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Oleg Bakhmatyuk stole billions of NBU refinancing: details of the fugitive oligarch’s grand scheme
Ukrainian billionaire Oleg Bakhmatyuk risks receiving a real prison sentence in the case over embezzlement of 1,2 billion UAH through VAB Bank.
As part of the investigation, a former top manager of Bakhmatyuk’s bank has been arrested in absentia; like the billionaire himself, he is hiding abroad. While Bakhmatyuk continues giving interviews from Vienna, talking about the difficult situation in Ukraine, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office appears to have seriously taken up exposing the latifundist’s schemes.
Read about what the “bank case” against Bakhmatyuk consists of and where the 1,2 billion UAH went in the OBOZREVATEL article.
Loans with dubious collateral: how Bakhmatyuk took money from the NBU and didn’t return it
For his VAB Bank in 2014, Bakhmatyuk obtained a stabilization loan of 1,2 billion UAH from the NBU. The funds were supposed to be used to ensure the stable operation of the financial institution. Under NBU rules, the bank had to ensure the funds would be spent correctly (approve a plan) and also provide sufficient collateral.
Bakhmatyuk provided collateral as well as personal guarantees. But that same 2014, VAB Bank was closed. By that time the NBU loan had already been withdrawn, and the collateral, according to NABU, did not cover the amount of the loan. The value of the pledged assets was inflated by 25 times. Law enforcement have questions both for the NBU employee (how they could fail to notice the withdrawal of funds, issue a loan without sufficient collateral) and for Bakhmatyuk himself and his managers.
The case was reopened, and now former NBU deputy governor Oleksandr Pysaruk and former VAB Bank chairman Denis Maltsev risk ending up behind bars. The threat also hangs over Bakhmatyuk himself, who by a fortunate coincidence is abroad.
Understandably, Bakhmatyuk says he intended to repay the loan and repeatedly blamed former NBU head Valeria Gontareva for the bank’s closure. This version could be believable if the NBU’s money had actually been used to stabilize the bank’s situation.
Court documents contain information about how Bakhmatyuk’s managers withdrew 1,2 billion UAH from the bank. As soon as the funds arrived, the Cypriot company Quickom Limited demanded early repayment of a loan of approximately 680 million UAH. The NBU alleges this company is controlled by Oleg Bakhmatyuk.
In other words, as soon as the billionaire received the funds, he immediately decided to transfer them to the account of his Cypriot company. But that’s not all. Companies tied to Bakhmatyuk received their deposits early (!) (Trostianets Meat Processing Plant, Svitanok). That’s another about 370 million UAH. And this happened while ordinary clients could withdraw no more than one thousand hryvnias per day from their accounts.
Another 681 million UAH were returned to companies associated with Bakhmatyuk (allegedly the banks owed them). From this it follows that both the NBU funds and depositors’ money were transferred to enterprises linked to Bakhmatyuk on the eve of VAB Bank’s closure.
How Bakhmatyuk can be punished and why this is only a drop in the ocean
Bakhmatyuk took far more funds from the NBU for his banks. Investigators have currently focused their efforts on the case concerning 1,2 billion UAH; NABU has effectively already investigated it, but changes in jurisdiction (several years ago the case was transferred to the police for no obvious reason), and attempts to close the investigation significantly delayed the final resolution.
If all charges are proven, Bakhmatyuk could be accused of fraud. That carries a real prison term. At the same time, the billionaire’s total debt to the NBU exceeds 8,6 billion UAH (the figure was announced by the NBU after the liquidation of Bakhmatyuk’s two banks).
But beyond the banking cases, alleged crimes by Bakhmatyuk are being investigated both in Ukraine and in international jurisdictions. For example, international firm Gramercy Funds Management LLC accused him of extracting nearly 1 billion USD of assets from UkrLandFarming Plc. As a result, holders of the company’s bonds were harmed, including Gramercy itself.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Олег Бахматюк вкрав мільярди рефінансування НБУ: деталі грандіозної оборутки олігарха-втікача". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
