Odesa banker and head of the Servant of the People faction in the Odesa City Council, Vadym Morokhovsky, is facing up to 12 years in prison for his alleged involvement in a scheme to illegally gain control of the Olimpex grain terminal. Businessmen Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko are also reportedly involved in the case.
The scandal surrounding the Olimpex grain terminal in the Odessa region is gaining momentum. Every day it becomes known about more and more violations of the law that its owners, businessmen Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko, may have committed. This time, it is about an alleged conspiracy between Groza, Naumenko and their longtime friend, the chairman of the board of Vostok Bank and part-time chairman of the Servant of the People faction in the Odessa local council, Vadym Morokhovsky.
We previously reported how Morokhovsky helped Groza and Naumenko gain control of half of the grain terminal, which was pledged to an American investment fund under a $75 million loan. To do this, the businessmen, with the help of Pivdennyi Bank, worked out a scheme to transfer the property under a double, and eventually triple, pledge.
Seeing that everything worked and that no one had been imprisoned for it yet, Groza and Naumenko probably decided to repeat their “feat.” To do this, they most likely turned to their old friend Vadim Morokhovsky again and persuaded him to take up the issue of the “Dry Port.”.
Last time, the loan from “Pivdenny” was taken by “Ferko” LLC and “Vtormetexport” LLC, controlled by Groza and Naumenko. This time, instead of “Ferko”, the businessmen’s company “Inzernoexport Grain Transshipment Complex” entered the game.
With the help of these two companies, Groza and Naumenko took out a loan from Vostok Bank against the collateral of the Olimpex terminal property, namely, Sukhoi Port. The full repayment period of the loan under the loan agreement was to expire on May 25, 2023. But without waiting for the expiration of the loan agreement, as in the situation with Pivdenny, Vostok Bank began the debt collection procedure.
At the same time, according to media reports, Vostok Bank intentionally served the official demand on December 2, 2022, instead of an official notification by mail. Thus, the bank violated Article 35 of the Law “On Mortgage”, which provides for sending official notifications to the debtor.
In fact, according to media reports, the collection procedure began two months after the notification – on February 13, 2023, by making changes to the State Register of Encumbrances on Movable Property, which may indicate that the first notification was a forgery.
As in the case of Pivdenny Bank, law enforcement officers are checking the activities of Vostok Bank.
But the story did not end there. Even before the amendments to the State Register were made, on February 10, 2023, Vostok Bank assigned its right of claim under its loan agreement to LLC FC Solutions Factor.
This company transferred it to “Affordable Finance” LLC on the same day. On the same day, “Affordable Finance” sold “Sukhyi Port” to Sunolta OU, which is part of the Sunalta group of companies.
It is worth noting that the market value of “Sukhoi Port” in 2020 was at least $18 million. And the Sunolta group got it for only $4.7 million. Moreover, as in the previous scheme with the Pivdenny Bank, Sunolta bought “Sukhoi Port” despite the fact that it had been under arrest in one of the criminal proceedings since March 2023.
This also did not prevent Sunolta OU from transferring “Sukhoi Port” to its own LLC “Zernovy Port” on April 10, 2023. This company was registered just a few weeks before receiving “Sukhoi Port” and had no other property on its balance sheet, and its sole participant was Sunolta OU.
On April 19, 2023, Zernovy Port LLC transferred Sukhyi Port to the Olimpex terminal for 20 years as collateral for a $78,500 loan to Mind Set LLC, which, according to media reports, is controlled by Grozi and Naumenko.
After studying the property movements of the Olimpex grain terminal with the help of the Pivdenny and Vostok banks, the question arises: was this not a criminal conspiracy aimed at creating grounds (including by entering false data into official documents) for the transfer of ownership under the mechanism of re-pledge? Why have no reports of suspicion been served on Groza, Naumenko, or the bank management, since the scheme is simple and clear? Who is behind the businessmen continuing to work on the Ukrainian market?
