Serhiy Hamaliy: the "lawful" governor

Serhiy Hamaliy: the "lawful" governor

Khmelnytskyi region governor Hamaliy: Polish citizenship, ties to criminals, and an arrest for extortion

Hamaliy is a citizen of Poland

26 February 2021 the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to draft within two months a bill to identify Ukrainians with dual citizenship. This was announced at a briefing by NSDC Secretary Oleksiy Danilov. Addressing Ukrainian officials, he emphasized:

Right now, whoever has that (dual citizenship), I would advise everyone to get rid of the other citizenship as soon as possible so as not to expose themselves to trouble.

The NSDC formulated the official position of state power: Ukraine today cannot afford dual citizenship, since the aggressor country Russia could use this mechanism against our country. The NSDC secretary made it perfectly clear: even if dual citizenship appears here in the future, it will be forbidden for public servants. That will be equated with treason.

However, the head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional State Administration, Serhiy Hamaliy, can already write himself a confession. For Serhiy Vyacheslavovych, in addition to a Ukrainian passport, also holds a Polish one. In other words, Mr. Hamaliy, who holds one of the highest state positions in Ukraine, is a citizen of Poland. He hid this fact when undergoing a special state clearance during appointment. But, as it turned out, you can't hide a needle in a sack.

We were informed about the Polish citizenship of the Khmelnytskyi head Serhiy Hamaliy by three independent sources. Why the special check did not discover Hamaliy’s Polish passport is unknown for now. Perhaps this is not part of the check’s algorithm itself, or perhaps our protagonist and those who promoted him to the governor’s chair made certain efforts to ensure this information wasn’t taken into account during the verification.

An analysis of Serhiy Hamaliy’s declaration confirms that this person is oriented toward permanent residence in Poland. According to the declaration, the Khmelnytskyi governor has rather modest real estate in Ukraine: four plots of land in the village of Zhvanets, five plots in the village of Kulchiyivtsi in Kamianets-Podilskyi district, one in Kamianets-Podilskyi itself, and three in the village of Hruzevytsia in Khmelnytskyi district. Just plots, not houses or apartments.

As for foreign real estate, a completely opposite picture emerges. Mr. Hamaliy declared two apartments of 57 and 36,7 square meters and a house with a land plot of 161,75 square meters in Warsaw. There is nothing surprising here, since the wife of our protagonist, together with the children, permanently lives in Poland and also holds Polish citizenship. In addition, in 2019 the new regional head acquired a house in Turkey worth 5,7 million UAH. A source who knows Hamaliy well personally was very surprised when he saw the official declaration, because it contains no information about the business the Hamaliy family owns in Poland.

Hamaliy — the "overseer" of the ports

We became very interested in who the governor of Khmelnytskyi region Serhiy Hamaliy really is. We set out to find out how he got into the governor’s chair and into power in general. It turned out that few people in the Ukrainian political arena knew about Hamaliy before 2019. And this is not surprising, since our protagonist from 1999 until that time constantly lived in Poland, where he did business. In Ukraine Hamaliy mostly visited on business. The official biography of the official states that in 2004–2009 he was an unpaid assistant to a deputy of the Kamianets-Podilskyi City Council. But, as it turned out, this status was necessary for Serhiy Hamaliy only to resolve business issues. He did not participate in the life of the Kamianets-Podilskyi community.

It can be said that in 2019 Serhiy Hamaliy got lucky. There was a change of power in Ukraine, and a team for the new Office of the President was actively forming. Through recommendations from mutual business acquaintances he managed to get registered as an assistant to one of the five most influential leaders of the Office of the President. Hamaliy had absolutely no experience working in state structures, but he knew well how to resolve business matters.

Our protagonist began by carrying out small assignments to resolve issues entrepreneurs raised with Hamaliy’s immediate boss in the Office. In a short time Serhiy Hamaliy earned his patron’s trust as a person who could settle business matters. For his "services" and personal loyalty it was decided to appoint him as one of the "overseers" in the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection.

Hamaliy’s task was to "watch" the "affairs" that his boss had with businessmen and criminals at the Odesa sea port.

We managed to speak with entrepreneurs who regularly work with the Odesa port. It turned out that Serhiy Vyacheslavovych is well remembered there. "He was here, said he was from the Office of the President, 'shaved' everyone indiscriminately — even under Yanukovych there wasn’t anything like this," is roughly how our interlocutors characterized the current Khmelnytskyi governor. They say Hamaliy extorted entrepreneurs very brazenly, didn’t hide much, and was confident he would always be covered. Often threats to businessmen escalated into personal persecution; for this, claiming it was his boss’s orders, Hamaliy involved local law enforcement officers.

However, not all entrepreneurs agreed to illegal levies. Some appealed to NABU with a statement about extortion. The statement said that Hamaliy, citing orders "from above" and using the capabilities of law enforcement, regularly demanded money and concessions from businessmen to resolve issues in favor of certain business structures. After receiving the statement, NABU detectives began operational work on Serhiy Hamaliy.

Information that NABU was close to announcing suspicion against Hamaliy reached the Office of the President. Our protagonist’s immediate superior decided to "hide" him in his native Khmelnytskyi region, away from the detectives’ eyes. In November 2020 the Office began considering dismissing Khmelnytskyi governor Dmytro Habinet. They wanted to appoint Serhiy Hamaliy in his place, but an unexpected event occurred for the Office. The Security Service of Ukraine prepared a report that in 1997 Hamaliy Serhiy Vyacheslavovych had been detained by internal affairs bodies as part of a criminal group engaged in racketeering. They couldn’t come to terms with the "office" people, so on 24 November 2020 the acting Khmelnytskyi governor became Roman Prymush. But already on 3 December of that year Serhiy Hamaliy was appointed head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional State Administration.

