Crime boss "Hrysha," "Anisim’s lands," and old debts

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At the end of 2015, efforts by the GPU prosecutor Vladyslav Kutsenko began to highlight in the media the topic related to the exposure of an organized crime group (OCG) involved in profiting from funeral services and burials in Zaporizhzhya.

In the framework of a criminal case, searches were conducted among several deputies of the Zaporizhzhya district council. In particular, of the so-called “Hrysha the authority,” who is a representative of the local “Poroshenko Bloc,” Hryhoriy Stohniy.

However, upon closer examination, the situation appears less straightforward. For instance, the case coincided with court litigations surrounding the redistribution of power in the Zaporizhzhya district, where Kutsenko himself was a local deputy for a long time, and where local clan interests clashed. At the end of 2015, the last battle for power occurred there between the group oriented towards the former “watchman” from President Yanukovych, Yevhen Anisimov (“Anisim”), and the clan of MP Serhiy Sobolev, who, in particular, represents Kutsenko.

It’s also noteworthy that as early as the autumn of 2014, “Hrysha the authority” was the trustee of the candidate for people’s deputies, Vladyslav Kutsenko. Among the reasons leading to the rupture between the former friends, a significant debt of Kutsenko towards Stohniy is mentioned, which the “GPU mouthpiece” simply refused to repay.

Additionally, Stohniy had a habit of recording his phone conversations, which made him the owner of a large collection of compromising materials on “state husbands” of various levels (including MPs).

All of this turns an ordinary local-scale criminal case into a serious political process, in which Kutsenko appears far from in the best light.

In December 2015, the media reported that law enforcement conducted searches of a deputy of the Zaporizhzhya district council on suspicion of creating a corrupt scheme in municipal utilities.

GPU prosecutor Vladyslav Kutsenko stated at a briefing on December 2 that the searches were conducted at the home of a criminal authority nicknamed “Hrysha” (at that time he did not reveal the real name), who is a deputy of the Zaporizhzhya district council, and a former head of the Party of Regions faction. He was then accused of some manipulations in the funeral services and ambulance market and also creating a corrupt scheme in municipal utilities.

During a search at “Hrysha’s” home, prosecutors and police officers seized weapons, money, and documents that testify to the possible cooperation of the suspect with law enforcement.

According to the investigation, “Hrysha,” in collusion with some leaders of the Zaporizhzhya city council, was allegedly receiving a monthly “rollback” from the operation of funeral services in the city amounting to 1 million hryvnias.

Earlier, the “authority” was twice convicted – for murder and extortion. During searches, the deputy tried to cover himself by invoking the name of the current head of Zaporizhzhya Regional State Administration. Moreover, on the eve of the "attack" on "Hrysha," the media reported the searches conducted in the funeral services and emergency medical service in Zaporizhzhya.

In November 2015, a mobile phone was seized at the central "ambulance" substation by police and prosecutors, through which the dispatcher contacted the funeral firm and relayed messages about deceased citizens. They also took the journal, which recorded such messages. Similar investigative actions were conducted in several funeral services in Zaporizhzhya.

A few days later, law enforcement agencies conducted a search at the home of the head of the Zaporizhzhya district state administration, Viktor Shcherbyna, and seized documents indicating his involvement in corruption in the funeral services sector in Zaporizhzhya.

Moreover, during interrogations, employees of the "ambulance" and "funeral" companies indicated that they gave kickbacks to persons close to Shcherbyna.

Shcherbyna’s activities were linked to the former "watchman" of the region - criminal authority Yevhen Anisimov. Interestingly, Shcherbyna’s interests during the search were represented by lawyer Mykhaylo Kozar, who provides legal services to the funeral services of Zaporizhzhya. Also, during the search was found his correspondence with the aforementioned “Hrysha,” and calculations indicating the division of money between them. It became known that after the search at his home, the “authority” fled from Zaporizhzhya.

Soon it was revealed that "Hrysha" is the district council deputy from BPP, Hryhoriy Stohniy, who indeed has a noticeable "criminal trail" in his biography. Specifically, it concerns participation in the OCG “Topor - Somusev (Samusev) - Stohniy,” where he was one of the leaders, along with Oleksandr Topor (born 1961, nickname "Topor") and Oleksandr Somusev (born 1959, nickname "Somyk").

From the outset of this story, the "GPU mouthpiece" Vladyslav Kutsenko actively participated.

In particular, he commented on the events, exposing "criminal authorities."

The "Zaporizhzhya case" was also mentioned during a briefing broadcasted live on one of the TV channels.

