Ukrainian ex-banker Denys Horbunenko, who is close to oligarch Dmytro Firtash, appears in the British investigation into the sale of titanium to Russia
The scandal involving the British company Dzing Finance Ltd continues to gain momentum. Let us recall that the company Dzing Finance Ltd is connected to Russia and the supply of titanium raw materials to this country through a company from the UAE. For Ukraine, the most painful fact is that a banker from Ukraine, Denys Horbunenko, was involved in this scandal.
You can read more about this scandal and Denys Horbunenko’s role in it here and here, and the essence of it is that Denys Horbunenko transferred part of his company Union Gf UK Ltd, located in London, to the Emirati Dekiba Trading FZE. Which turned out to be a co-owner of the British company Dzing Finance Ltd. The latter was twice subject to restrictions imposed by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) due to the fact that every fifth payment received by Dzing Finance Ltd was related to fraudulent schemes. In addition, the founder and CEO of Dzing Finance Ltd was Mikhail Nadel, a Russian who was sentenced in absentia to 16 years in prison in Kyrgyzstan in 2011 for money laundering at Asia Universal Bank. The key shareholder of Dzing Finance Ltd is another Russian Tatyana Orlova, the former wife of Russian billionaire Vitaliy Orlov. However, she now holds Norwegian citizenship.
The scandal over the supply of titanium used in the production of missiles that Russia regularly fires at Ukraine is in flux - new details emerge almost every day, and the circle of people involved in the supply of titanium raw materials and money laundering through Dzing Finance Ltd is constantly expanding. But in this case, we are interested in the figure of Denys Horbunenko, who, although living in the UK, remains a citizen of Ukraine, which is particularly unpleasant in light of official Kyiv’s constant demands to its Western partners, including London, to strengthen sanctions against Russia.
In the UK, Denys Horbunenko, as mentioned above, is the owner and director of Union Gf UK Ltd (company number 07745875). Until 2018, his wife, Olena Horbunenko, was also among the company’s directors, and since 14 November 2022, along with Denys Horbunenko, another director is Andrejs Demidovs, a Latvian citizen.
The company was founded in 2011 and is listed in the registers as a micro-enterprise:
The capital of Union Gf UK Ltd, according to its report, is £100. Therefore, it is not surprising that Union Gf UK Ltd has come under the scanner of the British FCA.
Nothing is known about Denys Horbunenko’s other British assets, but he owns two companies in Ukraine: RB Capital Group LLC and Ukrbusinessresource LLC. Two other companies, ARD Finance LLC and Yug-Bud Company LLC, have been liquidated.
The beneficiaries of Ukrbiznesresurs LLC are Denys Horbunenko, Dmytro Yehorenko and Serhiy Dyadechko, all of whom are from Donetsk and Donetsk-related backgrounds.
Ukrbusinessresurs LLC also owns 95% of the corporate rights to RB Capital Group LLC, whose beneficiaries are the same as those of Ukrbusinessresurs LLC, but whose founders also include Serhiy Bubka.
Serhiy Bubka’s name came up in connection with the collapse of Rodovid Bank, which was headed by Denys Horbunenko before the bankruptcy. According to Ekonomichna Pravda, Serhiy Bubka was the owner of Rodovid Bank and wrested all of its property from Horbunenko after the bankruptcy.
According to the same "EP", in 2010, Dmytro Firtash tried to appoint Denys Horbunenko, despite the bankruptcy of Rodovid Bank, to the NBU as head of the banking supervision department. However, this attempt failed, and Horbunenko surfaced in London as the owner of the micro-enterprise Union Gf UK Ltd.
In connection with the activities of this company and the FCA’s investigation into the supply of titanium raw materials to Russia, the names of several other Russian companies involved in the Dzing Finance Ltd and Union Gf UK Ltd schemes have surfaced. Which, according to the Trademo service, received at least two consignments of ilmenite concentrate in 2021 from Dekiba Trading FZE, which is linked to Denys Horbunenko.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to identify the owners of KOT LLC due to a lack of data - as you can see in the screenshot above, it is not even clear whether the company is called KOT LLC or Cot LLC in Russian. Unfortunately, the Trademo service does not provide any code or other information that would make the search easier. For all of these requests, the Russian registers provide too many coincidences or similar names, so it is impossible to say exactly who owns the Russian company to which Dekiba Trading FZE, a company associated with Denys Horbunenko, supplied ilmenite concentrate allegedly from Africa.
Instead, the following information is noteworthy in this regard: in August last year, RBC-Ukraine published an investigation into Ukraine’s sale of titanium raw materials to Russia. The story mentioned the name of Dmytro Firtash, who is linked to Denys Horbunenko:
It is not known whether the UK companies that came to the attention of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and whose name was mentioned in the article are connected to this. But the presence of Firtash’s name and titanium raw materials in both cases raises questions.
There are also too many Russian names and Russian citizens in the investigation into Dzing Finance Ltd, which led to the name of Ukrainian ex-banker Denys Horbunenko. Moreover, according to Bloomberg, these people are "highly questionable and likely to be linked to Russian intelligence and organised crime".
In this regard, it is surprising that Denis Gorbunenko transferred 10% of his company Union Gf UK Ltd, which has been peacefully operating as a micro-enterprise since 2011 and has not attracted the attention of either British law enforcement or the press. It is also unclear why the co-owner of Dzing Finance Ltd, Dekiba Trading FZE from the UAE, needed this 10% stake. The former was already at the centre of a fraud investigation, while the latter was involved in the supply of titanium raw materials to Russia. Why they would involve the company of a Ukrainian banker with close ties to Dmytro Firtash, whose extradition has been sought by the United States for a decade, is unclear.
What is the value of Denys Horbunenko’s modest London-based firm Union Gf UK Ltd, with a capital of only £100, in all the schemes of Dzing Finance Ltd and Dekiba Trading FZE? Why did two big financial market players need one-tenth of that? Especially since the investigation by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was by no means a secret and, indeed, was ongoing. And it was clear that the Russian traces of both firms would inevitably surface in its course. Why was Denys Horbunenko involved in all this, as he also has ties to Russia and these ties would have inevitably surfaced (as they did) in the course of the investigation? These questions remain unanswered. Perhaps the real target is Dmytro Firtash?
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