“Granovskyi’s ‘Smuggling Office’ Returns. Riabikin Is Running for Head of Customs; He ‘Accidentally’ Turned Out to Be a Classmate of the Notorious Makarenko

“Granovskyi’s ‘Smuggling Office’ Returns. Riabikin Is Running for Head of Customs; He ‘Accidentally’ Turned Out to Be a Classmate of the Notorious Makarenko

Former Boryspil Airport CEO Pavlo Riabikin could head Ukraine’s customs service thanks to the backing of Seyar Kurshutov and Oleksandr Cherepinskyi. The Office of the President received Pavlo Riabikin’s candidacy for the position of head of customs from Seyar Kurshutov via his former lawyer, and today deputy head of the Office of the President, Andrii Smyrnov.

According to our sources in the Office of the President, in addition to Kurshutov and Cherepinskyi, former head of the State Customs Service Anatolii Makarenko also came to “ask” on behalf of Pavlo Riabikin.

Last week the Office of the President supported Pavlo Riabikin’s candidacy for head of Ukraine’s customs service, and this Tuesday, 21 October, Pavlo Riabikin successfully passed an interview with Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko.

We remind readers that Seyar Kurshutov and Oleksandr Cherepinskyi are the main actors in the so-called “Granovskyi Smuggling Office.” Seyar Kurshutov is a Crimean Tatar from the city of Saky (Autonomous Republic of Crimea); after the annexation of Crimea he left the peninsula and became the “right hand” of Servant of the People MP Oleksandr Granovskyi. Oleksandr Granovskyi was responsible for shadow flows at customs during Poroshenko’s presidency, and Seyar Kurshutov was his right-hand man and the head of the “Smuggling Office” in the Southern region. Pavlo Riabikin and Seyar Kurshutov are long-time friends and business partners, so appointing Riabikin as head of customs would allow them to restore all the old smuggling schemes.

If Riabikin is appointed head of the State Customs Service, Anatolii Makarenko’s influence over the structure will significantly increase, since his protégé Orest Firmaniuk is considered smuggler No.1 in Ukraine. Accordingly, the Riabikin–Firmaniuk team will “cash in” fully, and Ukraine’s budget will lose billions of hryvnias. As already happened in 2009 under Makarenko’s leadership of the customs service, when after his appointment in place of Khoroshkovskyi customs revenues fell by half.