In it, he said that "Hrysha’s" activities are associated with illegal agreements in the funeral services and ambulance market, the creation of a corrupt scheme in municipal utilities.

The Scheme of Funeral Robbery

If we directly take the essence of the scheme that "Hrysha and associates" are accused of, it was developed so meticulously that within minutes of a person’s death, the information would already reach the funeral operators.

Thus, "their firms" would know first about the death, and first offered their services. If the relatives of the deceased refused the services of the "operational" firms and chose the services of private operators, then the latter were demanded another order in exchange because "we arrived first." In the case of refusal, they were threatened that the municipal enterprise would terminate the contract with them and oust them from the market. For this purpose, the ME signed contracts with private operators for only a month, so that in case of anything, it would be easy to get rid of an undesirable entrepreneur. Also, certain fees were levied from each private entrepreneur not from the curator’s orbit, depending on the number of burials.

By law, relatives can receive two pensions of the deceased. The enterprising "funeral operators" came up with a way to take away this money by requesting the necessary documents for a while, taking the two pensions, and then returning the documents.

Often, money was also taken for works that were not performed or were already paid for. For instance, they could charge 300-400 hryvnias for the draping of a grave but not perform it. Money was also charged for transporting corpses, even though this should have been budgeted.

With the advent of the "right" people in the management of the Zaporizhzhya ritual service ME, the enterprise stopped purchasing products at market prices - everything was bought at exorbitant prices and only from "their" firms. And, of course, there was black accounting. In documents, almost always a much smaller amount passed in the coming part than what was actually taken.

The "own" management of the municipal enterprise also helped to make money on funeral services for their private enterprises, lobbying their interests.

Another corruption aspect is burial sites. There are a dozen cemeteries in Zaporizhzhya, but only Kushuhum and St. Nicholas are open for burials.

In 2009, on the territory of the Dolynska village council (headed by Bohdan Fedchuk), there was an old church semi-legal cemetery of the Kyiv Patriarchate.

In 2011, the funeral business was "laid eyes on" by regional council deputy Volodymyr Cherlenyuk and head of the Party of Regions faction in the Zaporizhzhya district council Hryhoriy Stohniy. They appointed Viktor Shcherbyna as manager, who headed the newly created “Ritual Service” of the Zaporizhzhya district council. The freshly baked funeral operators legalized the cemetery, significantly increased its territory, and then also joined the same "semi-wild" cemetery in Matviivka, which belonged to the Vilnia district previously headed by the mentioned Cherlenyuk.

After the change of power in 2014, village council head Bohdan Fedchuk, who had his “business” taken away, with the support of "Fatherland" MP Serhiy Sobolev, counterattacked, accusing the "competitors" of falsifying documents about the cemetery’s adoption into communal ownership and illegally seizing a 50-hectare land plot.

After the court recognized the illegality of the Zaporizhzhya district ritual service, a new municipal enterprise was created, but already under Sunny village council - ME "United Housing and Communal, Household and Ritual Service." It was led by Hryhoriy Stohniy’s son-in-law, Roman Durnev. And the Zaporizhzhya district council by its decision transferred the Saint Nicholas cemetery to the newly minted enterprise. Separately, in April 2014, the land was transferred, and the property was handed over a little later, at the end of August 2014.

After the investigation of the “funeral case” began, law enforcement agencies started checking a number of entrepreneurs engaged in this field. Six of them are suspected of close ties with Viktor Shcherbyna. These are Zhanna Khrystosenko, Andriy and Larysa Parkhomenko, Serhiy Revkov, and LLC "Mourning House ’Zhaloba’." The latter is registered to Anna Durneva (daughter of Hryhoriy Stohniy), Olha Moseyko, and Lyubov Sadomychenko.

The large number of entrepreneurs was used to lower the amount of tax deductions.

By spring 2016, after scandalous searches and exposes, new stirrings began in land-cemetery matters.

The Zaporizhzhya district council canceled its previous decision on the transfer of property, located at 1e Michurin, to the ritual service of the Sonyachne village council. Simultaneously, it returned the buildings to the Dolynska village council, on whose territory they are located.

Meanwhile, the 50-hectare land plot was managed to be registered to the ritual service of the Sunny village council. Accordingly, they plan to sue over them.

The ritual service also plans to seek in court the recognition of the last decision of the district council as illegal, allegedly because it contains many inconsistencies. In particular, the property is taken from the Zaporizhzhya district’s ritual service, although the ritual service of the Sunny village council operates there.

