08.11.2024 Business of Occupiers Money laundering

How Russian business assets bypassed the state and ended up with MP Serhiy Shapran

Сергій Шапран офіційно зайшов у піщаний бізнес ‣ NADRA.info

Serhiy Shapran is a businessman and member of the Brovary City Council who is known for his brash style and connections to the top of the government. He recently acquired billions of dollars worth of assets of a Ukrainian industrial holding that were supposed to go to the state.

Shapran’s story

Serhiy Shapran, also known by his previous surname, Korobka, started his career at the age of 23 by founding his first company. At 27, he already owned the Brovary Aluminum Plant. At 36, he became a deputy of the Brovary City Council from the For the Future party, which is associated with oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. His track record includes connections with well-known businessmen, a yacht on the Dnipro River, and high-profile cases of failure to declare property worth UAH 9 million. And now he has assets worth a billion hryvnias…

In 2022, when the full-scale invasion began, Russian businessman Igor Naumets, owner of the Unigran industrial holding, which owns sand quarries, factories, and hundreds of hectares of land, was sanctioned by the National Security and Defense Council. According to the law, assets of this level should have been confiscated in the interests of Ukraine, but fate decreed otherwise. Shapran, bypassing legal procedures, became the owner of property: factories, production complexes, hundreds of pieces of expensive special equipment and railcars, and hundreds of hectares of Ukrainian land.

All of this looks like a chess game with several high-ranking players to easily circumvent sanctions by pro-Russian oligarchs.

The media also write about Shapran’s connection to the head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, Oleh Kiper. However, this still needs to be verified.

“Aluminum magnate” – Shapran

Since 2012, Shapran has been the founder of the ALUMETA Group investment holding, which is not registered in accordance with Ukrainian law. It can be found in an offshore zone – Cyprus. It is there that ALUMETA LTD, which owns the Brovary Aluminum Plant, was founded. The ultimate beneficial owner of the offshore company, according to the register, is Serhiy Valentynovych Shapran himself.

The facts speak for themselves about the corrupt nature of Shapran’s activities:

  1. “ALUMETA Group supplies products, including to Belarus, a country that helped Russia invade Ukraine.
  2. Out of UAH 1.6 billion in revenue over the past two years, the plant’s “net profit” amounted to only UAH 10 million. At the same time, the company has been consistently winning government tenders for aluminum supplies. For example, a contract in May for UAH 4.2 million with the Kyiv Electric Car Repair Plant.
  3. Over the course of 8 years, Shapran received 34 loans for UAH 878 million from one bank, ASVIO Bank, owned by the Suprunenko brothers, former Party of Regions members with numerous corruption charges. Such loans may be a way to artificially increase debt to avoid paying taxes.
  4. Tax evasion schemes. The plant’s debts currently exceed UAH 440 million, of which UAH 138 million are bank liabilities. This may indicate the withdrawal of funds to offshore accounts or deliberate overstatement of expenses.

Shapran’s scandalous financial manipulations and cooperation with a bank with a reputation for corruption scandals are a vivid example of how some businessmen circumvent the law, withdraw millions from Ukraine and finance the economy of the aggressor country.

The seizure of the assets of the sanctioned Naumets has already attracted the attention of not only Ukrainian but also international anti-corruption organizations.

We call on law enforcement agencies to check all transactions of Brovary Aluminum Plant and Cyprus-based ALUMETA LTD, in particular, to examine the details of tenders and agreements with ASVIO Bank. The anti-corruption fight does not tolerate compromises! To this end, we have filed an application and complaints with law enforcement agencies, and we will share the reaction.

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Let us know about it. We will help protect the violated rights!

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