Sanctions are no obstacle: how Lukashenko’s ally Viktor Sheiman organized the sale of luxury cars
The material was prepared in cooperation with the Rabochy Rukh initiative, Belsat TV channel, the Schemes project of the Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Cyprus Investigative Reporting Network (CIReN), with the support of Cyberpartisan.
Following the crackdown on protests against election fraud in Belarus in 2020, and then official Minsk’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU and the US imposed sanctions on Belarusian potash fertilizers and the state-owned monopoly Belaruskali that produces them.
Belarus can still export potash fertilizers to China, Brazil or Indonesia, which were its main importers before the sanctions were imposed. But the country has had to restructure its logistics. Instead of shipping via the shortest route through the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, as was the case before the restrictions were imposed, Belarusian potash is now exported via Russia. This route is both longer and more expensive.
The UN expressed concern about the complication of logistics for deliveries of Belarusian potash to countries with food shortages. But the BRC investigation showed that a significant part of the costs may be schemes with signs of corruption, and not the consequences of the introduction of sanctions.
$35 million in losses
Since 2022, the large port of St. Petersburg in Russia has become one of the main export windows for potash fertilizers from Belarus. Here, Belaruskali uses the services of four terminals. At one of them, the Baltic Shipyard (BSMZ), the capacity for processing Belarusian potash has been specially increased. About a third of the total fertilizer export volume is transshipped through it (transshipment is reloading from one type of transport to another).
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According to public financial reports of BSMZ, in 2023 the company’s turnover increased more than 30 times - to $35 million. Three years earlier, this figure only slightly exceeded a million dollars. Russian media explained the growth by the start of deliveries of Belarusian potash through this terminal.
The Russian press also wrote that in 2023, BSMZ handled about two million tons of Belarusian potash. From the documents we received from sources in the shipping industry, it follows that there was more - over three million tons.
We managed to find out the prices for transshipment at the port of St. Petersburg in 2021 and 2024. They vary slightly within $11 per metric ton of potash fertilizers. If we extrapolate this figure to 2023, it turns out that for the transshipment of three million tons of fertilizers, BSMZ should have received about $33 million. This roughly corresponds to the company’s revenue for last year, which we see in open sources - $35 million.
However, judging by the contract that fell into our hands, Belaruskali paid twice as much for transshipment at BSMZ in 2023 - almost $70 million.
As the BRC found out, instead of paying BSMZ directly for transshipment of cargo from trains to ships, Belaruskali entered into a contract for this service with the Cypriot company Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD at a price almost twice as high as the market price - $20 per ton. And the Cypriot company then entered into a separate contract with the port on its own behalf and paid it for this work at the market price.
The payment was made in parts. In June 2023, Belaruskali and Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD signed a document for an advance payment for July and August, in August - for September, and so on.
The agreement notes that Belarusian potash is intended for export outside the Customs Union. According to the documents at the disposal of the BRC, it was sent from Russian ports to China, Indonesia and Brazil in 2023. Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD is listed in the documents as the forwarder.
At the same time, we have reason to believe that the services of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD were not mandatory. The port itself carries out transshipment, it owns cranes, equipment, warehouses, the BRC was informed by the transport company "Port-Express". This information was also confirmed to us by the St. Petersburg port terminal "Port Bronka".
At the same time, a contract with a forwarder can be beneficial to the client, said Nadezhda Malysheva, development director of the Portnews information agency:
“The forwarder may have a discount on transshipment, on loading the port; the forwarder may have a contract with the port that he loads it regularly in such and such volumes.”
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However, this hardly applies to the cooperation of the Belarusian potash giant with BSMZ. Belaruskali is already the terminal’s main client, which does not need discounts from an intermediary. Our investigation showed that this scheme could have been organized with the aim of siphoning off funds from the domestic monopoly producer of potash fertilizers in favor of Alexander Lukashenko’s trusted persons.
Sheiman’s Vector
From the evidence collected by the BRC, it follows that Viktor Sheiman, one of Alexander Lukashenko’s closest associates, may be connected with the Cypriot shell company receiving half of the amount specified in the contract with Belaruskali.
He became a confidant of Lukashenko even before his election as president, and has since held key positions in the country. Sheiman is under EU sanctions for being responsible for the unsolved disappearances of Lukashenko’s political opponents.
Viktor Sheiman has already been a subject of BRC investigations. Read:
How Sheiman’s son mined gold in Africa
How yesterday’s student of the Academy of Arts became the companion of Viktor Sheiman
Officially, Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD has belonged to Galina Akritova Alexandrou, a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus, since its foundation in 2012. She is also its director. However, it was not Akritova who concluded the agreement with Belaruskali.
The agreement on the transshipment of fertilizers in the port of St. Petersburg was signed by the General Director of Belaruskali I. I. Golovaty and the Financial Director of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD A. G. Sviridov. A person with the last name and initials of the latter was Deputy Manager of the Presidential Affairs Department of the Republic of Belarus in 2019-2021. The department was then headed by Viktor Sheiman.
