Russian-Jewish oligarch Victor Sheiman—close associate of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko
Quote from Timothy Fitzpatrick on September 3, 2024, 20:51
Sanctions are not a hindrance: how Lukashenko's associate Viktor Sheyman organized the sale of luxury carsBy Nadezhda Sorokina
August 08, 2024A European company helps to export under-sanction fertilizers to the enterprise "Belaruskali". European in it, however, only registration - Cypriot.
The company belongs to a native of Eastern Ukraine. The financial director is a former Belarusian official. The evidence indicates the probability that Alexander Lukashenko's closest associate Viktor Sheyman will earn on the company's transactions. This is due to the increase in transport and forwarding costs of the state-owned potash company. Working on this investigation, we came to another crime to which it may be related - illegal re-export of premium cars from Ukraine to Russia.
The material was prepared in cooperation with the "Workers' Movement" initiative, the Belsat TV channel, the project of the Ukrainian service "Radio Liberty" "Schemes", the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime OCCRP, the Cyprus Network of Research Reports CIReN, with the support of "Cyberpartisan".After dispersing demonstrations against the falsification of the elections in Belarus in 2020, and then the official Minsk's assistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU and the United States imposed sanctions against Belarusian potash fertilizers and the state monopoly enterprise "Belaruskali", which produces them.
Belarus can still export potash fertilizers to China, Brazil or Indonesia, which were its main importers before the imposition of sanctions. But the country had to rebuild logistics. Instead of transportation by the shortest route through the Lithuanian port in Klaipeda, as it was before the introduction of restrictions, Belarusian potassium is now exported through Russia. This road is both longer and more expensive.
The UN expressed concern about the complexity of the logistics of Belarusian potassium supplies to countries with food shortages. But the investigation showed that a significant part of the costs of it may be schemes with signs of corruption, and not the consequences of the imposition of sanctions.
$35 million losses
The large port of St. Petersburg in Russia has become one of the main export windows for the export of potash fertilizers from Belarus since 2022. Here "Belaruskali" uses the services of four terminals. At one of them, the Baltic Ship-Mechanical Plant (BSMZ), the capacity for processing Belarusian potassium was specially increased. About a third of the total volume of fertilizer exports is transferred through it (transshipment - transshipment from one mode of transport to another).
According to the public financial reports of BSMZ, in 2023 the company's turnover increased more than 30 times - up to $35 million. Three years earlier, this number only slightly exceeded one million dollars. Russian media explained the growth by the beginning of the supply of Belarusian potassium through this terminal.
The Russian press also wrote that in 2023 the BSMZ transferred about two million tons of Belarusian potassium. From the documents we received from sources in the shipping industry, it follows that there was more than three million tons.
We managed to find out the prices for transshipment in the port of St. Petersburg in 2021 and 2024. They vary slightly within $11 per metric ton of potash fertilizers. If we extrapolate this figure to 2023, it turns out that for the transshipment of three million tons of fertilizers, BSMZ should have received about $33 million. This roughly corresponds to the company's revenue for last year, which we see in open sources - $35 million.
However, judging by the contract that got our hands, Belaruskali paid twice as much for transshipment to BSMZ in 2023 - almost $70 million.
Instead of directly paying BSMZ for transshipment of goods from trains to ships, Belaruskali concluded a contract for this service with the Cypriot company Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD at a price almost twice as high as the market price - $20 per ton. And the Cypriot company then signed a separate contract with the port on its own behalf and paid it for this work at the market price.
Payment was made in installments. In June 2023, Belaruskali and Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD signed an advance document for July and August, in August - for September and so on.
The contract states that Belarusian potassium is intended for export outside the Customs Union. According to the documents, it was sent from Russian ports to China, Indonesia and Brazil in 2023. Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD is listed in the papers as a freight forwarder.
At the same time, we have reason to believe that the services of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD were not mandatory. The port itself carries out transshipment, it owns cranes, equipment, warehouses, the transport company "Port-Express" reported. This information was also confirmed to us at the St. Petersburg port terminal "Port Bronka".
At the same time, the contract with the forwarder can be beneficial to the client, said Nadezhda Malysheva, Development Director of the Portnews News Agency:
"The forwarder may have a discount on transshipment, for loading of the port; the forwarder may have a contract with the port that he loads it regularly in such volumes."
