Tymoshenko history of multiple crimes: SOVIET STRUCTURES MUTATED INTO ORGАNIZED CRIME
65 facts of TYMOSHENKO high crimes: extortion, mass murder, embezzlement, racketeering, money laundering, fraud FROM: THE COMPLAINT AGAINST CREDIT SWISS BANK IV. FACTS. 11. Former president of UESU, Tymoshenko is a Ukrainian national, as evidence shows, illegally being the beneficiary of secretive BL Trust, held by Defendants. Tymoshenko has been effectively the owner of UESU. Tymoshenko caused the wire transfers through CS AG and CS-G, associated with UESU's dealings and kickbacks. Tymoshenko was UESU's founder in 1995 and has become, through Defendants' services, the beneficiary of UESU's assets. 12. Apart from her business activities, Tymoshenko also engaged in a political career in Ukraine, twice rising to the position of a Prime Minister, but using government positions to advance the interests of UESU. Tymoshenko has faced numerous criminal charges alleging bribery, conversion and fraud. In October of 2011 Tymoshenko was convicted in Ukraine, serving a 7-year sentence. Tymoshenko has been sued on a similar claim in this Court, Docket 11cv7877, however, despite the obligations under the 1965 Hague Convention for Service Abroad of Judicial and Nonjudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, Ukraine's Ministry of Justice has been protracting service of the summonses on Tymoshenko in the prison. 24. In April of 1994 Cube, Ltd. ("Cube"), a Ukrainian corporation, holding a $113 million government contract, signed a contract and Power of Attorney to UTICo, for services to collect the alleged debt of the Indian and Chinese buyers of the ferrous metals from Ukraine. The Power of Attorney and contracts were executed by Cube's then president Tymoshenko. 25. intermediaries. In 1995-1996 UTICo was able to recover $660,000 paid by the Indian Per instructions from Cube's and later UESU's principals, those recovery proceeds were directed to Somolli Enterprises, Ltd. ("Somolli"), incorporated in Cyprus. 26. As discovered later, a Ukrainian business person and politician, Tymoshenko, secretly controlled Somolli, owning 33.4% in her own name, 33.3% in the name of her husband Olexandr Tymoshenko and the remaining 33.3% in the name of their nominee, Olexandr Gravets, who was unaware of his name being used for holding Somolli. 27. In September of 1995 Tymoshenko's privy Pavlo Lazarenko ("Lazarenko") was promoted from the Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Region to the First Deputy Premier of Ukraine.
Lazarenko's responsibilities included energy commodities' supplies, imported from Russia. Tymoshenko and Lazarenko engineered the setup of UESU, to substitute Cube. 28. As evidence shows, Lazarenko directed a bribe of $7 million to the then Ukrainian Prime Minister Yevghen Marchuk, to license UESU for the natural gas business and distribution in Ukraine. 29. Lazarenko and Tymoshenko were the masterminds of the UESU scheme. On November 8, 1995 Lazarenko wrote to Russian authorities proposing that UESU become an intermediary for natural gas imports from Russia, through OAO Gazprom. That was before UESU was actually incorporated in Ukraine, but the conspirators had already decided on the corporate name. Lazarenko obtained the consent from the Russian authorities. 30. On November 20-24, 1995 Tymoshenko, with several other Ukrainian nationals, arranged for the creation of UESU as a private company in Ukraine that she and her privies controlled. Cube was converted into UESU. 31. The incorporation of UESU on November 20, 2005 involved fraud. The Minutes No. 2-1/95 of the shareholders' meeting said that it was attended by Andreas Petrou ("Petrou"), a Cypriot citizen, who voted 85% for the purported Cypriot shareholders. 32. In fact, Petrou never attended that meeting in Ukraine and was unaware of his 'presentation'. Tymoshenko used Petrou's name to conceal her secret interest in UESU. 33. As Petrou testified, the only time he saw Tymoshenkos was in 1992, when they, as tourists, walked into a travel office that Petrou's wife maintained in Cyprus. Petrou, who was an attorney, referred them to another attorney and never heard back from the Tymoshenkos.