We have found confirmation that the CFO of the Cyprus company Sviridov A.G. and Sviridov the official are one and the same person. A document with the signature of Sheiman’s deputy has been preserved on the website of the Property Management Department - it is identical to the signature on the contract between Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and Belaruskali.
Sviridov himself, in a conversation with a BRC journalist, admitted that he is the financial director of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, but, according to him, he did not sign any documents with Belaruskali.
"You know, there are a lot of neural networks here now, so you don’t have that kind of evidence," he said.
Officially, Andrei Sviridov was dismissed from the post of deputy manager of Lukashenko’s affairs on February 19, 2021, "in connection with the transfer to another job." Less than a month later, on March 11 of the same year, he became the head of Vector Capital Group CJSC. In February 2024, he was replaced as director by another former official associated with Viktor Sheiman, former first deputy manager of Lukashenko’s affairs Nikolai Selivanov. [*] He held this position from February 2013 to September 2022.
According to information received by BRC from Cyberpartizan, Sviridov continued to work at Vector Capital Group after leaving his post as its head. Also, in addition to Sviridov and Selivanov, two more former officials from the Presidential Property Management Department worked there in 2023: Dmitry Petrashevich and Vladimir Skulovets.
The company’s specialization is "activities of parent organizations", which means monitoring and managing other legal entities that are part of a certain structure. [*]
The connection between Vector Capital Group and Viktor Sheiman is also evident in the investigation by the association of former Belarusian security officials BELPOL about the resale of a plot of land in Sochi belonging to the Republic of Belarus to the Russian company Kompleks-Invest at a reduced price. It shows a letter on the letterhead of Vector Capital Group signed by Selivanov addressed to the director of Kompleks-Invest. The former first deputy of Lukashenko’s property manager refers to the position of "our leader", whom he calls "V.V.Sh." (the initials of Viktor Vladimirovich Sheiman). BELPOL also showed the staffing schedule of Kompleks-Invest - it contains the signatures of the former head of Lukashenko’s property manager next to the resolution "approved by V.V. Sheiman" and Selivanov under the word "agreed".
Luxury cars for Russia Today
While studying the activities of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, we found out that this company came to the attention of law enforcement agencies in Ukraine.
In early May 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported the liquidation of a large-scale scheme for the illegal supply of premium-class sanctioned cars to Russia. According to the SBU, a businessman from Lviv illegally transported 45 cars worth more than €3 million to the Russian Federation from August 2022 to March 2023. He purchased premium vehicles from Ukrainian car dealerships, registered them in the names of controlled commercial entities, and then, using forged documents, transported them in transit through the territory of the European Union to Belarus, and from there to the Russian Federation.
Among the customers who ordered the cars were top managers of Gazprom and employees of Russia Today.
Law enforcement officials did not name the organizer of this scheme, but Ukrainian media, citing their sources, reported that the Lviv businessman was Vitaliy Bobyr. He is also listed as the organizer in the criminal case materials. Bobyr managed to escape the investigation. Ukraine has put him on the wanted list.
In March 2023, as part of this criminal case, a court in Kyiv seized property found during the search: various documents, equipment and seals of over twenty companies from Ukraine, one Belarusian company - BEL-BITFINDER LLC, as well as two Cypriot companies - Rostumel Holding Limited and the already familiar to us Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD.
In addition, Ukrainian law enforcement officers found a trace that indicates a connection between the suspect and a person from the Belarusian government. In correspondence on one of the confiscated phones, he claims that his godfather is a high-ranking Belarusian official (the author’s spelling and punctuation are preserved):
"...as for the political question, they don’t know that my godfather is the second person in Belarus and can guarantee for me. He once called Yanukovych for me."
Exclusive supplier of scrap
Vitaly Bobyr does not name his Belarusian patron, but we have found a number of indirect connections between him and Viktor Sheiman. It is the former manager of Alexander Lukashenko’s affairs that the media calls the second person in Belarus. The connection with Sheiman can also be traced through people affiliated with him.
For example, in 2019-2020, Tatyana Onoshko headed the company OOO Globalkastom, associated with Viktor Sheiman.
And in 2011-2016, she worked at Belferumgroup LLC. According to the State Automobile Inspectorate, as the financial director. This company was registered in April 2011. A month and a half later, Alexander Lukashenko personally granted it the exclusive right to collect, procure, process and supply scrap and waste of ferrous and non-ferrous metals in Belarus.
Belferumgroup LLC was founded by two companies. The first is the limited liability partnership Luxberg. The second is the Ukrainian limited liability partnership Scholz Utilizator AG. The seals of this company, among others, were found by Ukrainian investigators during a search as part of a criminal case on the illegal export of premium cars from Ukraine to Russia. Its founder and owner is Irina Petrovna Bobyr, the mother of a Lviv businessman suspected of organizing this scheme.
