The Crimean house of the Hontarevs
The married couple of Oleh Hontarev and Valeriya Hontareva has been the investors of the recreational complex “Neptun-Centre” in Big Yalta, Crimea since the 2000s.
So – has the theme, how the ex-head of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriya Hontareva bought a house in London for 23 million pounds, already been discussed? Let’s now discuss the Crimean real estate of the Hontarevs, that they have concealed in their declarations – and would have incurred criminal liability for it, if only Artem Sytnyk had had heart.
This real estate object isn’t indicated in the declaration of Hontareva because the complex “Neptun-Centre” is situated in the occupied Crimea, that means that Hontareva invests funds to the territory occupied by the Russian Federation. However, that’s no wonder as her patron Poroshenko runs a business on the territory of the “aggressor state” without any scruple as well.
As, by the way, Valeriya Oleksiyivna together with Makar Pasenyuk cooperated with the occupation authorities of Crimea and the General Bank through the ICU. The aim of the cooperation was to repurchase the real estate objects of health resort purpose that were in pledge at the banks nationalized by the Russian government.
Valeriya Hontareva and Oleh Hontarev have been married for more than 30 years and managed to acquire considerable property. According to the annual declaration for the year 2017 the Hontarev family possesses a flat in Kyiv (106 sq. m.), several land parcels in Kyiv region (900 sq. m., 1755 sq. m., 2500 sq. m.) and several houses also in Kyiv region (250 sq. m., 396 sq. m., 317 sq. m.).
But none of the declarations has the information about the objects under construction (the objects that aren’t put in commission), including the health resort and recreational complex “Neptun-Centre” in Big Yalta.
The Hontarev family invested in this object as early as in 2006. Shortly before the Crimea annexion and the beginning of the military operation in the East of Ukraine this project had been scrapped. But already in 2014 the construction works started again with the help of new investors.
The location of the complex is the occupied Crimea, Yalta (Kastropol).
We managed to find out the information about the Crimean real estate of the Hontarevs due to the family scandal. In July 2013 Oleh Hontarev and Valeriya Hontareva planned a divorce and division of property. Exactly in this period of squabbles the information about the Crimean property “emerged”.
“We have Crimea. In default, but not dead”, whites Oleh Hontarev. And proposes his vision of the division of property. In return, Hontareva writes that is ready to present the Crimean object to her husband (and writes about some interesting details).
However, the married couple mended the relationship and the common property, including the Crimean one, remained in their common ownership.
So, what is the Crimean object they are talking about? Sure it is the construction of the health resort and recreational complex “Neptun-Centre” in Yalta. This complex consists of a group of buildings: the recreational complex “Neptun-Centre”, a former recreation house “Kastropol”, several beaches with berths for holiday cruisers, a partially constructed guesthouse and a VIP-mansion house, a hotel “Leopol”. It’s also planned to open a restaurant, a SPA-centre and a lot of other infrastructure facilities at the recreational complex “Neptun-Centre”. The apartment price at this complex is from 2.6k to 3.2k USD for 1 sq. m.
The floor area starts from 60 sq. m. in case of apartments and ends with the floor area of 203 sq. m. for a penthouse. Thus, the minimal investment price may vary from 190k USD (for apartments) up to 528k USD (for a penthouse).
The general construction project owner of the health and sports complex “Neptun” on the southern coast of Crimea was T&T GROUP, LTD. (Ukraine). The founder of this company was Volodymyr Tertychnyi who was also a director of British Motors Ukraine, British Motors Ukraine LTD., the corporation “Fenomen” (Phenomenon), Fenomen Servis Bezopasnost Ltd. (Phenomenon Service Security Ltd.), the private enterprise “Auto-Alliance”.
After the Crimea annexion in December 2014 the Russian side registered a similar company T&T GROUP, LTD., that in prospect planned to continue the construction works, together with the Ukrainian side, but still pursuant to the legislation of Russian Federation. The investments to “Neptun” on the part of the Hontarev family were provided by the husband of the head of the National Bank of Ukraine – Oleh Hontarev. He was the one to whom the new investors of “Neptun-Centre” communicated the information about the renewal of construction works on the 17th of March 2017.
The representative of shareholders of the company T&T Group, Ltd. (Ukraine) Vadym Leonidovych Herman wrote in an email to Oleh Hontarev, that due to the fact of financial difficulties arising in December 2013 the owner of T&T Group, Ltd. Maryna Tertychna (Lystopad) has delegated the corporate rights of the company to the initiative investors group.
In particular, it’s pointed out in the email, that the investors' meeting has decided to renew the complex construction and to save the investors’ money. The investors have composed a schedule of additional funding as well as decided to re-execute the corporate rights to new founders with a consequent putting into commission. In 2014 the objects inventory was carried out and the financing was renewed.
On the 18th of March 2017 Oleh Hontarev answered to Vadym Leonidovych and gave him thanks for the detailed information about the object as well as for the fact that this investment turned out to be “live”. Also he asked to inform in the future about the “life” of this object. And, in addition, indicated his new email address.
This email proves the participation of the Hontarev family in the object financing. On the same day Herman gave thanks to Oleh Hontarev and promised to “fix” his new email address in the chapter of investors.
In order to check the foregoing information, we phoned to Mr. Herman on behalf of Oleh Hontarev, having introduced ourselves as his lawyer, and asked to send the information of the current status of the object under construction.
audio recording of the conversation
On the 28th of September Herman addressed an attachment to Oleh Hontarev, where he reported that as of the 28th of September 2018 the complex corresponded to the project by 95% and was almost ready to be put into commission. For the period from January 2014 till September 2018 the particular activities have been carried out in order to finish the construction works.
Also it was indicated in the attachment that initially (the year 2013) the participation of 2 sides (Ukrainian and Russian investors) was planned, but only the Ukrainian side acted as the investor. Additionally Mr. Hontarev was proposed to consider the possibility to obtain free areas (apartments) available in the complex.
The authors of the email are Vadym Herman and the shareholder of T&T Group (Ukraine) named Oleksandr Chelyadin, who is also the owner of the company “Prom Armatura” (it is a supplier of pipes for Naftohaz, NJSC, Nornickel, Ukrnafta, Lukoil) and belongs to the Dnipropetrovsk jewish community.
The presented facts denote that being a head of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriya Hontareva failed to comply with requirements of the article 46 of the Law of Ukraine “About Corruption Prevention” and didn’t show her Crimean investments in the declaration.
As she hasn’t done it, the National Agency has to inspect Hontareva’s declarations on the basis of the article 50 of the Law of Ukraine “About corruption prevention” as she could possibly represent untrustworthy data in the declaration. Presentation of intentionally false data in the declaration by the subject of declaring entails following responsibility according to the article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:
- penalty charge from two thousand five hundred to three thousand tax-exempt minimums of the citizen income, or public works for a term of one hundred fifty up to two hundred forty hours, or imprisonment for a term up to two years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or to perform certain activities for a term up to three years.
P.S. By the way, pay attention to some details in the correspondence of Mr. Hontarev with his wife. For example, take into consideration information about debts to former Minister of Energy Mr. Demchyshyn. It’s also a very interesting story that may be subject not to the inspection by the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, but to the investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine regarding illegal enrichment. However, we’ll tell about it a little bit later.
Comments