Remember, Leonid Filatov in the wonderful “The Tale of Fedot the Strelets, the dashing fellow” has lines where the king says about the princess looking for a spouse: “Anyone will fit for her now. Though hunchbacked, even pockmarked”.
Why I remembered these unforgettable lines. Businessman Pavel Fuks, who fled from Russia, expelled as a threat to national security from the United States and, for the same reason, expelled from Israel, lives in Kiev under the auspices of the inner circle of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. And not just living, but living well. He continues to “turn the schemes”, called business, shoving money from the Ukrainian treasury in his own pockets. Officially, he is “engaged in investments”. The question is, why does the entourage of the president of Ukraine, and even in the pre-election period, need such a dubious investor? Is “anyone will fit now”? Even such “pock-marked and humpbacked”, as Pavel Fuks.
A native of Kharkov, Pavel Fuks, in the mid-90s of the last century, fled from Ukraine to Russia after he “scammed out for money” a budget organization that filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office. His departure to Moscow and the subsequent employment were organized by criminal authority Sergei Batozsky, nicknamed “Baton”, who had been doing business with the leader of the Orekhov criminal group Sylvester and with the leaders of the Kemerovo brothers Kuznetsov. “A nimble boy” from Ukraine drew “Baton’s” attention, and he attached Pasha Fuks to his “Foreign Economic Corporation”, where Pasha was engaged, in his own words, “in wholesale of everything to everyone”.
After the assassination of Sergey Batozsky in 2001, Pavel went onto his own business track and started building. And engaged in a very original way. If you think that Pavel Fuks registered his own construction company and started from scratch, then you are mistaken. Together with the world-famous swindler from Kazakhstan Mukhtar Ablyazov, using his connections in the Baton grouping, he squeezed a part of the large construction company “Ingeocom” from its owner Mikhail Rudyak, who was close to the Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. In 2005-2006, Ingeocom brought more than a billion dollars in net profit to its owners. And in the next 2007, Mikhail Rudyak died suddenly. Death was strange and caused many misunderstandings.
Particular suspicions were caused by the fact that before Rudyak’s death, Pavel Fuks united his and Rudyak’s companies into a single holding MosCity Group. The partners were going to distribute and secure by contract the shares in this holding after Mikhail Rudyak’s return from vacation. But Mikhail Rudyak did not return from vacation. He became ill in the plane — an hour after departure from Moscow. Due to the absence of a contract, Pavel Fuks managed to snatch the share of the late Mikhail Rudyak from his heirs for a tenth of its real value. Neither the widow nor the children of Rudyak dared to argue and, moreover, to sue the companion, behind which criminal gangs loomed. By the way, Pavel Fuks applied the same scheme of taking shares from a partner with his subsequent destruction a little later in Ukraine. But this is the subject of a separate investigation.
After Rudyak’s death, Pavel Fuks decided to unfreeze a project to build several skyscrapers in Moscow City. In particular, the Imperial Tower and Eurasia Tower. He took his trusted friend Mukhtar Ablyazov as a companion. Under the construction of the towers, they took out a loan in Sberbank of 500 million dollars. In search of additional investors, Pavel Fuks held talks with the American entrepreneur Donald Trump who arrived in Moscow (yes, yes, with this). Luring him into a trap, Pavel Fuks even suggested that he should name one of the Trump Tower. But the future president of the United States quickly figured out who was sitting in front of him and refused to enter the project on the proposed “favorable conditions”.
As it turned out, Trump really dodged a bullet.
A few months after the start of construction, Ablyazov was accused by the Kazakh authorities of embezzling $5 billion and fled abroad. It turned out that he managed to grab with him 70 million dollars from the money allocated by Sberbank. After receiving the documents on fraud, Sberbank refused to continue financing the project. On this basis, Pavel Fuks refused to return the first half of the loan already received and turned the Moscow-City towers into unfinished. In 2011, Sberbank tried to return the money through the court, but unsuccessfully. Because, as it turned out, there is nothing to take from MosCity Group. It consists of only a few offices involved in project management and financial operations, and it hires construction equipment, engineers, and builders. It does not have a cent on the account. And all the money has long been scattered around the offshore.
About the same scheme of the classic “scam” Pavel Fuks applied during the construction of the residential complex Sky House. Having received $105 million from the state-owned company Moskapstroy, the MosCity Group holding unexpectedly suspended construction, which has not yet been completed. However, not only the state-owned company, but also ordinary citizens, who transferred their “hard-earned” money to the account of Pavel Fuks, suffered in this matter. They still go to completely meaningless demonstrations of protest.
But if the demonstrations of citizens were meaningless, then the Sberbank and Moskapstroy stood by the Russian state with all its punitive apparatus, ready to act by the same methods as Pavel Fuks and his criminal partners had once acted. Sensing a clear “smell of roast”, Pavel Fuks in 2015 decided to return to Ukraine.
Someone may decide that, having returned to his native land, Pavel Fuks decided once and for all to break with his criminal past, to start from scratch, to be engaged in a real honest business. Capital made in Russia allowed him to start a new life. But Pavel Fuks is not like that. Not for him all these “business plans”, “interest earnings”, “expenses and incomes”. He used to receive only income. And the most amazing way.