However, this hardly applies to the cooperation of the Belarusian potash giant with BSMZ. "Belaruskali" is already the main customer of the terminal, which does not need discounts from an intermediary. Our investigation showed that this scheme could be organized in order to withdraw funds from the domestic monopoly producer of potash fertilizers in favor of Alexander Lukashenko's trustees.
https://youtu.be/ba8VXjh31aE?feature=shared
"Vector" by Sheyman
From the evidence it follows that Viktor Sheyman, one of Alexander Lukashenko's closest associates, may be associated with the Cypriot gasket, which receives half of the amount specified in the contract with Belaruskali.
He became Lukashenko's confidant even before his election as president, and then held key positions in the country. Sheyman is under EU sanctions as responsible for the unsolved disappearances of Lukashenko's political opponents.
Officially, Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD has been owned since its foundation in 2012 by Galina Akritova Alexandrou, a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus. She is her director. But Akritova did not conclude an agreement with Belaruskali.
The contract on fertilizer transshipment in the port of St. Petersburg was signed by the General Director of Belaruskali I.I. Golovaty and the Financial Director of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD Sviridov A.G. The person with the surname and initials of the latter in 2019-2021 was the deputy manager of the President of the Republic of Belarus. The department was headed by Viktor Sheyman then.
We found confirmation that the financial director of the Cypriot company Sviridov A.G. and Sviridov the -chief are the same person. The website of the Department of Departments has preserved a document signed by Deputy Sheyman - it is identical to the signature on the contract of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD with Belaruskali.
Sviridov himself admitted in a conversation with the journalist that he is the financial director of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, but, according to him, he did not sign any documents with Belaruskali.
"You know, there are a lot of neural networks here now, so you don't have such evidence," he said.
Officially, Andrei Sviridov was dismissed from the post of Deputy Manager of Lukashenko on February 19, 2021 "in connection with the transition to another job". Less than a month later, on March 11 of the same year, he became the head of Vector Capital Group CJSC. In February 2024, he was replaced as director by another ex-offict associated with Viktor Sheyman, Nikolai Selivanov, former First Deputy of Lukashenko's Departments Departments. [*] He held this position from February 2013 to September 2022.
According to the information received from Cyberpartisans, Sviridov continued to work at Vector Capital Group even after leaving the post of its head. Also, in addition to Sviridov and Selivanov, two more former officials from the Presidential Administration worked in 2023 - Dmitry Petrashevich and Vladimir Skulovets.
The company's specialization is "activity of parent organizations", which means monitoring and managing other legal entities that are part of a structure. [*]
The connection of "Vector Capital Group" with Victor Sheyman is also visible in the investigation of the association of former security forces of Belarus BELPOL on the resale at an undervalued price of the site belonging to the Republic of Belarus in Sochi to the Russian company "Complex-Invest". It demonstrates a letter on the letterhead of "Vector Capital Group" signed by Selivanov addressed to the director of the company "Complex-Invest". Former First Deputy Administrator Lukashenko refers to the position of "our head", whom he calls "V.V.Sh." (initials of Viktor Vladimirovich Sheyman). BELPOL also showed the staffing table of "Complex-Invest" - it has signatures of the former head of Lukashenko's departments next to the resolution "I approve V.V. Sheyman" and Selivanova under the word "agreed".
Luxury cars for Russia Today
Studying the activities of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, we found out that this company came into the field of view of law enforcement agencies in Ukraine.
In early May 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced the elimination of a large-scale scheme of illegal supplies of premium-class cars to Russia. According to the SBU, a businessman from Lviv from August 2022 to March 2023 illegally transferred 45 cars to the Russian Federation for a total amount of more than €3 million. He bought premium vehicles in Ukrainian car dealerships, registered them for controlled commercial structures, after which he transited them through the territory of the European Union to Belarus, and from there to the Russian Federation, according to false documents.
Among the customers of the cars were Gazprom's top managers and Russia Today employees.
Law enforcement officers did not name the name of the organizer of this scheme, but the Ukrainian media, citing their sources, reported that the Lviv businessman was Vitaly Bobyr. He is also listed as an organizer in the materials of the criminal case. Bobyry managed to escape from the investigation. Ukraine put him on the wanted list.
