Data of Panama Papers on Belarus Published
- 11.05.2016, 12:52
35 offshores are related to a laundering of money in Belarus.
On Monday evening the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published new materials of so-called Panama Papers.
This database involves offshore companies, owned by citizens from different countries.
There are 98 records about Belarusians related to the registration of 35 offshores in Panama Papers. However, some records are obviously repeated. For example, Viatchelav Tcherniavski is, obviously, the same person as Viatcheslav Tcherniavski.
In the first variant the name is misspelled. TSYPLAKOV MIKHAIL and MIKHAIL Petrovich TSYPLAKOV also is probably the same person. According to journalists, only 76 names of owners of offshores are reliable, if one can de-list repetitions.
Two offshore companies belong to Belarusians, the co-founders of Latvian Baltimex Trading Vadim Velichko and Dmitry Aerov, or their namesakes, kyky.org reports.
There is also Alexander Lukashenka in the database, but this is likely the Russian namesake of the Belarusian dictator. Three years ago the firm registered in 2002 was paid attention to.
Charter97.org found out that Alexander Lukashenko was specified as an owner of offshore Avonlea Industry Corp. from British Virgin Islands in Panama Papers. Lukashenka of Panama Papers turned to be the resident of Russia Lukashenko Alexander Mikhailovich, who was registered in Korolev, Moscow region.
Nevertheless, there are more realistic coincidences, Radio Svaboda reports. For example, there is Sergey Tchachuk in the database, most likely this is Sergey Tkachuk. The businessman Tkachuk is a co-owner of the chain of shops Rublevski and a number of shopping centers, an owner of Mostra group which develops the Burger King fast food restaurant and other companies in Belarus.
Documents mention Igor Obmetko three times - he is the owner of LBR-Agromarket, the distribution network of farm marchinery and spares in Russia.
The database also has Igor Cherny in its list - an owner of Isostroi promstroi, Isopanel, Isospan. His enterprises faced problems in 2015 - Isostroi did not work for several months, employees dismissed. One more coincidence is Valery Bashmanov, an owner of the distributor of farm marchinery LBR-Agromarket. In 2015 it was in top-10 of importers to the Smolensk region, Russia.
There is Alexander Laskovich, the owner of Panda women's knit-wear from the Brest region. Andrei Kartsev, director of Minsk SITEK Group, which deals with the top overhaul of machines, distribution and Siemens service equipment, integration of software for plant automation, is also in the list.
Vadim Gitlin is mentioned as well. He is one of founders of Alfa-Trans, which delivers freight forwarding and transport services on the Russia-Belarus border. There is also Inna Anikevich, she used to be the deputy chairman of the Board of Sport-Pari lottery.
There are not only names of businessmen. For example, there is a certain Alexander Vashkevich, the name belongs to a lecturer of the BSU, former expert of the Constitutional Commission (1991-1993) and former judge of the Constitutional Court of Belarus (May-December 1996), expert of the Council of Europe and a member of the Panel of Experts on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly.
Vladimir Shishko is also mentioned – the head of the Forensics Department of the Central Investigative committee of Belarus (one person) and at the same time the former director of Brestenergo.
There is Alexander Metla in the list, the friend of Victor Sheiman, the director of the Memory of Afgan fund, and the executive director of the Stalin line.
There is Larisa Vasilko also in the database. This is the name of the chairman of the supervision board of Eurotorginvestbank, the co-owner of Evroopt is Vladimir Vasilko.
One more possible coincidence is Asya Zubarik with her share of Polish Gas Company, Belarusian businessman Artur Zubarik distributes gas and other resources.
There are even coincidences with well-known surnames: a certain Leonid Bely (Pavel Bely - hockey player of Lukashenka's team and owner of construction companies, inter alia, Tapas, and Alexander Bely - former director general of Minsk HC Dinamo). And a certain Vyacheslav Chernyavski (Igor Chernyavski is the owner of agricultural plants, companies in spheres of the real estate, leasing and maintenance of ATMs).
Publication of the first part of the Panama Papers on April 3 caused a great attention of the international media, the public and politicians in many countries. The leakage of information of Panama Mossack Fonseca has become the biggest-ever.
An anonymous source provided German Süddeutsche Zeitung with documents in 2015. During the year Center for Public Integrity (CPI) together with the ICIJ studied the documents.
According to The Guardian, there were journalists from more than 80 countries involved in the investigation. The project was called Panama Papers, the investigations were based on documents on offshore schemes of little known Panama Mossack Fonseca.
This is an unprecedented leakage of data on offshores: more than 100 politicians and known people starting from friends of President of Russia Vladimir Putin to football player Lionel Messi and the son of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan are related to Mossack Fonseca.