALUM PRODUCT”, LLC “Vtormet Store” and LLC “Kraft Torg”. Fictitious non-commodity transactions were carried out through these structures, creating the illusion of the legal origin of the goods.
And the key element of the tax scheme is the financial institution controlled by Yaroshenko, Zayets and the Suprunenky – JSC “Asvio Bank”. In this bank, Roman Yaroshenko, Andriy Zayets and the Suprunenky brothers control significant shares through controlled investment funds. By the way, Yaroshenko has been the chairman of the bank’s supervisory board since 2009 and has a million-dollar salary, which he annually reports in his declarations as a deputy of the Kyiv City Council. Through “Asvio Bank”, billion-dollar flows of non-cash funds received from fictitious transactions of front companies of businessmen were freely converted back into cash for the further purchase of scrap and, accordingly, the enrichment of beneficiaries. This allowed the structures of the defendants to almost completely avoid paying income tax and take cosmic capital into the shadows.
Such a large-scale financial and industrial ecosystem, built on the basis of a factory stolen from the people of Kyiv, could not function without the consent of law enforcement officers, relations with which Suprunenko, Zayets and Yaroshenko had been building (and buying) for more than a dozen years. And now, when the Bureau of Economic Security was forced to search ALTEG LLC and BRAZ LLC due to blatant tax fraud, the group’s beneficiaries used the usual self-defense mechanisms – namely, an attempt to “solve”. And, given the lack of BEB reporting on the violations identified, they are succeeding…
The silence of the territorial department of the BEB of the Kyiv region and the regional prosecutor’s office is a classic marker that today, behind closed doors, an attempt is being made to “hush up” the case and turn irrefutable evidence into some minor violations with minimal fines and the continued operation of the schemes.
The history of the Brovary metallurgical plant proves that the dealings of Chernovetsky’s “young team” have not disappeared: they have mimicked modern successful business, overgrown with shell companies, their own banks and, moreover, have retained their mandates in the Kyiv City Council and continue to influence the processes in the capital. And the scheme, which began in the early 2000s with the artificial bankruptcy of the KZABK KP, has today evolved into a billion-dollar shadow conveyor for tax evasion.
And now this case goes far beyond the boundaries of an ordinary tax crime. The materials published by journalists give law enforcement officers a unique chance: not just to fine BRAZ LLC, ALTEG LLC, and General Investments from the structure of Suprunenko, Yaroshenko, and Zayets, but to investigate the illegal alienation of a utility company more than 20 years ago, which was the beginning of a large tax and money laundering scheme through Asvio Bank, which they control.