In March 2023, as part of this criminal case, the court in Kiev arrested the property found during the search: various documents, equipment and seals of more than twenty companies from Ukraine, one Belarusian - BEL-BITFINDER LLC, as well as two Cypriot ones - Rostumel Holding Limited and already familiar to us Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD.
In addition, Ukrainian law enforcement officers found a trace that indicates a connection between the suspect and a person from the Belarusian authorities. In correspondence on one of the confiscated phones, he claims that his godgother is a high-ranking Belarusian official (hereinafter the author's spelling and punctuation are preserved):
"...on account of the political question, they don't know what my godfam is the second person in Belarus and can guarantee for me. He once called Yanukovych for me."
Exclusive scrap supplier
Vitaly Bobyr does not mention the surname of his Belarusian patron, but we found a number of indirect connections between him and Viktor Sheyman. It is the former manager of Alexander Lukashenko who is called the second person in Belarus by the media. The connection with Shayman can also be traced through people affiliated with him.
For example, Tatiana Onoshko in 2019-2020 headed the company "Globalast" LLC, which was related to Viktor Sheyman.
And in 2011-2016 she also worked at Belferumgroup LLC. According to the traffic police, in the position of financial director. This company was registered in April 2011. A month and a half later, Alexander Lukashenko, by personal decree, gave it the exclusive right to engage in the collection, procurement, processing and supply of scrap and waste of ferrous and non-ferrous metals in Belarus.
Two companies founded Belferumgroup LLC. The first one is the limited liability partnership "Luxberg". The second is the Ukrainian limited liability partnership "Scholz utilizator AG". Seals, including of this company, were found by Ukrainian investigators during a search in a criminal case on illegal export of premium cars from Ukraine to Russia. Its founder and owner is Irina Petrovna Bobyr, the mother of a Lviv businessman who is suspected of organizing this scheme.
Through Scholz Utilizer AG, associated with Vitaly Bobyr, Victor Sheyman's people could go to Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. In 2017, through the mediation of this Cypriot company, Scholz Recycler AG LLP supplied steel rods from Ukraine to Germany.
Belarusian trace in car re-export
An informed source on condition of anonymity reported: Ukrainian investigators believe that the author of the illegal scheme of supply of premium cars to Russia was a Lviv businessman. However, a number of facts indicate that its true organizers are in Minsk.
The same source confirmed that the main suspect in this criminal case was Vitaly Bobyr. According to their data, companies associated with the Lviv businessman bought luxury cars in Ukrainian car dealerships, and then resold them to the Cypriot Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and Rostumel Holding Limited. Then they were bought by the Belarusian company "BEL-BITFINDER", after which the car was transferred to end buyers in the Russian Federation.
The source also received a number of documents that testify to Andrei Sviridov's involvement in this illegal scheme. During searches in the offices of companies associated with Bobyr, among other things, Ukrainian law enforcement officers found a contract form for the sale of AUDI SQ8 worth more than €75 thousand to Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. Moreover, the bank details of the Cypriot company indicate the Belarusian Paritetbank. [*]
From sources in Ukraine, we received a passport photo and two powers of attorney for Sviridov, signed by the head of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. The first one is dated September 1, 2022. It authorizes the former Deputy Manager Lukashenko to make any transactions on behalf of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD without limitation of the amount and to be its representative: to submit applications, documents on behalf of the company, to negotiate, etc. The second power of attorney dated December 1, 2022 is supplemented with two more points, allowing Sviridov to open bank accounts for Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and dispose of funds on them.
According to Sviridov, these documents are fakes.
"There was no power of attorney. It's probably just dust in people's eyes. Probably, you deliberately set up to make a noise, raise your statistics," he said.
Ex-deputy of the departments Lukashenko also suggested that the documents were forged by Ukrainian law enforcement officers in order to blacken him.
Andrei Sviridov is not just a former high-ranking official - he continues to work in structures related to Viktor Sheyman.
The relationship between the Belarusian authorities and BEL-BITFINDER LLC, which bought luxury cars from Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and Rostumel Holding Limited, is also indicative.
Sanctions for violation of sanctions
Sanctions prohibit not only the import and export of Belaruskali fertilizers to EU countries, but also the provision of financial or economic resources to this enterprise. Cyprus Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, providing services to Belaruskali, violates sanctions, three independent experts believe.
