Did Premier Kuchma Have Accomplices In Creating Trust Pyramids?

In continuation of the topic, opened by The Day , I decided to carry out my own investigation into the sources of mysterious and fabulous enrichment of some rather prominent politicians. The outcome was as follows.

As you know, in March 1993 Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma together with Minister Lobov signed a decree On Trust Companies. The supervision over the activity of trusts dealing with securities was made the responsibility of the State Property Fund, Ministry of Finance and National Bank. Soon, Avizo-Kyiv newspaper published an announcement that the private Edelveis (edelweiss) form under the international legal firm B.I.M. accepted investments in hard currency at an interest rate of 60% per annum. Over two years I invested in this firm (see the copies of the agreements attached). In early 1995 Edelveis dissolved. The director was arrested for illegal operations with foreign currency. Then, after serving about half a year in jail, he was amnestied. The further we go, the simpler it gets. Nobody can find the firm, and perhaps nobody tries. But the bank account is not closed. I brought a court action. The court decided in my favor. And the law enforcement officer, instead of looking for the debtors, says that as soon as money is received in the Edelveis bank account, I will get back my deposit. But that money, one suspects, will never be received. Why do I tell you all this? I proposed Viktor Medvedchuk, who was personally involved in creating Edelveis, to buy out my agreements with Edelveis. What happened? It turned out that neither he, nor B.I.M., as the official reply reads, have any “relation whatsoever to this specific trust company or to the fulfillment of its contractual obligations.” Moreover, the loss of investors' deposits is associated with B.I.M., which seriously damages the interests of this company. The question than arises: why did B.I.M. not bring suit against Edelveis in the Court of Arbitration as early as 1993 for “illegal use of B.I.M.'s reputation and name”? Clearly, in such a case Viktor Medvedchuk's enrichment through the Edelveis pyramid would have been out of the question. One issue of The Day carried a quotation from an interview with Medvedchuk: “If today it is in my advantage to support Kuchma, I will support him. For what reason is another question...” I wonder whether Viktor Medvedchuk was among the authors of the decree On Trust Companies? And were Medvedchuk and Kuchma accomplices in the cause of creating the conditions for the flourishing of so many Edelveis- type firms in the abundant soil of the financial pyramids?

EXPERT COMMENTS

Volodymyr KAPUSTOVYCH, head of the Public Remedial Organization Investor:

“The international legal firm B.I.M. is probably the only one in Ukraine that has such a powerful juridical image. I am sure that B.I.M. was all too aware of what the trust companies were up to and what the outcome would be. Simultaneously, the firm provided both legal and security services to many trust companies. Documents were prepared in such a way that with Leonid Kravchuk (then and now with Leonid Kuchma) in power, it is extremely difficult to present legally based claims against this firm. Still, I am certain that quite a lot can be done in unraveling this thread. Also, I am sure that as far as the incumbent President is in power, and his apparatus controls financial flows (the National Bank, Economy Ministry, Finance Ministry, State Property Fund, Securities Commission, etc.), it will be impossible to unravel this thread. The case with Edelveis is just one modest example of a well-known scheme to defraud the citizenry. As far as I know, the lion's share of the companies registered with B.I.M., immediately opened second offshore bank accounts abroad. The SBU's Investigation and Economy Departments know such tricks quite well.