34. At Petrou's deposition in Cyprus by the U.S. law enforcement, various documents concerning UESU were shown to him, and he testified to his signatures being forged. 35. In December of 1995 Lazarenko used his position as First Deputy Premier to have UESU licensed in Ukraine as the distributor of natural gas in Ukraine. 36. Lazarenko and Tymoshenko negotiated the contract between the Russian gas supplier, OAO Gazprom, and UESU for 1996, including talks with Gazprom's chairman Rem Viakhirev ("Viakhirev"), to whom Lazarenko directed bribes. 37. Thereby, UESU was made subsidiary of United Energy International, Ltd., in London ("UEIL"). UEIL was set up, under the laws of England and Wales, in October of 1995, as company #3075334, at the address: 41 Dover Street, London, W1X 3RB, the U.K.
38. As a plan of the scheme, UEIL was made the parent entity of UESU and put under the control of Tymoshenko through Somolli in Cyprus. UEIL nominally held 85 percent of UESU and employed a sole operator in London, a Turkish national Ekrument Aksoy ("Aksoy"), to transfer UESU proceeds to Somolli or at its orders. UEIL was also included, as UESU's parent, into the delivery contracts between Gazprom and UESU. 39. By abusing his governmental powers, Lazarenko enabled Tymoshenko and UESU to conclude with Gazprom Contracts No. 4GU and No. 70, both dated December 29, 1995. 40. The users of the natural gas in Ukraine, including large enterprises, were obligated to pay for the distributed gas to UESU and/or UEIL accounts. UESU's principals arranged for those proceeds routed to the offshore accounts, including: (a) UEIL at National Westminster Bank, 208 Picadilly, London, Nos. 140/0/04329791 and 06010644; (b) UESU at Golden Union (offshore) Bank, P.K. 466-Lefcosa, Mersion 10, Turkey, No. 1073601 LSCB, #59-13710; (c) Somolli at First Trading Bank, Nauru, No. 5005702948, 173899.
41. Lazarenko, who became the Ukrainian Prime Minister in May of 1996, served as UESU's key promoter, using the governmental leverages. On information and belief, his arrangement with Tymoshenko was that he would get 50% interest in the ultimate illegal profits of UESU to be directed by Tymoshenko in kickbacks to his offshore accounts. 42. According to testimony of a witness, In June of 1996 Lazarenko directed, in the interests of UESU, at least two bribes to Gazprom's Viakhirev, using Lucky Star Enterprises, Ltd. ($1.4 million) and Eagle Enterprises, Ltd. ($1,280,000), through the Cayman Islands. 43. UESU's operators used fabricated invoices in the name of Somolli. They hired a Macedonian national Donco Stojanovski ("Stojanovski"), who was housed for free in Ukraine, to pose as Somolli's director, for signing blank documents. As Stojanovski testified, he was required, for a small salary and free housing, to sign blank pages on Somolli's letterhead. Stojanovski did not know what was then entered into those signed blank pages. 44. Aksoy, a nominal director of UEIL, stationed at the time in London, later testified that he received the invoices and the orders on Somolli's letterhead, signed by Stojanovski,
by express mail and by fax. Most of the orders were to transfer proceeds from UEIL's account at National Westminster bank in London to Somolli's accounts at Bank of Cyprus, Ltd. in Cyprus. 45. Lazarenko's and others' conspiracy caused UESU to rapidly become an enormous entity generating over $11 billion in turnover in 1996, its first year of operation. As banking records show, the proceeds generated by UESU were secretly forwarded to Somolli's account in Cyprus, and then the 50% kickbacks were forwarded under Lazarenko's control. All that was accomplished without corporate formalities, using fake contracts or no contracts. 46. No later than in the fall of 1996, all of the Defendants herein became involved in Tymoshenko's money laundering, for concealing UESU's assets, whose turnover became in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That scheme, using Bassington, became at the center of those offshore nominees for holding and concealing UESU's assets,