"EU sanctions prohibit companies registered in the EU from providing services or Belaruskali products, and transshipment of potash fertilizers in St. Petersburg, as I understand it, would be a direct violation of sanctions in this case. Even if potassium does not get to any EU country, the purpose of sanctions is to make sure that Belaruskali does not profit from services or products provided by companies registered in the EU," said Gunnar Ekelevo-Slidal, Deputy Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
The Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the EU since 2004. All EU organizations must comply with the sanctions, said Tom Keating, director of the Center for the Study of Financial Crimes and Security at the Royal Joint Institute for Defense Studies (RUSI) in London.
"In this case, if they promote the trade in potash fertilizers, which prohibit sanctions, with organizations registered outside the EU, their activities still need to be investigated. In my opinion, this clearly looks like a violation of sanctions," he said.
The same opinion is held by the sanctions expert Alexander Dmitrenko from the Tokyo law firm Ashurst:
"It is obvious that such a company [Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD] will fall under EU sanctions, it's very simple. EU sanctions will apply to its activities."
We tried to contact the owner of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD Galina Akritova Alexandrou to take a comment, without success. However, we were talked to a member of her family Elena Brovkina (Akritova), director of Damelen Consulting Limited, who acted as the secretary of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. She said that her team had nothing to do with the deal with Belaruskali described in our investigation:
"We were not aware that some contracts were concluded or someone was doing it on behalf of the company. <... > I tell you with full responsibility that we have never issued a power of attorney for Mr. Sviridov, and we do not know what kind of person this is."
Brovkina (Akritova) also claims that they did not participate in the resale of Ukrainian luxury cars. At the same time, according to Brovkina (Akritova), they are not going to apply to any competent authorities of Akritova:
"It's not our responsibility. If someone, some police, finds something, they turn to our police, the Cyprus police, and the Cyprus police are already sending us an official request, which we are responding to. And then the investigation goes on. Who did these machinations, on what grounds? It's already, it's already the case of the prosecutor's office, the Ukrainian, Cypriot police, I don't know. Well, at least, not ours. We, as our company, stopped servicing these companies in early 2022. That's it."
Journalists appealed to the law enforcement agencies of Cyprus with a request to comment on the activities of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. We were told that the request was transferred to the competent authorities for further action.
Sanctions are not a hindrance: how Lukashenko's associate Viktor Sheyman organized the sale of luxury cars
By Nadezhda Sorokina
August 08, 2024
A European company helps to export under-sanction fertilizers to the enterprise "Belaruskali". European in it, however, only registration - Cypriot.
The company belongs to a native of Eastern Ukraine. The financial director is a former Belarusian official. The evidence indicates the probability that Alexander Lukashenko's closest associate Viktor Sheyman will earn on the company's transactions. This is due to the increase in transport and forwarding costs of the state-owned potash company. Working on this investigation, we came to another crime to which it may be related - illegal re-export of premium cars from Ukraine to Russia.
The material was prepared in cooperation with the "Workers' Movement" initiative, the Belsat TV channel, the project of the Ukrainian service "Radio Liberty" "Schemes", the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime OCCRP, the Cyprus Network of Research Reports CIReN, with the support of "Cyberpartisan".
After dispersing demonstrations against the falsification of the elections in Belarus in 2020, and then the official Minsk's assistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU and the United States imposed sanctions against Belarusian potash fertilizers and the state monopoly enterprise "Belaruskali", which produces them.
Belarus can still export potash fertilizers to China, Brazil or Indonesia, which were its main importers before the imposition of sanctions. But the country had to rebuild logistics. Instead of transportation by the shortest route through the Lithuanian port in Klaipeda, as it was before the introduction of restrictions, Belarusian potassium is now exported through Russia. This road is both longer and more expensive.
The UN expressed concern about the complexity of the logistics of Belarusian potassium supplies to countries with food shortages. But the investigation showed that a significant part of the costs of it may be schemes with signs of corruption, and not the consequences of the imposition of sanctions.
$35 million losses
The large port of St. Petersburg in Russia has become one of the main export windows for the export of potash fertilizers from Belarus since 2022. Here "Belaruskali" uses the services of four terminals. At one of them, the Baltic Ship-Mechanical Plant (BSMZ), the capacity for processing Belarusian potassium was specially increased. About a third of the total volume of fertilizer exports is transferred through it (transshipment - transshipment from one mode of transport to another).
