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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Kolomoisky stiffed Belarusian Vorobey for $20 million over a coal purchase for “Centrenergo”
The company “NT Marine,” linked to Belarusian oligarch Mykola Vorobey, is trying to recover a debt of $20 million from the firm “Sanderlyn,” which is affiliated with businessman Ihor Kolomoisky. This is reported in an article by Oleksii Sorokin and Olha Rudenko in the Kyiv Post.
As Sorokin writes on his Facebook page, citing Kyiv Post sources, Kolomoisky “stiffed” Horobets for 2019, refusing to pay for coal that Sanderlyn resold to the state-owned Centrenergo.
On 6 April, the Israeli police opened a criminal investigation on suspicion of fraud.
In the list of suspects, according to a Kyiv Post source, are five people – Ihor Kolomoisky; Kolomoisky’s business partner Mykhailo Kiperman; Maria Kiperman; former MP Yevhen Heller, who handled coal for Centrenergo; and former PrivatBank CEO Oleksandr Dubilet, who oversaw financial matters.
As the Kyiv Post writes, on 14 October 2019, the Cyprus-registered company Sanderlyn signed an agreement with Estonian NT Marine to supply 320 thousand tons of coal to Ukraine. The deal was worth $25 million, or $78 per ton. Over three weeks NT Marine shipped the coal to Ukraine. The coal was then resold to Centrenergo. This happened precisely when companies linked to Kolomoisky were selling coal and gas to Centrenergo above market prices and buying electricity below market prices.
Sanderlyn made an advance payment of $5 million. Sanderlyn refused to pay the remaining $20 million, citing that Centrenergo had not paid for the coal deliveries.
Kolomoisky’s connection to Sanderlyn can be traced through Kolomoisky’s company Synthes Oil. Cypriot Euthychia Xenophontos is the nominal owner of Synthes Oil through Cypriot offshore companies. She is also listed as the director of Sanderlyn.
On 4 July, a number of Cypriot companies linked to Xenophontos were closed.
Sanderlyn and Kolomoisky’s Synthes Oil sold coal to Centrenergo at the same time. Both companies bought coal at the same price – $78 per ton. Both applied a markup of about $10 per ton for Centrenergo. That is $3,2 million earned in three weeks by reselling 320 thousand tons of coal.
NT Marine wants to recover the money through the courts.
Officially the company belongs to Estonian citizen Oleksii Chulets, whom Baltic media link to oligarch Mykola Vorobey, who is close to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
A source close to NT Marine confirmed that the company belongs to Vorobey. The Belarusian oligarch is under EU sanctions.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau is aware of the criminal proceedings in Israel.
Media have also reported that Mykola Vorobey is a friend and business partner of Viktor Medvedchuk. Recall that in 2021 year Volodymyr Zelensky signed NSDC sanctions on Medvedchuk and seized the pipeline through which Vorobey’s firm was pumping diesel fuel from Russia into Ukraine.
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Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Коломойський кинув білоруського Вороб’я на $20 мільйонів по закупці вугілля для «Центренерго»". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
