Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities have opened a sequence of instances in opposition to Kolomoisky within the final two weeks — the newest on Friday, because the Safety Service of Ukraine, or SBU, mentioned it was investigating him for allegedly embezzling some $160 million.
The information got here to Kolomoisky as he sat in a pretrial detention heart in Kyiv. Final week, the SBU mentioned in an announcement that it was investigating him for fraud and laundering greater than $14 million between 2013 and 2020. Although he has not but been indicted, the Ukrainian authorized system permits a suspect to be detained whereas an investigation proceeds.
Kolomoisky, who’s believed to carry Israeli and Cypriot passports, has declined to submit a $14 million bail, protesting that the case in opposition to him is unlawful.
Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s oligarchs have seen their affect tremendously curtailed, as officers have launched legal guidelines geared toward diminishing their political and financial attain. A lot of their property have been expropriated in Russian-occupied territory or utterly destroyed in the course of the combating.
However arguably nobody has fallen so far as Kolomoisky, an oil, banking and media mogul who was as soon as valued at $2 billion, and who was thought of an in depth supporter with main affect on Zelensky, the comedian-turned-president. Zelensky starred in a lot of reveals on Kolomoisky’s tv channel, together with as an unlikely president in “Servant of the Individuals.”
In 2019, Kolomoisky helped Zelensky win the true job, thwarting Petro Poroshenko’s bid for a second time period. Kolomoisky and Poroshenko, additionally an oligarch, had clashed fiercely.
Kolomoisky has been beneath authorized strain since 2016 when officers found some $5.5 billion lacking from PrivatBank’s steadiness sheet, which they accused Kolomoisky, his enterprise companion, Hennadiy Boholiubov, and different high deputies of embezzling.
The obvious asset stripping on the nation’s largest retail financial institution left some 20 million atypical residents vulnerable to dropping their life’s financial savings. The federal government seized the financial institution and nationalized it, then launched authorized instances to claw again the allegedly stolen cash.
Zelensky’s election has not helped Kolomoisky and the notion that he’s near the president might have raised strain on authorities authorities to carry the oligarch to account. In July 2022, officers in Kyiv instructed Ukrainian media that Kolomoisky had been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship for violating a regulation prohibiting twin nationality. Kolomoisky denied this occurred.
Final week, officers on the nation’s Nationwide Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU, mentioned that they have been additionally opening an official investigation of a “former final helpful proprietor” at PrivatBank and 5 associates on suspicion of embezzling some $250 million. Ukrainian media recognized the previous proprietor as Kolomoisky.
Kolomoisky was as soon as extensively regarded to be untouchable legally, given his connections and immense wealth. He was additionally one of many extra flamboyant tycoons to emerge from Ukraine’s first cutthroat many years of independence: a big man, with a shock of wavy hair and a bushy beard, who earlier stored a shark aquarium in his places of work.
However his days as a larger-than-life billionaire working above the regulation might now be drawing to an in depth.
“I contemplate this the top of his period,” mentioned Borys Filatov, the mayor of Dnipro, a former enterprise companion and political ally of Kolomoisky, who has since fallen out with him.
Final week, when the primary case in opposition to Kolomoisky for fraud and cash laundering was introduced, the SBU posted photographs on its Telegram channel exhibiting him surrounded by brokers at his dwelling, signing paperwork.
Later that day, Kolomoisky appeared in a Kyiv courtroom for his arraignment and was jailed for 2 months. Ukrainian media confirmed him in a blue observe jacket and darkish pants, being pushed away to a pretrial detention heart.
If convicted within the NABU case, Kolomoisky faces as much as 12 years in jail, officers mentioned.
Filatov, the Dnipro mayor, mentioned that NABU investigators “labored very, very fruitfully for a number of years” on Kolomoisky’s case. “And that’s why I consider that, now after the accusations from NABU have been offered, he has gone to jail for a really very long time,” he mentioned.
Kolomoisky has flatly denied all the allegations.
In 2017, a London courtroom ordered a worldwide freeze of some $2.5 billion of his and his companion Boholiubov’s property in reference to the PrivatBank case.
And beginning in 2020, the U.S. Justice Division filed civil forfeiture instances in opposition to the 2 males over properties they owned in Florida, Texas and Ohio, which it mentioned had been “acquired utilizing funds misappropriated from PrivatBank.”
Then in 2021, america imposed sanctions in opposition to Kolomoisky and members of his household beneath a U.S. regulation that permits penalizing overseas officers concerned in human rights violations and corruption. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned Kolomoisky was “concerned in corrupt acts that undermined rule of regulation and the Ukrainian public’s religion of their authorities’s democratic establishments and public processes” whereas serving as governor of Dnipropetrovsk area.
After Russia initially invaded Ukraine in 2014, performing president Oleksandr Turchynov appointed Kolomoisky as governor of his native Dnipropetrovsk area. It was then that Kolomoisky financed a personal military to combat Russian-backed separatists and known as Russian President Vladimir Putin a “schizophrenic of brief stature.”
Poroshenko dismissed him from the governor’s submit in 2015, after Kolomoisky clashed with Kyiv over Ukrnafta, a state-owned oil firm during which Kolomoisky held a minority stake.
Following the nationalization of PrivatBank, Kolomoisky fled the nation for his houses in Switzerland and Israel.
Kolomoisky denies that the financial institution’s cash was stolen and has filed dozens of lawsuits to win again management. Nonetheless, in 2020, Ukraine’s parliament handed a regulation forbidding the federal government from reversing nationalizations. And in July 2022, Ukraine’s Supreme Court docket upheld the seizure of the financial institution.
Kolomoisky returned to Ukraine from Israel following Zelensky’s election, solely to see extra of his companies come beneath strain. In November final yr, Ukraine’s authorities nationalized the property of Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta, an oil refinery during which Kolomoisky and Boholiubov held controlling stakes, saying the businesses have been wanted for the battle effort.
In February, SBU brokers searched Kolomoisky’s dwelling over accusations of tax evasion and that some $1 billion had been embezzled from the 2 corporations.
Forbes Ukraine estimates his wealth has dropped to lower than $900 million since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Though he has misplaced a big share of his property, he nonetheless controls the 1+1 tv channel. At one level, it was Ukraine’s hottest, however its affect has tremendously decreased as the federal government has severely restricted wartime broadcasts.
The instances in opposition to Kolomoisky have accelerated as Ukrainian officers pursue a high-profile anti-corruption marketing campaign — and Zelensky seems to sign to Western companions offering billions in navy and financial support that he has zero tolerance for graft.
In latest months, authorities have cracked down on alleged corruption within the nation’s tax authority and navy recruiting system, whereas the nation’s protection minister, Oleksii Reznikov, resigned final week amid allegations that his ministry overpaid for provides, although Reznikov was indirectly implicated.
In his common night tackle, following Kolomoisky’s jailing, Zelensky didn’t communicate instantly in regards to the case, however he thanked Ukrainian regulation enforcement officers “for his or her dedication to carry each case stalled for many years to a simply conclusion.”
“There can be no extra decades-long ‘enterprise as traditional’ for many who plundered Ukraine and put themselves above the regulation and any guidelines,” Zelensky mentioned. “The regulation should work. It’s so. It will likely be so.”
Kamila Hrabchuk contributed to this report.