According to the public financial reports of BSMZ, in 2023 the company's turnover increased more than 30 times - up to $35 million. Three years earlier, this number only slightly exceeded one million dollars. Russian media explained the growth by the beginning of the supply of Belarusian potassium through this terminal.
The Russian press also wrote that in 2023 the BSMZ transferred about two million tons of Belarusian potassium. From the documents we received from sources in the shipping industry, it follows that there was more than three million tons.
We managed to find out the prices for transshipment in the port of St. Petersburg in 2021 and 2024. They vary slightly within $11 per metric ton of potash fertilizers. If we extrapolate this figure to 2023, it turns out that for the transshipment of three million tons of fertilizers, BSMZ should have received about $33 million. This roughly corresponds to the company's revenue for last year, which we see in open sources - $35 million.
However, judging by the contract that got our hands, Belaruskali paid twice as much for transshipment to BSMZ in 2023 - almost $70 million.
Instead of directly paying BSMZ for transshipment of goods from trains to ships, Belaruskali concluded a contract for this service with the Cypriot company Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD at a price almost twice as high as the market price - $20 per ton. And the Cypriot company then signed a separate contract with the port on its own behalf and paid it for this work at the market price.
Payment was made in installments. In June 2023, Belaruskali and Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD signed an advance document for July and August, in August - for September and so on.
The contract states that Belarusian potassium is intended for export outside the Customs Union. According to the documents, it was sent from Russian ports to China, Indonesia and Brazil in 2023. Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD is listed in the papers as a freight forwarder.
At the same time, we have reason to believe that the services of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD were not mandatory. The port itself carries out transshipment, it owns cranes, equipment, warehouses, the transport company "Port-Express" reported. This information was also confirmed to us at the St. Petersburg port terminal "Port Bronka".
At the same time, the contract with the forwarder can be beneficial to the client, said Nadezhda Malysheva, Development Director of the Portnews News Agency:
"The forwarder may have a discount on transshipment, for loading of the port; the forwarder may have a contract with the port that he loads it regularly in such volumes."
However, this hardly applies to the cooperation of the Belarusian potash giant with BSMZ. "Belaruskali" is already the main customer of the terminal, which does not need discounts from an intermediary. Our investigation showed that this scheme could be organized in order to withdraw funds from the domestic monopoly producer of potash fertilizers in favor of Alexander Lukashenko's trustees.
"Vector" by Sheyman
From the evidence it follows that Viktor Sheyman, one of Alexander Lukashenko's closest associates, may be associated with the Cypriot gasket, which receives half of the amount specified in the contract with Belaruskali.
He became Lukashenko's confidant even before his election as president, and then held key positions in the country. Sheyman is under EU sanctions as responsible for the unsolved disappearances of Lukashenko's political opponents.
Officially, Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD has been owned since its foundation in 2012 by Galina Akritova Alexandrou, a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus. She is her director. But Akritova did not conclude an agreement with Belaruskali.
The contract on fertilizer transshipment in the port of St. Petersburg was signed by the General Director of Belaruskali I.I. Golovaty and the Financial Director of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD Sviridov A.G. The person with the surname and initials of the latter in 2019-2021 was the deputy manager of the President of the Republic of Belarus. The department was headed by Viktor Sheyman then.
We found confirmation that the financial director of the Cypriot company Sviridov A.G. and Sviridov the -chief are the same person. The website of the Department of Departments has preserved a document signed by Deputy Sheyman - it is identical to the signature on the contract of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD with Belaruskali.
Sviridov himself admitted in a conversation with the journalist that he is the financial director of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, but, according to him, he did not sign any documents with Belaruskali.
"You know, there are a lot of neural networks here now, so you don't have such evidence," he said.
Officially, Andrei Sviridov was dismissed from the post of Deputy Manager of Lukashenko on February 19, 2021 "in connection with the transition to another job". Less than a month later, on March 11 of the same year, he became the head of Vector Capital Group CJSC. In February 2024, he was replaced as director by another ex-offict associated with Viktor Sheyman, Nikolai Selivanov, former First Deputy of Lukashenko's Departments Departments. [*] He held this position from February 2013 to September 2022.
