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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
During the schemes at “BG Bank,” the National Bank curator Valentina Dyka was working there. She did not inform the National Bank about the mentioned transactions, and soon after she resigned from the NBU, which was then headed by Valeria Honcharieva.
In November 2014, “BG Bank” carried out a series of asset-extraction transactions despite already having a curator from the National Bank. This is stated in Alisa Yurchenko’s segment on the TV program “Nashi Hroshi.”
The bank bought domestic government bonds (OVDP) worth $4,7 million (61 million UAH) and resold them for 8,8 thousand UAH — 7000 (seven thousand) times cheaper.
Thus the new owners of the securities became millionaires after spending pennies on them and waiting for the Ministry of Finance to redeem the bonds at face value.
Shortly after, “BG Bank” got rid of a number of other assets. The company “Torg Art” was effectively gifted land near Kyiv, the company “Spetsservisbudprom” — an apartment building in Kozyn, the company “Transconsulting D” received payment from the bank for mythical advertising services. The company “Kalyna Trade” was assigned a loan debt by the bank, relieving one client of the need to return more than 4 million euros to the bank. The financial company “Marko Polo” was granted the right to collect debts on loans of several BG Bank borrowers.
During these and other schemes at “BG Bank,” the National Bank curator Valentina Dyka was working there. She did not inform the National Bank about the mentioned transactions, and soon after she resigned from the NBU, which was then headed by Valeria Honcharieva.
In 2014, Ministry of Finance representative Vitaliy Lisovenko signed an agreement with “BG Bank” to transfer 4,6 million euros to it from the European Investment Bank. The loan was intended for the implementation of one of Ukrenergo’s investment projects and was to be re-lent by Ukrrinfin.
The Ministry of Finance chose “BG Bank” as a partner for this project back in 2013, when the bank’s actual owner (then called “Pershiy”) was Member of Parliament Artem Pshonka, son of the then prosecutor general. But during Yanukovych’s time the money did not make it into the bank. They were transferred there under the new government. 28 July 2014, Ministry of Finance official Lisovenko signed the account agreement with “BG Bank.” Although at that time the bank had already had cash withdrawal and card payment restrictions in place for two weeks, which the media reported.
At the time of the transactions, Oleksandr Shlapak headed the Ministry of Finance; he was dismissed from the post in December 2014. Vitaliy Lisovenko now holds the position of government commissioner for public debt in the Ministry of Finance under Nataliya Yaresko and is involved in negotiations with creditors on restructuring Ukraine’s sovereign debt.
By the time the European funds were deposited, Pshonka had already transferred “BG Bank” to representatives of the Svoboda party, as reported by the party’s sponsor Volodymyr Didukh.
“They [the ‘Svoboda’ members] took this bank to close the criminal case against Pshonka and his son. They also lifted the seizure on Pshonka’s and his family’s accounts for two days. In this way they managed to transfer these funds abroad by moving them to other accounts. For this they received a kickback of 30% of that amount,” Didukh reported. As is known, after Maidan the Prosecutor General’s Office was headed by Svoboda representative Oleh Makhnitsky.
The bank’s website published the minutes of the general shareholders’ meeting dated 29 July this year. Among them were four residents of Ivano-Frankivsk, including, according to Nashi Hroshi, the son of the former head of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Yaroslav Volkovetsky.
And on the eve of the OVDP transactions that were carried out in November 2014, eight offshore companies with Cyprus-based owners or residents of Donetsk received 75% of BG Bank’s shares. The chairman of the board became Andriy Osypenko, previously a mid-level manager at several financial institutions. His deputy was Vadym Dratver, who had never worked in banks before, and who ran “BG Bank” for exactly 15 days. The supervisory board resigned, leaving Osypenko and Dratver as the only managers of the bank. Dratver signed most of the contracts.
Unlike the rest of the contracts with shell companies, the OVDP purchase-sale agreement disappeared along with Vadym Dratver. So even after temporary administration was introduced at the bank, it was not possible to definitively establish the name of the company that received 61 million.
All the firms to which Dratver moved the remaining assets are connected to each other and to Dratver himself—through directors, founders, lawyers, and one of the office addresses (Zhytomyr, Balzakivska St., 2/52).
Cases regarding the frauds at “BG Bank” are currently being investigated by the SBU and the Holosiivska police. The latter announced suspicion to Vadym Dratver and have not been able to find him since.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Люди Гонтаревої і Шлапака злили десятки мільйонів через кризовий «БГ банк»". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Bihus.Info.