Already in March 2016, another search was conducted at "Hrysha’s" place, resulting in materials indicating the connection of some MPs with corrupt schemes being found. According to journalists’ reports, specifically referring to Ihor Mosiychuk.

Kutsenko’s Role

It should be noted that at the deputies’ commissions, projects of decisions to transfer the cemetery to the communal enterprise passed through the current main fighter against the “funeral mafia” - Vladyslav Kutsenko and his old friend Vyacheslav Kolesnykov.

In the Zaporizhzhya district council, Kutsenko headed the commission on regulations, legality, and the fight against corruption, and Kolesnikov chaired the land commission. It’s unknown how Kutsenko voted on the "cemetery issue," but hardly without his approval as chairman of the commission, would the transfer of the cemetery go smoothly. So, apparently, Stohniy and the company "solved issues" precisely through the current "GPU speaker."

An interesting fact pointing to the proximity of Kutsenko and Stohniy in the not-so-distant past.

It was Hryhoriy Stohniy who was the trustee of Vladyslav Kutsenko in the parliamentary elections of 2014, when the future "prosecutor’s voice" ran in one of the single-mandate districts of Zaporizhzhya.

Besides "Hrysha authority," Kutsenko also elected some Mykola Skichko as his trustee, who worked in the "Ukrpromsnab" company.

This company was founded by some Valentyna Vasylenko, the mother-in-law of Kutsenko’s closest associate, Vyacheslav Kolesnykov.

Kutsenko, Kolesnykov, Skichko (along with district council deputies Maksym Yevseyev and Vadym Petruchko) participated in a large-scale seizure of land in the Zaporizhzhya district. In short, not too long ago Stohniy was in Kutsenko’s close circle. Most likely, they needed each other. In particular, Kutsenko was a convenient intermediary in resolving land issues.

Even in 2010, the then representatives of the "Reforms and Order" party Kutsenko and his old colleague Kolesnykov, under the patronage of MP Serhiy Sobolev, got control over the territorial election commission of the Zaporizhzhya district. Kutsenko and Kolesnykov seized the territorial election commission and blocked it, not allowing political forces to register, leaving only themselves on the lists.

As a result of elections conducted in this way, the "correct" local councils were formed, and thus control over decisions on land allocation was obtained. The subsequent redistribution of land affected hundreds of hectares in the Zaporizhzhya district (the closest to the regional center: naturally, the land’s value is appropriate). This was handled by Kutsenko and Kolesnykov, hiding under the name of Sobolev.

One of the schemes attributed to Kutsenko and Kolesnykov was the inventory of land plots of settlements - towns and villages. In just a few years, they achieved practically full control over the land in the Zaporizhzhya region and recorded no small amount - 260 hectares of land in Rozumivka, Dolynske, Kantserivka, and Balabine - in their and their relatives’ names.

In total, Kutsenko and Kolesnykov have concentrated significant amounts of land in their hands, registered to relatives.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the aforementioned “Hrysha” resolved his land issues in the region through them. Until certain moments, they had complete understanding.

Politic Battles of a District Scale

Alongside the plot of “pursuing the cemetery mafia,” another one is developing – local-political.

Specifically, on October 25, 2015, local elections took place in the Zaporizhzhya district, the results of which formed the local council.

However, the first session on November 17 ended in scandal. During it, deputies from the "Opposition Bloc" along with representatives of the "Fatherland" and "Radical Party" factions elected Anatoliy Shevchyshyn as the council chairman.

This fact outraged the local organizations of BPP and "Our Land." They even left the hall during the voting, having several claims regarding its conduct. Specifically, there was no recording of voting results (video recordings from the session show parts of the deputies not raising their hands during the vote, but documents show all decisions being unanimous), ballots with candidate names were made before they were nominated, and deputies were not allowed to count votes.

There were claims regarding Anatoliy Shevchyshyn’s candidacy. BPP representatives claimed they had video recordings where the newly appointed council head confirms that he personally transported "unemployed" (also known as "titushki") to "Anti-Maidan" in Kyiv.

In the merger of democratic forces with the Opposition Bloc, BPP blamed Serhiy Sobolev’s people. According to them, Sobolev’s ally, GPU assistant Vladyslav Kutsenko, was involved in manipulations in the district council.

Specifically, after holding an illegal (according to BPP) session, the party filed a lawsuit. And the applicant was district council deputy Hryhoriy Stohniy. Just before the court hearing, a search was conducted at his house.

