Former Kyiv prosecutor helps his godfather seize someone else’s business

How last year’s fire in Koncha-Zaspa revealed the main secret of a famous Poltava raider and his prosecutor acquaintance

Hot neighborhood

In two weeks – on the night of September 1-2 – it will be a year since cars of the BMW brand, a boat, and some structures parked under one of the mansions caught fire in the elite cottage town "French Town" in Koncha-Zaspa near Kyiv. You can see how everything was burning in these photos.

This is how everything looked the next morning after the fire:

The first to write about the fire was experienced special service officer Stanislav Rechynskyi on September 4, 2017: "Interesting. On the night of September 1st to 2nd, there was an explosion of 2 BMW cars with Poltava and Kyiv license plates, a boat, and arson of 2 houses on the territory of the cottage town ’French Town’ in Koncha-Zaspa, at the address: Kyiv, Stolychne highway, 149. And everyone is silent. The subject of such a hot clarification of relations, as far as I know, is a ’misunderstanding’ with several houses in this town. The ’misunderstanding’ between former prosecutor of Crimea Molitskyi, prosecutor Melnyk (Kyiv and Poltava) and a person of authority in certain circles, Oleksandr Lishchenko (’Lich’) not from the GPO, but also from the OPG ’Prysch’.

Think about it, some people without shoulder straps decided to settle accounts with people in shoulder straps. A common phenomenon for Ukraine today.

However, the fire of last year not only left a mark on movable and immovable property. The greatest – historical! – role this fire played was three months after Rechynskyi

wrote about it.

On November 24, 2017, a fake article was published aimed at whitewashing raider Vadym Kovalchuk, who, along with accomplice Mykola Kovalenko since last summer, has been trying to seize the Ryzhivskyy granite quarry in Horishni Plavni (Komsomolsk – before decommunization). But instead of whitewashing, the author confirmed the main accusation against the raider Kovalchuk. Namely, his deep connection with the former prosecutor of Kyiv, Luhansk, and Poltava regions - Anatoliy Melnyk.

It was in this article that the photos with which we began our story were published. And these photographs will go down in history as direct evidence of the connection between the raiders seizing the Ryzhivskyy granite quarry, and former prosecutor Melnyk, who is helping them in this seizure.

Studying the tumultuous activities of Mr. Melnyk and his family, you cannot pass by the outstanding investigation by Lesya Ivanova from the Bigus.info journalistic investigation project.

We compared the fire photos and the burnt house with satellite maps of the locality and the video shot by a drone from Ivanova’s filming crew.

Here’s what we got:

Arrow 1 marks part of the cottage owned by Anatoliy Melnyk’s daughter, Darya Chernovska (it is the most luxurious possession in all of the "French Town" - the only one with a personal lake, dedicated in part of the story from the 4th minute).

Arrow 2 points to the canopy under which the fire occurred on the night of September 1-2, 2017, and the angle from which the published photos were taken. It should be noted that the cottage in the photo is the ONLY cottage with such an exterior planning on the territory of the "French Town". Also, it is known that in the part of the cottage adjacent to the burned canopy, Vadym Kovalchuk’s family resides.

Thus, the published photos of the fire and the burnt canopy for the first time (!) directly confirmed that Melnyk’s daughter and Vadym Kovalchuk’s family live "under one warm roof". On behalf of the entire journalistic community - we express gratitude to the authors of the brilliant leak of modernity (prolonged applause)! This confirms that Melnyk, with his old connections both in the Poltava regional prosecutor’s office and the General Prosecutor’s Office, may really be interested in assisting Kovalchuk with the raider seizure of the Ryzhivskyy granite quarry!

Arson - payment for debts

Stas Rechynsky was quite persuasive in his explanations of the reasons for what happened in Koncha-Zaspa at the beginning of September. However, it seems, we managed to find a more specific explanation as to why Kovalchuk’s cottage caught fire.

"In fact, on the territory of the ’French Town’, Melnyk and Kovalchuk have been engaged in raiding for the 6th year. The ex-prosecutor prefers to stay in the shadows, putting Kovalchuk forward. In such a tandem, they opened numerous criminal cases against the owner of the developer firm with the help of prosecutors from the Holosiivskyi prosecutor’s office. Melnyk A.S., having old connections in the Kyiv prosecutor’s office, has deployed all his resources to pressure the developer. Besides this, Kovalchuk V.R. collected a significant sum of money from town residents for land processing. But he did not do it. Many began to have questions and outrage. To let both raiders sleep peacefully, they invited Oleksandr Lishchenko (Lich) to ’defend’ their interests and further pressure dissidents. Lich was promised substantial compensation and a considerable amount of sq. m. on the territory of the ’French Town’. Now let’s think together: a week before the explosion, Kovalchuk V.R. temporarily gave his car BMW VI 3000 VI to Lich’s man, after which the car was blown up at 3 am on September 1-2. Two houses of Kovalchuk V.R. and a boat belonging to Melnyk A.S.’s daughter (Chaparral 275 SSi) were damaged," - it was written in the comments on Antikor.

This information was partly confirmed by one of Kovalchuk’s former neighbors in the French Town.