Thus, thanks to support "from above," for the first time in Khmelnytskyi’s history the region was headed by a person who holds Polish citizenship, was detained for extortion, has no experience in public administration, but has experience as a fixer. This is an insult not only to the people of the region but to the institution of civil service as a whole. And while the political aspect is more or less understandable, the question of how someone like Hamaliy could pass a special check by the security services and law enforcement remains open.

Hamaliy — the "godfather" of crime

Tell me who your friend is and I’ll tell you who you are, says an old proverb. Immediately after his appointment Hamaliy began surrounding himself with people with criminal pasts. Before telling about these "notable" individuals it’s worth explaining how Serhiy Hamaliy knows criminal authorities and why he has close ties to the criminal world.

Hamaliy met most of the influential criminal authorities while "working as an overseer" from the Office of the President in the State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection, where he supervised work at the Odesa seaport. Informed sources claim that part of his duties was to hand up a monthly amount of extorted money — in other words, meet a plan. However, Mr. Hamaliy quickly understood how the schemes at the port worked and gradually started working for himself. He was helped by persons from the criminal world; together with them Hamaliy conducted affairs that were outside the attention of his patron in the Office.

However, Hamaliy met the criminal world much earlier. According to sources in the law enforcement agencies of Kamianets-Podilskyi, in 1997, when Hamaliy turned 18 years old, he was detained by the militia in one of the city's nightclubs for petty hooliganism. A packet with white powder found among the young man's personal belongings turned out to be cocaine. That same year our protagonist was preparing to graduate from the Kamianets-Podilskyi Historical and Legal Lyceum. The drug incident could have ended his future career. His father, Vyacheslav Hamaliy, who at that time was director of a transformer plant and an influential person in the city, saved the situation. Serhiy Hamaliy was released and the detention was "forgotten."

In 1999 Hamaliy, who led the life of a rich kid, again found himself in a criminal story. The militia received a statement from local businessman Ivan Sikorsky (name altered for safety). He claimed that an organized criminal group was demanding 50 thousand US dollars from him. A hefty sum for those times and for the city. During the meeting where the businessman was to hand over the money, law enforcement detained a group of racketeers, among whom was Serhiy Hamaliy. The minimum punishment under part 1 of art. 189 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine for "Extortion" is restriction of liberty for three years. But the younger Hamaliy was not convicted. Witnesses of those events believe the father once again "got his son off." All the other detainees received from 3 to 5 years of imprisonment by court decision. According to one version, Serhiy Hamaliy avoided criminal punishment because he testified against other members of the gang. Maybe that is why, to avoid revenge from the criminal world, at the end of 1999 the father sent our protagonist to Poland, where he began to live permanently under the supervision of his father's acquaintances.

So, a few words about the current entourage of the Khmelnytskyi governor. The first to appear beside the new head of Khmelnytskyi was a certain Volodymyr Yuryev, who was appointed Hamaliy’s deputy. Mr. Yuryev tried to enter power during local elections, attempting to run for mayor of Kamianets-Podilskyi. However, his opponents found information that Volodymyr Yuryev had previously been convicted under art. 257 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine for "Banditry." As a result, Yuryev was forced to withdraw from the elections.

He appointed Andriy Chumakov, a person with a criminal past well known in criminal circles, as his advisor on physical culture and sports. According to sources close to the Khmelnytskyi RSA, another representative of criminal circles, Oleksandr Panikar, spends several hours almost every day in the governor’s office. It’s interesting what issues Mr. Chumakov and Mr. Panikar are resolving with Mr. Hamaliy?! Hardly questions of the region’s socio-economic development. Any operative will tell you that people from the criminal world are usually concerned with illegal schemes and appropriating other people's businesses.

Concerned citizens still in the security agencies provided us with a fragment of the printout of phone calls of Khmelnytskyi region governor Serhiy Hamaliy. After reviewing it, our last doubts about his close ties to the criminal world vanished. If you still have doubts, tell us why, for example, a criminal authority nicknamed "Kontrabas" would call the head of the regional administration? Or a criminal authority nicknamed "Ptytsia"? Is it normal when during the day a well-known figure in local criminal circles with the nickname "Chucha" or currency exchanger Sanya "Sych" calls a high-ranking public official like Hamaliy? Or perhaps it is normal communication for Mr. Hamaliy to be on mobile terms with a criminal authority nicknamed "Zvir"?

These are not just rhetorical questions. No reasons will allow the governor to explain such a circle of acquaintances except that he personally solves issues for the region’s criminal world. Such brazen penetration of crime into power did not even occur during Yanukovych’s time.

Hamaliy and the damned questions

Any normal person who has learned that Khmelnytskyi governor Serhiy Hamaliy is a fixer in power, a person who was detained for possession of drugs and extortion, and—most importantly—a citizen of Poland, will have damned questions in mind. We leave them as conclusions:

How did the Office of the President, law enforcement agencies, and the special services allow a situation where Serhiy Hamaliy, a citizen of Poland, ended up as head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional State Administration? For which state's interests is Hamaliy actually working?

How did Serhiy Hamaliy pass the checks when being appointed governor of Khmelnytskyi, since he officially has two detentions: the first for possession of cocaine, the second for extortion as part of a criminal group? Can a person with such a past be head of a regional state administration?

How did the Office of the President, law enforcement agencies, and the special services allow Khmelnytskyi region to become a powerful criminal enclave? Why does no one see that the deputy, advisor, and assistant to governor Serhiy Hamaliy have criminal pasts and ties to the criminal world?

P.S. To be continued...

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