Accordingly, on December 8, the Zaporizhzhya District Court denied the claim to invalidate the session of the Zaporizhzhya District Council.

However, it should be understood that in this case, it is not about any political parties (as is the case throughout the rest of Ukraine), so the cooperation between "Batkivshchyna" and "Opposition Bloc" should not be particularly surprising, as it is actually about the long-standing struggle between the group of People’s Deputy Serhiy Sobolev and the authority of "Anisim" that has been going on for a long time.

In particular, even in "pre-revolutionary times," they fought for control over Zaporizhzhya "Batkivshchyna." At that time, Sobolev won together with his partner - Oleksandr Staruh (former head of the Zaporizhzhya administration), managing to sideline the person of "Anisim" - Valeriy Krayniy. Sobolev also succeeded in “outmaneuvering” another appointee of Anisimov - the head of the Zaporizhzhya regional organization "Front of Changes" Rudolf Akopyan.

Lately, Anisimov’s people have been grouping around the local BPP organization, where, in particular, Hryhoriy Stohniy held leading positions.

"Hrysha’s Tapes"

Another interesting point relates to the searches of "authority Hrysha." In particular, according to media reports, the prosecutor’s office and the MIA seized audio recordings of his phone conversations with officials and people’s deputies.

These audio recordings could serve as grounds for the dismissal of senior officials and law enforcement leaders, as well as for opening criminal proceedings against them.

"Hrysha" actually recorded all his interlocutors. This amounts to hundreds, if not thousands, of megabytes of information, comparable in scale to the "Melnychenko tapes."

In particular, recorded conversations of "Hrysha" with the current head of the Zaporizhzhya Regional State Administration regarding staffing appointments, the leadership of the regional internal affairs department in the region, numerous conversations about the former mayor of Zaporizhzhya Oleksandr Sin, as well as with MPs regarding influence on law enforcement agencies. These include negotiations with MPs from the Radical Party, BPP, and "UkrOP" concerning "business protection."

Also recorded were conversations regarding the illegal removal of expensive cars from the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone and their subsequent resale in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. Finally, Stohniy negotiated the purchase of places in the BPP, RP, and "Our Land" lists for his people in local elections, discussed the possibility of throwing negative information to the press against the Zaporizhzhya region prosecutor Oleksandr Shatskyi (an old patron of Kutsenko in the prosecutor’s office).

Allegedly, among those recorded was also Vladyslav Kutsenko. In particular, as early as December 2015, representatives of the BPP organization in the Zaporizhzhya district stated at a briefing that there is an audio recording according to which Stohniy lent Kutsenko and his "comrade" Vyacheslav Kolesnykov 54 thousand dollars. They refused to return it, and when they learned there was a recording of the conversation, searches began at the MP from the presidential party.

In particular, on November 17, when a session of the Zaporizhzhya district council was held, Vyacheslav Kolesnykov, an assistant to People’s Deputy Serhiy Sobolev, was present at it. At that time, Stohniy told Kolesnykov that he had a recording on his phone of a conversation involving a large sum of money that Kolesnykov and Kutsenko should return. Following this, a search was conducted, and all phones, a laptop, and all carriers were seized from Stohniy.

Thus, this gives some idea of what personal interest Kutsenko has in this whole story.

Firstly, it is an opportunity to finish the old struggle with the "people of Anisim" for control over the wealthy lands of Zaporizhzhya and other strategic resources. As a result, control over the Zaporizhzhya district council finally passes to the people of Serhiy Sobolev, and, obviously, Vladyslav Kutsenko will have his share in this.

Secondly, there is a chance to "clear out" the evidence of past cases. In particular, as a result of the searches, damaging information accumulated by "Hrysha" against the "Voice of the GPU" was seized.

Thirdly, by spinning the "ritual case," Kutsenko gains the opportunity to write off his old monetary debts to the suspects.

Finally, the established "ritual business" itself is also a juicy tidbit and, obviously, must also acquire new owners and new "watchers."

Click to enlarge

 

Based on the above, "Prosecutorial Truth" has several questions:

- Why was district council deputy Kutsenko covering for land schemes, which prosecutor Kutsenko later led the fight against?

- Why did the "GPU spokesperson" Vladyslav Kutsenko appoint Hryhoriy Stohniy, whom he would call a "criminal authority Hrysha" a year later, as his trusted person in the 2014 elections?

- How does Kutsenko manage everything: to build a career in the GPU, accumulate land plots in the Zaporizhzhya region, and participate in local political twists at the district level?  

Source: Prosecutorial Truth