Back in 2009, the Kiev Metro bought cars in Russia — almost 1.5 billion UAH. The security services of Ukraine even then were warned that the price was overstated by about 770 million UAH. This amount was clearly intended to be distributed by the parties. A scandal arose, as a result of which the metro did not pay Russian partners 360 million UAH. After returning to Ukraine of Pavel Fuks, it turned out that the metro owed this money to him. Fuks sued. As you understand, Kiev Metro could not get at least some documents from Russia. And without them they could not prove the existence of a scam. As a result, the court ordered to pay this amount to Pavel Fuks. And since almost 10 years have passed, taking into account inflation and the accrued interest, the amount increased to 1.6 billion UAH. So now every citizen of Kiev and a guest of the capital, going into the metro pays about 2 UAH to Pavel Fuks for a scam that he successfully carried out almost ten years ago.
And this despite the fact that the criminal past of Pavel Fuks was manifested quite clearly. Back in 2013, the American Institute for Russian Studies, based on data from the special services, compiled a deck of Russian Mafia cards. On each card was a representative of organized crime. One of the cards was dedicated to Pavel Fuks. Of course, this deck is not proof. In Russia, it was called “PR-action”. But in 2016, when Pavel Fuks flew from London to Miami, he was arrested immediately at the airport. After a lengthy conversation with the FBI officers, “Comrade Fuchs” was returned to London. His US visa has been revoked. In response to a request from an attorney, the FBI reported that “Pavel Fuks is associated with criminal structures in Russia and Ukraine and therefore represents a threat to US security”.
In October 2018, Pavel Fuks arrived by private jet to Israel. The Israeli special services were warned in advance about his arrival. At the airport, Pavel Fuks was detained and, after interrogation, he was expelled from the territory of Israel. The wording is the same as that of the US special services: “a threat to the security of the state”.
However, the Israeli special services did not stop there and decided to check for what and to whom Pavel Fuks flew to Israel. What are his interests in the “Holy Land”?
It turned out that Pavel Fuks intended to meet with businessman Igor Kolomoisky, who is in Israel, and “solve with him” some problems concerning PrivatBank, formerly owned by Kolomoisky, and then nationalized by the Ukrainian government. But, apparently, the mediation of “Trouble-solver Fuks” was not very interested Igor Kolomoisky.
However, the impossibility to cross the border of the United States and Israel did not upset Pavel Fuks much. He returned to his native Ukraine, where he is not accused or suspected of anything, and where he succeeds. Thanks to connections in the Presidential Administration Poroshenko, he took control of the National Company “Nedra of Ukraine”, became the representative in Kiev of the British corporation JKX Oil & Gaz, engaged in gas production.
It is incomprehensible! The representative of a British company listed on the London Stock Exchange — a well-known criminal authority, which is prohibited from entering the United States and Israel for security reasons! Fathers of strict and prudish, honest and punctual British business are turning in their coffins!
Do the citizens of Ukraine know that their country is in the situation described by the proverb “a hungry cat watched sour cream”? The national company “Nedra of Ukraine” is controlled by an unscrupulous and steeped in corruption man, to call him a businessman will not turn the language! Is it possible to come up with more humiliation for the country?
Now back to the question with which we began these notes. Why did the Ukrainian authorities accept with open arms the “construction scammer”, a man suspected of having links with the Russian mafia and Russian special services, posing a threat to the security of the United States and Israel Pavel Fuks?
From 2014, Pavel Fuks started the game on the energy market of Ukraine, actively buying companies for oil, gas and coal, as well as gas fields in the Poltava and Kharkiv region. Are not these actions of Pavel Fuks elements of the hybrid war of Russia against Ukraine? After all, Pavel Fuks is not just a businessman. For many years he worked with companies closely associated with the Kremlin. And the fact that he was not punished for numerous scams may indicate that the Kremlin is keeping him on a hook and can force him to carry out certain tasks.
By the way, Pavel Fuks’s brother Roman lives in Russia today. Doing business, thriving. Knowing the vindictiveness of the Russian authorities in relation to their offenders, it is difficult to answer the question why the Russian law enforcement agencies do not touch Roman Fuks? After all, he is involved in many brother’s scams. For example, they took a loan from Sberbank and did not return it together. The answer to this question can be only one — the FSB of Russia fully controls the activities of the two Fuks brothers. Roman — in Russia, Pavel — in Ukraine.
One more thing. Pavel Fuks took out loans not only from Sberbank. Known case when he took a loan from the criminal “obschak”. And did not return. Can a businessman fail to return a loan taken from the Russian criminal obschak and still survive? The answer to this question is — can. True, provided that the special services of Russia stand behind him with all their might.
Do not forget that, having received a new Ukrainian passport in 2016, Pavel Fuks retained the Russian one. Whose interests are protected in Ukraine by a citizen of two conflicting powers? It is unlikely Ukrainian.
Does the president’s Petro Poroshenko entourage not understand that all? Or does really “anyone will fit now”?
This is the character — Pavel Fuks, representing a threat to the security of the United States and Israel, but somehow accepted by the authorities of Ukraine. We will continue to acquaint you with his activities, with the details of his scam schemes and scam operations. With only one goal: to stop its business activity in Ukraine, which is very similar to subversive activities.
