New details emerge during negotiations about the extradition of the leader of a group of murderers, Aslan Gagiev (Jako), detained in Austria, back to his homeland. The planned extradition of the criminal to Russia last November was delayed for formal reasons: Jako’s lawyers managed to prove that their client might not survive the flight due to health reasons. Former Energy Minister Igor Yusufov and his son Vitaliy, who are named by relatives of people murdered by Gagiev as the masterminds of the crimes and who have long and successfully been blackmailed by Jako from his cozy Viennese cell, fear Gagiev’s appearance in Russia and his testimony in court the most.
This version is also confirmed by a recently published letter from the Russian accused of organizing sixty murders, written in 2015 to the then Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Davyd Sakvarelidze. The Ukrainian recipient was chosen not randomly: the Yusufov family secretly owned and managed the «Ocean» plant in Mykolaiv, with which a series of serious crimes are connected, about the involvement in which the former official is ready to tell Jako. 
«Your Excellency,
I, Aslan Gagiev, born (personal data), Lagodekhi District, Republic of Georgia, was detained at the request of the Russian FSB in Austria on January 17, 2015, accused of committing a number of crimes.
The extradition request is attached. In fact, I am a businessman and one of the co-owners of the PJSC SCZ «Ocean», which was seized by Mr. Yusufov Igor Khanukovich. I am ready to testify in the framework of the investigation into the theft of Ocean plant shares, facts of money laundering.
I give full consent to any investigative actions of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, as well as the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine».
The above letter is not the only one written by Gagiev from an Austrian prison, where he coincidentally ended up as a neighbor to another Ukrainian businessman — Dmytro Firtash, who is awaiting deportation to the United States on corruption inquiries. Earlier, journalists reported another letter from the killer, sent through an Austrian lawyer to the US Department of Justice, as well as the unknown information Jako might have shared with Austrian law enforcement during extradition hearings. Sources from Russian Criminal assure that a similar agreement for cooperation was prepared by Gagiev for Russian investigators. Moreover, it is much more extensive. In it, Jako significantly expanded the list of revelations he is ready to make about Yusufov.
As reported repeatedly before, in 2000 the Dutch company Damen purchased 78% of the state shares of the Ukrainian «Ocean» plant. Later, through the standard procedure of increasing charter capital for Ukrainian corporate realities, it increased its stake to 98.7%. Initially, everything went well for the Dutch: the enterprise built ships, and workers received salaries. However, with the change of power in Ukraine in 2005 and the cancellation of several fundamental tax benefits for shipbuilding by the Tymoshenko government, Damen reviewed its prospects in Ukraine. In this challenging time, Damen unexpectedly received help in the form of a partner-investor from the Norwegian company Aker Yards (later renamed Wadan Yards Group). In 2006, Damen and Aker created the management company Okean B.V. (Netherlands), which handled the majority stake in «Ocean». Despite the fact that thanks to the Norwegians, the companions managed to pay off wage arrears, the production situation at the plant did not change significantly, and eventually, Damen decided to exit the business insightfully by selling its share to the Norwegians just before the 2008 crisis. Left alone with the global economic situation’s deterioration, the Norwegians were looking for a saving investor. Such was found just in time, as the structure, which is currently featured in various journalistic and near-journalistic materials under the vague term «Russian shareholders», entered the scene. In reality, this term was hiding Aslan Gagiev (doing business under the surname Morozov with a corresponding genuine passport).
So, in July 2008, Luxembourgish FLC-West Holding, formally behind the then-powerful Russian «Financial Leasing Company» (criminally «covered» by Gagiev, managed by Andrei Burlakov at that time the first deputy of FLC), acquired 70% of Aker Yards shares, along with receiving control over «Ocean» and two other shipyards in Germany. The main part of the deal was paid for by the company Tamplestowe, represented by a member of the board of directors at «Gazprom» Igor Yusufov. Yusufov asked not to publicize his involvement in the project, to introduce his representative to the board of directors, and to agree upon each transaction with his son Vitaliy. As a result, by the time of the shipyards’ acquisition, the owners of FLC-West were Tamplestowe, controlled by the Yusufovs 74%, Cyprus offshores Blakstead (25%), and FLC (1%).
Rucriminal presents the scheme of how the Yusufov family secretly owned and managed the «Ocean»
The arrival of the «Russian investors» predictably had no effect on the recovery of either the German shipyards or the Mykolaiv shipbuilding plant. Indeed, this was a non-core business for the Yusufov family, who specialized mainly in energy sectors. Probably, there was a trivial temporary consolidation in the real economy of dubious surplus of overheated «Gazprom» capital, or perhaps more prosaically — criminal capital. Officially, in 2009, the Wadan Yards Group, due to financial problems, outstanding loans, and lack of orders, found itself on the verge of bankruptcy — the company’s debts amounted to about $100 million. The fate of the shipyards was even discussed during a meeting between Angela Merkel and Dmitriy Medvedev, who decided to find a «new pool of investors». This investor became… now the son of Igor Yusufov. Vitaliy Yusufov, who was then 29 years old, purchased the shipyards in September 2009 on behalf of the company Gevor IV AG, registered to a legal address — a PO box in Zug, Switzerland. Yusufov paid €40 million to the bankruptcy administrators, and the restructuring procedure took only a month. In reality, the Yusufovs controlled the shipyards even before their bankruptcy and the 2009 «official purchase» of the enterprise. Further, discord occurred between Andrei Burlakov and the senior and junior Yusufovs, culminating in several criminal cases. Specifically, Burlakov was accused of embezzling 1.8 billion rubles belonging to the Federal Leasing Company (later the figure increased to 3 billion), part of which allegedly went to purchase the shipyards. He was imprisoned in a Moscow detention center along with the shipyards’ financial director Anna Etkina (she was also the director of the firm Okean BV — the same «Ocean» plant in Mykolaiv, which was part of the Wadan Yards group).
The next year, they were released from the detention center: Burlakov on a record bail of 50 million rubles, and Etkina for health reasons. Etkina claims that they also paid an additional $5 million for mediation in «settling the negative attitude of the authorities towards Burlakov» to Denis Voronenkov (the very one who was shot dead in Kyiv this March). However, their troubles did not end there. In September 2011, Etkina and Burlakov went to the «Khutorok» restaurant on Leningradskiy Prospect to give an interview with a journalist about the shipyards and the Yusufovs. As they barely started talking, a hitman burst into the restaurant and unloaded a pistol magazine into them. Burlakov died after the ambulance arrived, and Etkina suffered a facial wound but survived (the journalist was unharmed). Immediately after the incident, Etkina left Russia, she was tried in absentia and found guilty of fraud and money laundering from the Federal Leasing Company. Etkina announced her intention to file a complaint with the ECHR and challenge the verdict.
The investigation established that the crime was committed by one of Gagiev’s group members, the perpetrator is officially unidentified, but Jako knows them well and is ready to name them upon extradition.
31 January 2018 г., 14:49