"Kovalchuk, like others, bought a house from Shevchenko (Serhiy Shevchenko - the designer and developer of the ’town’) in installments: about half paid immediately, the other half he was supposed to transfer later. But he did not transfer - he simply raided the cottage for himself, without settling accounts with Shevchenko. People of Melnyk helped him transform the scheme and cover his rear. His daughter lives in one house with Kovalchuk. They asked Lich to ’protect’ from Shevchenko. So, when this arson happened, no one doubted that it was a ’hello’ from Shevchenko... At least from Lich... In business circles, it is customary to settle debts. Kovalchuk somehow decided that this rule does not apply to him... And when he failed to seize some quarry in the Poltava region – he accused his business partners, whom he had deceived himself, of arson. He would not admit that his house and family were set on fire because he duped respectable people out of money," shared a resident of the "French Town", asking not to mention his name.

The amount Kovalchuk withheld was not clarified by his neighbor in the town, but he speculated that it was about several million hryvnias.

Betraying briends and partners

At the same time, we managed to uncover another scheme of Vadym Kovalchuk’s illegal enrichment. It turns out, at one time, he profited well off his acquaintance (which does not prevent him from sharing blood with his daughter today and using services for business seizure).

When Anatoliy Melnyk was building a BMW dealership for his daughter in Poltava, granite aggregate was supplied to his acquaintance by Vadym Kovalchuk. By that time, he had already ’warmed up’ to the Ryzhivskyy granite quarry and was receiving stone ’for temple construction’ – almost for free.

"Who would charge money for stone for a temple? It was unloaded to Kovalchuk from the quarry almost for free - Vadym, essentially, only paid for the transport. Meanwhile, Stepanovych (Anatoliy Stepanovych Melnyk) Kovalchuk, it’s said, ’sold’ this same aggregate at market price. The difference - into the pocket," says the source who documented the aggregate for building the BMW car showroom in Poltava, still listed under Anatoliy Melnyk’s children: son Andriy and daughter Darya (who took the surname of another Kyiv ex-prosecutor, Chernovskyi, in marriage).

As previously reported by the media, Vadym Kovalchuk and Mykola Kovalenko are two accomplices in the seizure of a large granite quarry in the Poltava region. To seize the enterprise and scrap the equipment, they violated the company charter they signed themselves. They "threw" two other business partners - Serhiy Koryavchenkov and Serhiy Hilka, went to "pocket" registrars with a forged protocol of a covert meeting (forgery is under criminal investigation) of participants and "removed" the quarry’s management in August 2017, blocking its operations. But the attack on the quarry through black registrars was repulsed thanks to the intervention of the Ministry of Justice. The issue was personally monitored by Deputy Minister of Justice Olena Sukmanova. Here’s a screenshot of her post from last year.

Moreover, Kovalchuk and Kovalenko lost any rights to the quarry because they did not timely pay for their shares in the company’s capital.

Melnyk’s Guard Again

A year after the failed attempt to seize the Ryzhivskyy granite quarry, Vadym Kovalchuk tries to take revenge.

"Prosecutor’s Truth" detailed the attempt to wrestle control over the quarry from its rightful owner and director Serhiy Koryavchenkov through the hands of the director of the legal department of the National Commission of Securities and Stock Market Oleh Misyura.

But "Melnyk’s people" came in from another flank - and launched an attack along the Ministry of Justice line.

For instance, on August 3, 2018, complaints from Vadym Kovalchuk and Mykola Kovalenko earlier lawfully excluded from the composition of participants of PP "RGK" because they did not pay their shares in cash into the statutory fund of the PP, were filed with the Commission for Consideration of Complaints in the Sphere of State Registration under the Ministry of Justice (Anti-raider Commission). Relevant changes were made to the State Register. Kovalchuk and Kovalenko appealed against the actions of the registrar who excluded them from the participants of PP. Both applicants’ interests were represented at the Anti-raider Commission by attorney Istomina Viktoriya, as evidenced by published copies of Kovalchuk’s and Kovalenko’s contracts with the attorney.

The document bears the stamp of the Law Firm "Protektum", registered in May 2018 with a statutory capital of 3000 hryvnias.

The lawyers are located next to the central office of the Ministry of Justice, where the Anti-raider Commission sits. But the most interesting fact in this context is that one of the founders of the law firm - with a stake of 33.3% - is Vladyslav Shpakov.

In December 2014, he was vetted, and in 2011 he held the position of a senior prosecutor in the department for the protection of citizens’ rights and state interests in the environmental sphere of the Kyiv city prosecutor’s office and in November 2011 flashed in the story with the death of animals in the Kyiv zoo.

At this time, his chief, Kyiv city prosecutor and Deputy Prosecutor General was... Anatoliy Melnyk – Vadym Kovalchuk’s acquaintance.

Thus, today, Anatoliy Melnyk’s former subordinate Vladyslav Shpakov, through the specially created legal firm "Protektum", provides cover for Vadym Kovalchuk and his accomplice Mykola Kovalenko, who did not pay their shares in the statutory fund of PP "RGK" and lost the right to be participants in the PP, and now, after many years, want to seize control over the Ryzhivskyy granite quarry through the Anti-raider Commission. At the same time, our source from Rylskyi Lane reports that intermediaries negotiated to settle the issue in favor of Kovalchuk and Kovalenko for 50 thousand US dollars in cash.

Whether this amount will persuade Ministry of Justice officials to sidestep the law or not – we will find out soon.