47. Bassington, IBC No. 203394 in the BVI, was set up on October 23, 1996, on the orders of the officers of CS Trust, at the address: P.O. Box 122, Helvetia Court, South Esplanade, St. Peter Port, Guernsey, GY1 4EE. CS Trust and CS-G were the fully owned subsidiaries of CS AG (that was also known as Credit Suisse First Boston for almost ten years), providing services to Tymoshenko and UESU. 48. Bassington's initial directors were three Guernsey residents, employees of CS Trust: Denise Sally Corbet, Sandra Christine Ayres and Catherine Nicolle. These three persons, acting on Credit Suisse Fides letterhead, retained Mossack Fonseca & Co. (BVI) Ltd. in the BVI to serve as the agent office for Bassington. The main operator of that agent office in the BVI, for handling the Bassington file, was Rosemarie Flax. 49. As the BVI offshore documents, recovered through a court action in the BVI, show, on or about December 11, 1996, that shell entity, Bassington, was sold for purposes of the UESU scheme. All operations were from that point to be directed through other CS Trust officers, Glanfield, Le Cheminant and Church. As a part of that scheme organized by CS Trust and CS-G, Bassington's authorized capital was increased from 50,000 to 1,000,000 shares. 50. In December of 1996, 90% of the stock in UEIL in London was transferred to Bassington in the BVI. Thereby Bassington became UEIL's corporate parent, which, in turn, was UESU's parent, in a sophisticated offshore holding scheme materialized by CS Trust. 51. UTICo's discovery in the BVI, through the Royal Court in Tortola, has shown that, as a part of such restructuring the holdings for UESU, Bassington's new directors became CS Trust's employees in Guernsey, Le Cheminant, Church, as well as Corbet, the latter
being Bassington's only initial director. 52. The nominal secretary of Bassington was made, as mentioned above, Courtadmin, operated by CS Trust, handling trust services for hundreds of offshore entities. As mentioned above, Bassington's account was set up in New York, through CS-G and CS Trust. 53. These trust officers at CS Trust and CS-G operated Bassington in the BVI in the interests of money laundering for Tymoshenko and UESU, to avoid UESU's creditors.
54. On December 23, 1996, Le Cheminant wrote from CS Trust office in Guernsey to Flax, at Mossack & Fonseca Co. in the BVI, an instruction marked "urgent", that Bassington's authorized capital was to be increased to 1,000,000 shares. 55. As Aksoy testified at the video-taped deposition by the U.S. law enforcement, Bassington was held by a trust called BL Trust, for Tymoshenkos' benefit. BL Trust was operated at CS Trust in Guernsey, where both Tymoshenko and Lazarenko held assets. 56. On December 31, 1996 Lazarenko, abusing his Prime Minister's powers, obligated a member of his Cabinet to sign a Ukrainian State guarantee, to secure Gazprom's deliveries of natural gas to UESU, for $200 million per month in the event of UESU's default, thus allowing UESU to continuously receive huge amounts of natural gas. 57. On January 20 and 21, 1997 UESU's principal Olexandr Tymoshenko instructed, by two letters to the Bank of Cyprus on Somolli's letterhead, to wire transfer $460,000 to Bassington's account in New York. Those instructions signed thus by Tymoshenko's husband directed those proceeds to CS New York, Tower 49, 12 East 49th Street, New York, NY, 10017, account No. 192260-01 held by CS-G, for further credit of account of Bassington, #41427. 58. More specifically, $270,000 was wire transferred from Somolli's account at the Bank of Cyprus to Bassington's account in New York on January 20, 1997 and another $190,000 was wire transferred, from the same account, with the same instructions, on the next day. 59. Those instructions to increase the authorized capital of Bassington from 50,000 to 1,000,000, were finalized on February 13, 2007; Le Cheminant and Church signed the directors' Minutes of Bassington that the authorized capital of Bassington was increased to 1,000,000 shares. The amendment of Bassington's Articles of incorporation, increasing the authorized capital was filed by Flax in the Registry of companies in the BVI on March 7, 1997. 60. As a part of that scheme, Bassington stock in a bearer form was issued to