According to the information received from Cyberpartisans, Sviridov continued to work at Vector Capital Group even after leaving the post of its head. Also, in addition to Sviridov and Selivanov, two more former officials from the Presidential Administration worked in 2023 - Dmitry Petrashevich and Vladimir Skulovets.
The company's specialization is "activity of parent organizations", which means monitoring and managing other legal entities that are part of a structure. [*]
The connection of "Vector Capital Group" with Victor Sheyman is also visible in the investigation of the association of former security forces of Belarus BELPOL on the resale at an undervalued price of the site belonging to the Republic of Belarus in Sochi to the Russian company "Complex-Invest". It demonstrates a letter on the letterhead of "Vector Capital Group" signed by Selivanov addressed to the director of the company "Complex-Invest". Former First Deputy Administrator Lukashenko refers to the position of "our head", whom he calls "V.V.Sh." (initials of Viktor Vladimirovich Sheyman). BELPOL also showed the staffing table of "Complex-Invest" - it has signatures of the former head of Lukashenko's departments next to the resolution "I approve V.V. Sheyman" and Selivanova under the word "agreed".
Luxury cars for Russia Today
Studying the activities of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, we found out that this company came into the field of view of law enforcement agencies in Ukraine.
In early May 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced the elimination of a large-scale scheme of illegal supplies of premium-class cars to Russia. According to the SBU, a businessman from Lviv from August 2022 to March 2023 illegally transferred 45 cars to the Russian Federation for a total amount of more than €3 million. He bought premium vehicles in Ukrainian car dealerships, registered them for controlled commercial structures, after which he transited them through the territory of the European Union to Belarus, and from there to the Russian Federation, according to false documents.
Among the customers of the cars were Gazprom's top managers and Russia Today employees.
Law enforcement officers did not name the name of the organizer of this scheme, but the Ukrainian media, citing their sources, reported that the Lviv businessman was Vitaly Bobyr. He is also listed as an organizer in the materials of the criminal case. Bobyry managed to escape from the investigation. Ukraine put him on the wanted list.
In March 2023, as part of this criminal case, the court in Kiev arrested the property found during the search: various documents, equipment and seals of more than twenty companies from Ukraine, one Belarusian - BEL-BITFINDER LLC, as well as two Cypriot ones - Rostumel Holding Limited and already familiar to us Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD.
In addition, Ukrainian law enforcement officers found a trace that indicates a connection between the suspect and a person from the Belarusian authorities. In correspondence on one of the confiscated phones, he claims that his godgother is a high-ranking Belarusian official (hereinafter the author's spelling and punctuation are preserved):
"...on account of the political question, they don't know what my godfam is the second person in Belarus and can guarantee for me. He once called Yanukovych for me."
Exclusive scrap supplier
Vitaly Bobyr does not mention the surname of his Belarusian patron, but we found a number of indirect connections between him and Viktor Sheyman. It is the former manager of Alexander Lukashenko who is called the second person in Belarus by the media. The connection with Shayman can also be traced through people affiliated with him.
For example, Tatiana Onoshko in 2019-2020 headed the company "Globalast" LLC, which was related to Viktor Sheyman.
And in 2011-2016 she also worked at Belferumgroup LLC. According to the traffic police, in the position of financial director. This company was registered in April 2011. A month and a half later, Alexander Lukashenko, by personal decree, gave it the exclusive right to engage in the collection, procurement, processing and supply of scrap and waste of ferrous and non-ferrous metals in Belarus.
Two companies founded Belferumgroup LLC. The first one is the limited liability partnership "Luxberg". The second is the Ukrainian limited liability partnership "Scholz utilizator AG". Seals, including of this company, were found by Ukrainian investigators during a search in a criminal case on illegal export of premium cars from Ukraine to Russia. Its founder and owner is Irina Petrovna Bobyr, the mother of a Lviv businessman who is suspected of organizing this scheme.
Through Scholz Utilizer AG, associated with Vitaly Bobyr, Victor Sheyman's people could go to Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. In 2017, through the mediation of this Cypriot company, Scholz Recycler AG LLP supplied steel rods from Ukraine to Germany.
Belarusian trace in car re-export
An informed source on condition of anonymity reported: Ukrainian investigators believe that the author of the illegal scheme of supply of premium cars to Russia was a Lviv businessman. However, a number of facts indicate that its true organizers are in Minsk.
