To steal more and more quietly, you can become an “anti-corruptionist” like Sennichenko

To steal more and more quietly, you can become an “anti-corruptionist” like Sennichenko

In the case of former head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU) Dmytro Sennichenko, such cover worked for a while.

Because, according to the suspicion announced to him and his associates by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), while calling and handing over bribe-takers to anti-corruption bodies with one hand, with the other he allegedly pocketed 200 thousand dollars each month from the work of state enterprises Odesa Port Plant (OPP) and United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC). This was reported by ZN.ua.

This story impresses with the coordination and precision of everyone involved, resembling a theatrical performance in which the main actor and director was Dmytro Sennichenko himself. Supporting roles changed with each new act, but the playwright’s dramaturgy did not. To understand its main idea and get into Sennichenko’s back office, we reviewed previously published investigative materials, spoke with sources in law enforcement and people who know how the scheme at the plant and the company worked, and tried to reconstruct the story of a fraud worth 10 billion hryvnias.

Seriously wondering, how was this even possible? Could a top official of Sennichenko’s level act independently, without approval from above? And how did it happen that, in essence, all the case’s figures left the country in advance?

Act One. Dmytro Sennichenko’s introduction to his two close associates

Late September 2020. In Kyiv, on Pylyp Orlyk Street, inside the restaurant “Hirchitsia,” where the walls are painted a calm beige and potted plants stand on the windowsills, two men meet. They have known each other since their student days. One of them is the acting head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, Dmytro Sennichenko. The other is his friend Serhiy Bayrak. Bayrak was invited to the meeting to get work-related advice.

Left to right: Volodymyr Kolot and Andriy Hmyrin. inventure.com.ua

Dmytro Sennichenko was appointed head of the SPFU a year earlier. Before that position he worked on international projects, at Ukrposhta, and served on the supervisory board of Prozorro. When Sennichenko began his duties as head, the SPFU managed slightly more than 60 enterprises. By the beginning of 2020, after several months of the new head’s work, their number had increased sixfold. Among those enterprises were the Odesa Port Plant and the United Mining and Chemical Company. Both assets are fully state-owned.

The story of the Odesa Port Plant, located in Yuzhne, Odesa region, is like a linear equation that’s easy to solve, but each new authority that brings in new directors and new “watchmen” cannot handle it.

The enterprise is unprofitable and at different times had different amounts of debt. In 2016 the OPP stopped and later resumed operations under a tolling scheme. A tolling scheme is a form of interaction between the plant and private companies that supply gas to the plant and in return receive fertilizers: ammonia and urea. The plant receives money from processing the gas into fertilizers. The company can then essentially sell the ammonia and urea onward.

And that day, at the “Hirchitsia” restaurant, Dmytro Sennichenko, according to the investigation, told Serhiy Bayrak about a plan under which OPP would sign contracts to process ammonia and urea with private companies on terms unfavorable to the plant. Namely: the cost for processing gas into fertilizers would be set much lower than necessary. Thus the private firm would save money and later earn greater profit by selling ammonia and urea on the market.

Odesa Port Plant. opz.odesa.ua

Bayrak agreed to the terms proposed by the then head of the SPFU and began looking for people to help implement the plan. That’s how Dmytro Sennichenko met Andriy Hmyrin — a person who, according to NABU’s released recordings, knew a lot, did a lot, and received a lot. The relevant segment of Hmyrin’s biography for the State Property Fund case begins with his friendship with Ihor Bilous when the latter headed the State Fiscal Service.

Yes, the figures in this case carried significant state portfolios. When Bilous headed the State Property Fund (from 2015 to 2017), Hmyrin was his assistant. This fact in his biography and 2017 year are important for Andriy Hmyrin; we will return to this below. Bayrak met with Hmyrin, told him Sennichenko’s idea. Hmyrin allegedly agreed, and the following month the three of them met and began planning their schemes at the Odesa Port Plant.

Act Two. Everyone takes their positions and prevents Kolomoisky from winning the tender

To implement the scheme, Sennichenko and his associates, according to anti-corruption bureau detectives, needed a close, controllable firm that would accept a cooperation proposal and not ask unnecessary questions. Such a firm was found by Andriy Hmyrin. It was the company Agro Gaz Trading (AGT), founded by Oleksandr Horbunenko and Volodymyr Kolotylo. Remember the 2017 year we noted? It was that year AGT began operations with authorized capital of 1000 UAH. As they say, they both knew and covered their tracks.

