Mykola Vladislavovich Zlochevsky ( uk, Микола Владиславович Злочевський; born 14 June 1966) is a
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
oil and natural gas businessman, politician, and an oligarch. Zlochevsky was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources from July 2010 until April 2012 and was the deputy secretary for Economic and Social Security on the
National Security and Defense Council
The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC; uk, Рада національної безпеки і оборони України, RNBO or RNBOU) is the coordinating state body of the executive power under the President of Ukrai ...
from April 2012 until February 2014 when
Euromaidan
Euromaidan (; uk, Євромайдан, translit=Yevromaidan, lit=Euro Square, ), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of Political demonstration, demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protes ...
occurred.
Biography
Business
In 2002, he co-founded the largest independent oil and natural gas company
Burisma Holdings
Burisma Holdings Limited ( uk, Бурісма Холдингс) is a holding company for a group of energy exploration and production companies. It is registered in Limassol, Cyprus, but based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Burisma Holdings has operated in t ...
with Ukrainian businessman . Through his sole ownership of
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
-registered Burisma Holdings, he owns the Ukrainian gas and oil producers Aldea, Pari, Esko-Pivnich, and the First Ukrainian Petroleum Company and the investment group Brociti Investments.
Governmental posts
Zlochevsky served as Ecology and Natural Resources Minister during most of the first cabinet of
Mykola Azarov
Mykola Yanovych Azarov ( uk, Мико́ла Я́нович Аза́ров, ; née, né Pakhlo; Cyrillic: Пахло; born 17 December 1947) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian politician who was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 11 March 2010 to 27 January ...
President of Ukraine
The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych ( uk, Віктор Федорович Янукович, ; ; born 9 July 1950) is a former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in the Revolution of Di ...
.
Investigations into Burisma and Zlochevsky
In 2012,
Viktor Pshonka
Viktor Pavlovych Pshonka ( uk, Віктор Павлович Пшонка, Russian: Виктор Павлович Пшонка, born 6 February 1954, Serhiyivtsi, Sloviansk Raion, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) is a former Prosecutor Genera ...
, the Ukrainian prosecutor general, began investigating Burisma Holdings owner, Zlochevsky, over allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption during 2010–2012.
In April 2014 Zlochevsky named
Hunter Biden
Robert Hunter Biden (born February 4, 1970) is an American attorney who is the second son of President of the United States, U.S. President Joe Biden and his first wife Neilia Hunter Biden. He is also a hedge fund, venture capital, and privat ...
, son of then U. S. Vice President Joe Biden, to Burisma’s board as a director of Burisma, where he was said to have earned over $80,000 monthly. Joe Biden had been made ''the point man on Ukraine'' after February 2014, when the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted and fled. Then U. S. President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
's administration was prepared to work with the new government, a position shared with European governments and institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But they were all concerned about Ukraine's corruption, which had plagued the country ever since it gained independence in the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Joe Biden became a frequent visitor to Ukraine. By his own count, Biden said he went there about a dozen times from early 2014 through early 2016.
In April 2014, the Serious Fraud Office of the United Kingdom froze approximately $23 million belonging to companies controlled by Zlochevsky. At the end of 2014, Zlochevsky fled Ukraine amid allegations of unlawful self enrichment and legalization of funds (Article 368–2, Criminal Code of Ukraine) during his tenure in public office.Liliya Hryshko. Lifehack from Zlochevsky, how to return to Ukraine (Лайфхак від Злочевського – як повернутись в Україну) '. Deutsche Welle. 7 February 2017. In January 2015, Prosecutor General
Vitaly Yarema
Vitaly Hryhorovych Yarema ( uk, Віталій Григорович Ярема, born 14 October 1963) is a Ukrainian politician, law enforcement expert who was General Prosecutor of Ukraine from 19 June 2014 until 10 February 2015.Central Criminal Court in London released the $23 million that were blocked on accounts of Zlochevsky due to inadequate evidence. In June 2018, the Serious Fraud Office stated that the case was closed.
In early November 2014
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...
reported that $24 million of funds from his companies were wired from Cyprus to the Latvia branch of PrivatBank, the bank co-owned by the oligarch in the
Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...
region,
Ihor Kolomoyskyi
Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi ( uk, Ігор Валерійович Коломойський, translit=Ihor Valereriyovych Kolomoyskyi; he, איגור קולומויסקי; born 13 February 1963) is a Ukrainian-born billionaire, business magn ...
, and nationalized at the end of 2016.
Zlochevsky returned to Ukraine in February 2018 after investigations into his Burisma Holdings had been completed in December 2017 with no charges filed against him.
On 18 April 2018, an alleged recording of part of a conversation between
President of Ukraine
The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...
Petro Poroshenko
Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko ( uk, Петро́ Олексі́йович Пороше́нко, ; born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko ser ...
and fugitive Ukrainian lawmaker
Oleksandr Onyshchenko
Oleksandr Romanovych Onyshchenko ( uk, Олександр Романович Онищенко, born March 31, 1969) is a Ukrainian ex-politician, show jumping rider and patron. Onyshchenko was previously a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and a ...
was released by Onyshchenko which implicated Zlochevsky in graft.
On 15 June 2018, after the Solomyansky District Court in Kyiv had annulled the ruling of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) to close a criminal proceeding against him in 2017, Zlochevsky was accused of having illegally issued, while he was Ecology Minister in 2010–2012, oil and gas licenses to the companies that belonged to him.
According to Ukrainian authorities Zlochevsky is suspected of "theft of government funds on an especially large scale". Authorities said the criminal investigation on suspicion of
embezzlement
Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...
is currently on hold because Zlochevsky's whereabouts cannot presently be determined. As of 2019, Zlochevsky is reported to live in
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
. According to an investigation by
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...
he bought
Cypriot citizenship
Cypriot nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of Cyprus. The primary law governing nationality regulations is the Republic of Cyprus Citizenship Law, 1967, which came into force on 28 July 1967. Regulations apply ...