Tymoshenko as UESU principal to be held, on information and belief, through BL Trust. Namely, on April 24, 1997 Le Cheminant and Church in Guernsey wrote to Flax in the BVI, advising that 451,872 shares were issued on April 8, 1997 in a bearer form, each share representing $1.00. On information and belief, this corresponded to the earlier payment of $460,000 from Somolli's account to Bassington's account in New York, for Bassington's capitalization by UESU, plus CS Trust's processing fees. 61. Then Bassington was used for the UESU scheme, to conceal the kickbacks and bribes to Lazarenko. As banking records show, Bassington was a part of the scheme, as a result of which ca. $101,079,339 was transferred in kickbacks to Lazarenko through correspondent accounts in New York. Most of those wire transfer instructions were signed, on Somolli's letterhead, by Olexandr Tymoshenko. 62. Together with UESU and several individuals, Ukrainian nationals, Bassington became an instrumentality of an enterprise using money laundering perpetrated by Defendants. Markedly, all of those Ukrainian nationals involved in UESU were subsequently convicted (Lazarenko in the USA, Tymoshenko in Ukraine, as well as several others). 63. As the questioning by the Swiss and U.S. law enforcement of officers of CS AG subsequently showed, CS AG's headquarters in Zurich and Geneva were fully aware of the money laundering undertaken in the interests of Lazarenko. For example, that was shown in the transcripts of CS AG's officer Andre Wolkowitz, who was the CS AG's accounts handler for its Eastern European clients. CS AG operated Lazarenko's coded account NIHPRO (#98882-50) in Geneva, liquidated in early 1998, all its assets transferred to CS-G, to his trust in Guernsey. 64. As another example of UESU's and Tymoshenko's kickbacks to Lazarenko, from April to December of 1996, CS AG, Geneva branch, serviced a coded account called ORPHIN (NIHPRO read backwards), held by Lazarenko's assistant Petro Kiritchenko ("Kiritchenko"). Thus, pursuant to the UESU scheme, the ORPHIN account at CS AG received from Somolli, $23,049,386. In the course of 1996, those proceeds were included into $40,447,000 transferred by Kiritchenko from the ORPHIN account to Lazarenko's NIHPRO account at CS AG. 65. In July of 1997 Lazarenko was removed from the position of the Prime Minister, on the allegations of corruption related to UESU. UESU's operations in the gas distribution were audited by authorities in Ukraine. Pursuant the new Government's audit published by June of 1998, UESU was sanctioned for withdrawing proceeds, and a penalty of about $704 million was imposed. That was based on the illegal transfers effected by UESU from Ukraine, as discovered by that time.
67. On or about May 7, 1998, Glanfield, Le Cheminant and Church resigned as officers of Bassington, replaced by Primary. Their minutes, showing such a replacement, pointed to Primary's address in the Bahamas, whereas Primary also had the address in Guernsey, identical to CS Trust. The corporate minutes were signed, in the name of Bassington's corporate secretary Courtadmin, by Church and another officer of Courtadmin, Geoffrey D66.avid Le Poivedevin, without their printing their names in the document. 68. On July 7, 1998, based on UTICo's discovery of evidence concerning UESU incorporated into Ukraine's Letter Rogatory, Bailiff's office in Guernsey issued a subpoena to CS-G, mandating the production of documents concerning UESU, UEIL, Bassington, Tymoshenko, Lazarenko and a number of their co-conspirators. As a result, CS-G blocked the assets related to those accounts (including, on information and belief, Tymoshenko's BL Trust). 69. After CS-G froze those assets, UESU, UEIL, Bassington, Tymoshenko, Lazarenko and others filed in Guernsey an appeal from the Bailiff's decision to release banking records to investigators CS AG, on information and belief, froze all assets related to UESU. 70. In December of 1998 Lazarenko, traveling on a Panamanian passport, was detained and arrested in Switzerland. He was charged with money laundering. Those charges were, in part, related to the UESU scheme. After 10 days of incarceration, Lazarenko was released on bail, pending a trial to be held in Geneva, Switzerland. 71. In February of 1999 a resolution by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to strip Lazarenko of the parliamentary immunity was submitted before the Ukrainian legislature. Without awaiting the outcome of the vote, Lazarenko absconded from Ukraine, traveling to New York, where he was detained and later arrested towards an extradition to Switzerland. 72. In June of 2000 Lazarenko pled guilty in absentia to money laundering in Switzerland, forfeiting more than $8 million to the Canton of Geneva and accepting half of the 3 years of the maximum punishment for money laundering in Switzerland, i.e. 18 months, factually spent in the American prisons. Then, instead of release, also in June of 2000, Lazarenko was charged of money laundering in the U.S., Docket 00cr284 in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, and he was then retained in prison.