The same source confirmed that the main suspect in this criminal case was Vitaly Bobyr. According to their data, companies associated with the Lviv businessman bought luxury cars in Ukrainian car dealerships, and then resold them to the Cypriot Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and Rostumel Holding Limited. Then they were bought by the Belarusian company "BEL-BITFINDER", after which the car was transferred to end buyers in the Russian Federation.
The source also received a number of documents that testify to Andrei Sviridov's involvement in this illegal scheme. During searches in the offices of companies associated with Bobyr, among other things, Ukrainian law enforcement officers found a contract form for the sale of AUDI SQ8 worth more than €75 thousand to Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. Moreover, the bank details of the Cypriot company indicate the Belarusian Paritetbank. [*]
From sources in Ukraine, we received a passport photo and two powers of attorney for Sviridov, signed by the head of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. The first one is dated September 1, 2022. It authorizes the former Deputy Manager Lukashenko to make any transactions on behalf of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD without limitation of the amount and to be its representative: to submit applications, documents on behalf of the company, to negotiate, etc. The second power of attorney dated December 1, 2022 is supplemented with two more points, allowing Sviridov to open bank accounts for Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and dispose of funds on them.
According to Sviridov, these documents are fakes.
"There was no power of attorney. It's probably just dust in people's eyes. Probably, you deliberately set up to make a noise, raise your statistics," he said.
Ex-deputy of the departments Lukashenko also suggested that the documents were forged by Ukrainian law enforcement officers in order to blacken him.
Andrei Sviridov is not just a former high-ranking official - he continues to work in structures related to Viktor Sheyman.
The relationship between the Belarusian authorities and BEL-BITFINDER LLC, which bought luxury cars from Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and Rostumel Holding Limited, is also indicative.
Sanctions for violation of sanctions
Sanctions prohibit not only the import and export of Belaruskali fertilizers to EU countries, but also the provision of financial or economic resources to this enterprise. Cyprus Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, providing services to Belaruskali, violates sanctions, three independent experts believe.
"EU sanctions prohibit companies registered in the EU from providing services or Belaruskali products, and transshipment of potash fertilizers in St. Petersburg, as I understand it, would be a direct violation of sanctions in this case. Even if potassium does not get to any EU country, the purpose of sanctions is to make sure that Belaruskali does not profit from services or products provided by companies registered in the EU," said Gunnar Ekelevo-Slidal, Deputy Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
The Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the EU since 2004. All EU organizations must comply with the sanctions, said Tom Keating, director of the Center for the Study of Financial Crimes and Security at the Royal Joint Institute for Defense Studies (RUSI) in London.
"In this case, if they promote the trade in potash fertilizers, which prohibit sanctions, with organizations registered outside the EU, their activities still need to be investigated. In my opinion, this clearly looks like a violation of sanctions," he said.
The same opinion is held by the sanctions expert Alexander Dmitrenko from the Tokyo law firm Ashurst:
"It is obvious that such a company [Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD] will fall under EU sanctions, it's very simple. EU sanctions will apply to its activities."
We tried to contact the owner of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD Galina Akritova Alexandrou to take a comment, without success. However, we were talked to a member of her family Elena Brovkina (Akritova), director of Damelen Consulting Limited, who acted as the secretary of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. She said that her team had nothing to do with the deal with Belaruskali described in our investigation:
"We were not aware that some contracts were concluded or someone was doing it on behalf of the company. <... > I tell you with full responsibility that we have never issued a power of attorney for Mr. Sviridov, and we do not know what kind of person this is."
Brovkina (Akritova) also claims that they did not participate in the resale of Ukrainian luxury cars. At the same time, according to Brovkina (Akritova), they are not going to apply to any competent authorities of Akritova:
"It's not our responsibility. If someone, some police, finds something, they turn to our police, the Cyprus police, and the Cyprus police are already sending us an official request, which we are responding to. And then the investigation goes on. Who did these machinations, on what grounds? It's already, it's already the case of the prosecutor's office, the Ukrainian, Cypriot police, I don't know. Well, at least, not ours. We, as our company, stopped servicing these companies in early 2022. That's it."
Journalists appealed to the law enforcement agencies of Cyprus with a request to comment on the activities of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. We were told that the request was transferred to the competent authorities for further action.