Through Scholz Utilizator AG, associated with Vitaly Bobyr, Viktor Sheiman’s people could have reached Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. In 2017, through the mediation of this Cypriot company, Scholz Utilizator AG LLC supplied steel rods from Ukraine to Germany.
Belarusian trace in car re-export
An informed source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told BRC that Ukrainian investigators believe that the author of the illegal scheme for supplying premium cars to Russia was a Lviv businessman. However, a number of facts indicate that its true organizers are in Minsk.
The same source confirmed that the main suspect in this criminal case is Vitaly Bobyr. According to their data, companies associated with the Lviv businessman bought luxury cars in Ukrainian car dealerships and then resold them to the Cypriot Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and Rostumel Holding Limited. Then they were bought by the Belarusian company BEL-BITFINDER, after which the cars were sent to the end buyers in the Russian Federation.
The BRC also received a number of documents that indicate Andrey Sviridov’s involvement in this illegal scheme. During searches in the offices of companies associated with Bobyr, among other things, Ukrainian law enforcement officers found a contract form for the sale of an AUDI SQ8 worth more than €75,000 to Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. Moreover, the bank details of the Cypriot company indicate the Belarusian Paritetbank. [*]
From sources in Ukraine, we received a photo of a passport and two powers of attorney for Sviridov, signed by the head of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. The first is dated September 1, 2022. It authorizes the former deputy manager of Lukashenko’s affairs to conduct any transactions on behalf of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD without limitation of the amount and to be its representative: to submit applications, documents, negotiate, etc. on behalf of the company. The second power of attorney, dated December 1, 2022, is supplemented by two more clauses allowing Sviridov to open bank accounts for Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and manage funds in them.
According to Sviridov, these documents are forgeries.
"There was no power of attorney. This is probably just smoke and mirrors for people. You probably set this up on purpose to make a splash and raise your statistics," he told the BRC.
Lukashenko’s former deputy manager also suggested that the documents were forged by Ukrainian law enforcement officers in order to discredit him.
As BRC has proven above, Andrei Sviridov is not just a former high-ranking official – he continues to work in structures associated with Viktor Sheiman.
Also indicative is the relationship between the Belarusian authorities and BEL-BITFINDER LLC, which purchased luxury cars from Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD and Rostumel Holding Limited.
Penalties for violation of sanctions
The sanctions prohibit not only importing and exporting Belaruskali fertilizers to EU countries, but also providing financial or economic resources to this enterprise. The Cypriot Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD, providing services to Belaruskali, violates the sanctions, according to three independent experts. BRC asked them to analyze the documents received.
"The EU sanctions prohibit EU-registered companies from providing services or products to Belaruskali, and transshipment of potash fertilizers in St. Petersburg, as I understand it, would be a direct violation of the sanctions in this case. Even if the potash does not end up in any EU country, the purpose of the sanctions is to ensure that Belaruskali does not profit from services or products provided by EU-registered companies," said Gunnar Ekelove-Slydal, Deputy Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
The Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the EU since 2004. All EU organisations must comply with the sanctions, Tom Keating, director of the Financial Crime and Security Studies Centre at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, told the BRC.
"In this case, if they are facilitating trade in potash fertilizers, which is prohibited by sanctions, with entities registered outside the EU, their activities still need to be investigated. In my opinion, this clearly looks like a violation of sanctions," he said.
A sanctions expert, Alexander Dmitrenko, from the Tokyo-based law firm Ashurst, shares the same opinion:
"It is obvious that such a company [Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD] will fall under EU sanctions, it is very simple. EU sanctions will apply to its activities."
We tried to contact the owner of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD Galina Akritova Aleksandrou for a comment, but without success. However, we were contacted by a member of her family, Elena Brovkina (Akritova), director of Damelen Consulting Limited, which acted as the secretary firm for Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. She stated that her team had nothing to do with the deal with Belaruskali described in our investigation:
"We were not aware that any contracts were concluded or that anyone did this on behalf of the company. <...> I am telling you with full responsibility that we never issued a power of attorney to Mr. Sviridov, and we do not know what kind of person he is."
Brovkina (Akritova) also claims that they did not participate in the resale of Ukrainian luxury cars. At the same time, the Akritovs, according to Brovkina (Akritova), do not intend to contact any competent authorities:
"This is not our responsibility. If someone, some police, finds something, they contact our police, the Cyprus police, and the Cyprus police sends us an official request, to which we respond. And then the investigation begins. Who did these shenanigans, on what grounds? This is already, this is already a matter for the prosecutor’s office, the Ukrainian police, the Cypriot police, I don’t know. Well, in any case, not ours. We, as our company, stopped servicing these companies at the beginning of 2022. That’s all."
BRC contacted the law enforcement agencies of Cyprus with a request to comment on the activities of Dimicandum Invest Holding LTD. We were told that the request was forwarded to the competent authorities for further action.