73. In 2001 three criminal cases against UESU principals were opened in Ukraine. Lazarenko was charged, in absentia, of bribery involving UESU proceeds, for ca. $87 million. 74. Among other matters, in May of 2001 Lazarenko was charged of contract
murders (resulting in the killing of 5 persons), for which about $2,479,000 was paid, allegedly from proceeds, generated by the UESU scheme. Those charges related, in particular, to the shooting and killing of a competitor to UESU, on the tarmac of the airport in Donetsk (Ukraine), Eugene Scherban, in November of 1996, who headed an entity that competed with UESU. 75. In July of 2002 the Prosecutor General's Office in Ukraine petitioned the Parliament to strip Tymoshenko, then a member of parliament, of immunity and to arrest her, to stand charges in connection with the UESU frauds. That resolution to strip immunity was blocked by Tymoshenko's allies. 76. In September of 2002 the new Prosecutor General, Sviatoslav Piskun, filed a new Petition to the Parliament to strip Tymoshenko of the immunity, for the UESU frauds. According to audit and charges, in the course of the UESU scheme, about $2,271,221,873 was converted and transferred out of the country. That Petition did not muster enough votes. 77. Four top financial managers of UESU fled from Ukraine and were declared wanted by Ukraine through Interpol. By October of 2002 those four managers of UESU were located by Interpol in Turkey, arrested and extradited to Ukraine to stand trial. 78. In May of 2004 Tymoshenko was charged with the conspiracy to bribe the members of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, to secure the release of the UESU's senior financial officers from detention, extradited from Turkey, and to close their cases. 79. As evidence shows, Tymoshenko paid $125,000 in cash, but her intermediary refused to hand over the bribe and instead testified against her. Tymoshenko then escaped being tried, by using, again, her parliamentary immunity. 80. In May and June of 2004 Lazarenko stood a jury trial in the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California, Docket 04cr0284. He was convicted (sentenced to over 8 years of imprisonment). However, the charges related to the kickbacks from UESU were dismissed for insufficient evidence. Lazarenko's 'unindicted co-conspirator'. 81. In September of 2004 Tymoshenko was declared wanted by Interpol, per request Tymoshenko was identified by U.S. prosecutors as of Russia, on the charges of bribery related to UESU. 82. In December of 2004 the final vote in the presidential election took place, upon which Victor Yuschenko ("Yuschenko") was declared the winner and the president. 83. After Yuschenko was sworn into the office, he appointed Tymoshenko as the acting Prime Minister on January 24, 2005, and she was confirmed as the Premier by the Parliament, despite the track record of the petitions to strip her of immunity to stand trial. 84. As mentioned above, on July 7, 2005 the U.S. District Court made the judgment in
Boston against UESU, in favor of UTICo, for $18,344,480. 85. On September 8, 2005 Tymoshenko was fired by President Yuschenko upon the claims, again, of corruption. In an interview to the Associated Press on September 13, 2005 Yuschenko accused Tymoshenko of having converted through UESU about $1.6 billion. 86. In January of 2007 Tymoshenko, on information and belief, caused UEIL, UESU's nominal parent in London, be dissolved, after UEIL failed to submit mandatory corporate filings in England. UEIL failed to send out the notices of dissolution to creditors. Bassington became the parent of UESU, after UEIL was eliminated from that holding scheme. 87. Despite increasing protests citing corruption, in December of 2007 Tymoshenko was voted into the Prime Minister's position again. 88. Capitalizing on her position as the Premier, Tymoshenko arranged for her bid at the presidential election in Ukraine. On February 14, 2010 the second round of presidential election took place, and Tymoshenko lost. On March 3, 2010 the Parliament voted on no-confidence in Tymoshenko's Cabinet, and she was removed from all positions. 89. The new Government initiated audit of Tymoshenko's activities. In 2010 a complex audit, ordered by the new Government from several firms in the USA, determined that the damages caused to Ukraine by Tymoshenko's acting as the Premier, totaled ca. $7.6 billion.
90. Tymoshenko's several bribery and kickbacks' schemes were uncovered, resulting in new charges of Tymoshenko. On October 11, 2011 Tymoshenko was convicted by a Ukrainian Court to 7 years of imprisonment. Tymoshenko was charged in Ukraine with several more criminal cases, including the UESU scheme, tax evasion, kickbacks, and bribery. 91. Despite the public revelations showing corruption and money laundering undertaken for implementing UESU's scheme, Defendants herein have continued to conceal the UESU assets for the benefit of Tymoshenko and her BL Trust.
