Scandalous Ukrainian ex-banker Denys Horbunenko found to be linked to Russia

09 September 2024 , 18:57

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Scandalous Ukrainian ex-banker Denys Horbunenko found to be linked to Russia

Denys Horbunenko, the former chairman of the board of the notorious Rodovid Bank, is linked to the fintech company Dzing, which was recently subject to restrictions by the UK authorities over suspected fraud. 

Nadiya Sklyarenko writes about this in the article "How the Dzing payment system can be connected with the Russian Federation, and what does Firtash’s attorney Horbunenko have to do with it" on the website "RBK-Ukraine".

In particular, according to the article, on 1 August 2024, the London-based company Union Gf UK Ltd, owned by Denys Horbunenko, reported that Horbunenko’s share in it had decreased to 90%, and he transferred 10% to Dekiba Trading FZE from the United Arab Emirates. As it turned out, Dekiba Trading FZE is a co-owner of the scandalous British company Dzing Finance Ltd. The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) imposed restrictions on Dzing Finance Ltd. in October 2023 and March 2024, stating that almost one in five payments it received was related to fraudulent schemes. The founder and director of Dzing was Russian Mikhail Nadel. In 2011, he was sentenced in absentia to 16 years in prison by a Kyrgyz court for fraud and money laundering at Asia Universal Bank. A key shareholder of Dzing is Tatyana Orlova, a Russian woman with a Norwegian passport, the ex-wife of Russian billionaire Vitaliy Orlov.

The journalists found out that Dekiba Trading FZE is represented by a Ukrainian citizen, Yevhen Shapka. Since 2019, he has been a director of the Kyiv-based Norlandinvest company, which is owned by a British citizen Robert Alan Johnson, who is linked to Horbunenko. In particular, the connection to Horbunenko is confirmed by the fact that Johnson was the chairman of the supervisory board of the scandalous Ukrainian bank Sich when the National Bank of Ukraine recognised Horbunenko as its de facto controller. Back in 2009, after the collapse of Rodovid Bank, Horbunenko himself moved to London and became a confidant of oligarch Dmytro Firtash, whose extradition from Austria is being sought by the US authorities. 

According to the Trademo service, Dekiba Trading FZE supplied at least two shipments of ilmenite concentrate from Africa to Russia to Kit in 2021 worth $1.4 million. The country of origin of the cargo was Mozambique (it is noteworthy that at one time the owner of the Kremlin-funded Wagner PMC, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, included this country in his sphere of interests). And the cargo could have been destined for VSMPO-Avisma, the largest titanium producer in Russia, which is on the US sanctions list, controlled by the Rostec state corporation. The titanium it produces is widely used in the production of cruise missiles, including the X-101. It is this missile that Russian terrorists are known to have fired at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital.

David Wilson