Then operations gained momentum and increasingly ensnared more people. Andriy Hmyrin found Mykola Synytsia, and Dmytro Sennichenko appointed him head of the Odesa Port Plant. Later Yuriy Lypka joined them, whom Sennichenko appointed advisor to the SPFU. Then a small quarrel occurred, Synytsia, appointed in December, was dismissed, and Sennichenko appointed a new plant head — Mykola Parsentiev.

And while Hmyrin sought people, Serhiy Bayrak’s task was to pass instructions from Sennichenko to Hmyrin, collect money from Hmyrin and hand it to Sennichenko. That is what the investigation alleges. Not a particularly difficult job. For their work Bayrak and Hmyrin received 25% each from the schemes, Sennichenko took 50%. But that was not all. Although they found controllable puppets, they still needed to replace members of the plant’s supervisory board and management. The organizers managed that! By five orders from Sennichenko himself and his advisers and deputies, the plant’s supervisory board was changed.

In July 2019 Sennichenko realized that the contract between the Odesa Port Plant and Agro Gaz Trading, which supplied gas for processing under the tolling scheme, would soon expire. At that time processing tariffs for natural gas into ammonia were 36 dollars per ton, and into urea — 47 dollars. So it was necessary to prepare for a new competition, and preferably have the desired winners. But even before that competition began, in December 2019 the contract between OPP and AGT was extended until April 2020. The supervisory board members agreed to this. They were elected for that purpose.

Ihor Kolomoisky, owner of company “VK Ukrnaftoburinnia”. Photo: Dmytro Larin, Ukrainska Pravda

The tender for a new tolling contractor began in February 2020. Eight companies submitted bids, including well-known firms: Trading House “Socar Ukraine,” “Yug Gaz,” our familiar Agro Gaz Trading, and the production company Ukrnaftoburinnia. The owner of the last — Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky — won the tender by submitting the best offer: 39,5 dollars per ton of ammonia and 77 dollars per ton of urea. AGT had offered 40 and 67,5 dollars respectively. But Ihor Valeriyovych’s victory did not suit Dmytro Volodymyrovych.

In 6 March, Mykola Synytsia, who was then still acting director of OPP, sent a letter to the supervisory board stating: Ukrnaftoburinnia must provide documents on its economic operating model proving profitability and guaranteeing uninterrupted production. Ukrnaftoburinnia replied that it had offered the most favorable price and would not provide plans for an economic operating model because this is a trade secret. In the recordings NABU published, this episode is mentioned as: “Grandpa fulfilled his conditions.” That is, the associates managed to come to terms with Kolomoisky.

Synytsia then signed a contract with AGT under which the price of ammonia was 39 dollars per ton and urea 51 dollars, which was even lower than the prices AGT had offered in the tender — 40 and 67,5 dollars respectively. Later this contract was extended and the processing price rose, but it never reached the level offered by Ukrnaftoburinnia.

According to the conclusion of the State Audit Service of Ukraine, from May 2020 to October 2021, after the contracts were signed, the Odesa Port Plant caused the state losses of 308 322 727 UAH. This conclusion was also confirmed by the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise.

Act Three. How appetites grow

When Andriy Hmyrin helped Serhiy Bayrak and Dmytro Sennichenko find the right people for the Odesa Port Plant, he was not only searching for them for OPP. Besides it, the investigation alleges, people were sought for Centrenergo, Turboatom, Mykolaivoblenergo, Kharkivoblenergo, Ukrspirt, and the Elektrotyazhmash plant.

The list goes on. Also targeted was the United Mining and Chemical Company, whose sole shareholder is the state represented by the SPFU. UMCC includes the Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant in Zhytomyr region and the Vilnohirsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant in Dnipropetrovsk region.

Branch “Vilnohirsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant” of the United Mining and Chemical Company. www.umcc-titanium.com

In early March 2020, Hmyrin invited Pavlo Prysyazhnyuk to work, who was to control UMCC’s operations. Prysyazhnyuk recommended Artur Somov to Hmyrin and Sennichenko, and the then head of the State Property Fund appointed Somov a member of UMCC’s board.

