American investment funds Argentem Creek Partners and Innovatus Capital Partners have issued a statement regarding the situation in Odessa port, where law enforcement agencies suspect GNT Group companies of tax evasion and involvement in grain smuggling schemes.
"As creditors of GNT Group and the terminal of Olimpex Coupe, we remain concerned about this ongoing illegal activity, which appears to be coordinated by [Sergiy] Groza, [Volodymyr] Naumenko and their peers, including Russian citizen Mikhail Ipatov and the company Sunolta. We welcome BEB’s work to support the rule of law in exposing this illegal activity, which is contrary to the interests of the people of Ukraine," the US companies said in a joint statement.
Investors noted that one of the companies, Attollo Granum LLC, which the Bureau of Economic Security exposed for tax evasion by understating the cost of grain transshipment services, belongs to the Sunolta group, which is controlled by Naumenko and Groza to cover up operations, although it formally has other owners - Sergiy Fedorov and Tetiana Kovalenko.
"A Ukrainian court ruled in June 2024 that the operations of the entities under investigation are under the common control of Groza and Naumenko, who in October 2024 were sentenced to 21 months in prison by the English High Court for being in contempt of court," the statement said.
American creditors noted that the premises of the Olimpex terminal, which the BEB searched, were illegally withdrawn by Naumenko and Groza from Olimpex Coupe International LLC through "Pivdenny" Bank in order to avoid payments to creditors.
"The links between Groza and Naumenko and sanctioned companies associated with [smuggler] Vadim Alperin were established in the BEB’s preliminary investigation into operations at the Olimpex terminal in 2024. It turned out that Attollo Granum offered capacity at the Odessa port to the sanctioned entity Agiros LLC associated with Alperin for the storage, transshipment and export of "black" grain," Argentem Creek Partners and Innovatus Capital Partners said.
As a reminder, last week the Bureau of Economic Security announced that it had exposed a group of companies that evaded paying UAH 30 million in profit tax in 2023-2024. Company officials deliberately understated the tax base.
Who we are: About us, Contacts. How we write news and our principles: Editorial code. We did our best. If you found this valuable – please support us.
To request a correction, please send an email.