Somov’s resume was passed to acting chairman of UMCC Peter Davis to appoint him deputy director. That same acting chairman, who was unaware of the schemes and deals, was told that UMCC’s products needed to be sold to a certain Czech company. Davis replied that this was impossible because the Czech company had not passed due diligence. Without much thought, the associates fired Peter Davis.

After this, Dmytro Sennichenko asked the Cabinet to appoint Artur Somov acting head of the United Mining and Chemical Company. The government approved the nomination, and Somov over 2020–2021 years signed four contracts with the Czech company BELANTO trade s.r.o. (which, the investigation says, was controlled by the associates) to sell ilmenite concentrate at understated prices. As a result of these actions the state lost 118 337 425 UAH. Later the investigation will find that the Czech company resold the concentrate to Russia and to occupied Crimea. This concentrate is in fact used in the production of Russian missiles.

On 24 November 2023 NABU and SAPO updated the suspicion against former head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Dmytro Sennichenko. The anti-corruption bodies assert that together with the criminal organization he created, Sennichenko laundered more than 10 billion UAH obtained illegally. This is a new episode of his case. It concerns the sale of 137 004,383 tons of ammonia and 1 143 989,573 tons of urea for a total of 10 603 163 837,19 UAH.

Backstage

So far only two participants in this story — Mykola Synytsia and Yuriy Lypka — have pretrial measures in the form of bail and remain in Ukraine. The rest of the associates — Dmytro Sennichenko, Andriy Hmyrin, Pavlo Prysyazhnyuk, Mykola Parsentiev, Oleksandr Horbunenko, Artur Somov, and Volodymyr Kolotylo — have left. The investigation declared all of them wanted in April this year after charges were filed. How did they manage to leave Ukrainian territory? Why did they continue living in Ukraine until 2022? Did the war influence their decision or were there other circumstances?

Last year the publication Nashi Hroshi published a piece noting that Andriy Hmyrin is a close person in the circle of the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak. Journalists add that Hmyrin is the son-in-law of the owner of the construction company Altis, Oleksandr Hlimbovsky. And when Altis was not allowed to build the Dnipro airfield, this, the publication writes, was “carried out by protégés of Deputy Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko,” and a scandal ensued that implicated Tymoshenko himself.

By the way, the President’s Office has once conspicuously defended one of its informal advisers, Yuriy Holyk, in a story related to Dnipro and a one-and-a-half-billion tender for a coach who is friends with the former governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, whom Holyk is acquainted with. But the NABU and SAPO-investigated affair at the State Property Fund is literally multiplied by 10.

Perhaps the Bankova should publicly state its position on it? Although, wait, the case of “king of smuggling” Vadym Alperin has already been mentioned. Alperin himself was called the “godfather of smuggling.” But the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) closed the case because the investigation periods expired after the notification of suspicion, so the court could not issue a different decision. By the way, Sennichenko’s case may face the same fate. However the “Lozovyi amendments” case is a separate topic for analyzing who and what influences the anti-corruption bloc’s results.

If you carefully listen to NABU’s recordings in the State Property Fund case, where Hmyrin and Bayrak discuss former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, the name of presidential aide Serhiy Shefir is mentioned. The discussion concerns an alleged arrangement by Andriy Hmyrin with Shefir about Dmytro Sennichenko’s position.

And what about extradition, you may ask? After all, can’t all our actors from our (and not only) play be returned to Ukraine? Of course not! This issue has long been raised in the anti-corruption bloc, but everything gets blocked in the same Verkhovna Rada committee. The state has never actively communicated with international partners about extraditing top corrupt officials. And the war has only played into their hands: now European courts cannot breach European conventions and hand our figures over to a state endangered and shelled by Russian missiles. And even a suspicion of 10 billion UAH does not refute that fact.

But how long can this be ignored? The list of those who left/fled (including before the full-scale invasion) is long. Moreover, it is regularly supplemented by those released on bail. Maybe it’s time to think about pretrial detention centers not in Kyiv, but somewhere in western Ukraine?

A few days before publication, journalists sent questions to Dmytro Sennichenko’s lawyer for clarification and to state his position, but by the time the article went to press they had not received a response.