How Felix Chertok exports sanctioned Crimean wine to Europe under a Ukrainian brand through Alef-Vinal

There is little public information available about Felix Chertok. Even though he spent 12 years as general director of Alef Vinal, a well-known business established in the early 1990s, references to him are rare. Today, he is mentioned only briefly on the Jewish community website of Dnipro. 

So, Felix Chertok is a member of the Supervisory Board of the Jewish community of Dnepr, and also a very wealthy businessman. There is very little information about him in the mass media, especially lately.

Married, children. On Facebook, we only found the page of his wife Nataliya.

He was the general director at «Alef-Vinal» - one of the large companies producing wine, vodka, and cognacs in our country. Among the well-known brands are «Zolota Amfora», «Klinkov», «Jean-Jacques», «Helsinki», and so on.

Felix Chertok: what is known about his multi-million companies, which of them he beneficiates from, and what is known about the legal disputes

According to information from the OpenData website, Felix Chertok is listed as the owner of one company and an individual entrepreneur, and is also a former owner in another firm.

"Alef-Burlyuk" – a company with a statutory capital of 11.8 thousand hryvnias, where Chertok was the director and beneficiary, liquidated.

Individual entrepreneur Felix Borysovych Chertok – also liquidated.

LLC "Adaman Trade" – Chertok is listed among the former owners of the company. Record statutory fund – more than 140.6 million hryvnias.

According to the data of the YouControl information registry, this company is listed in more than 100 documents of the court registry.

And according to data from the Clarity-project resource, Felix Chertok is a beneficiary in 6 companies.

1. LLC "Adaman Trade" -  we wrote about this company above, but according to Clarity-project data, Chertok is listed there as a beneficiary. Recall, the company’s statutory capital is more than 140.6 million hryvnias.

2. LLC "Zshchbtorh" – statutory fund – 10,000 hryvnias.

According to YouControl information, Chertok is not among the beneficiaries, but according to Clarity-project data, he is a beneficiary. Where is the truth?

We add to this the court disputes, including criminal ones. 33 documents in the registry.

3. Foreign Enterprise "Daksi" – the company’s statutory capital is almost 9.25 million hryvnias. Beneficiary and founder – Felix Chertok.

Plus a bonus of 7 documents in the court registry.

However, if you go and search directly in the country’s court registry itself, here for this company we will see not 7, but 23 documents.

4. LLC "Trading House Av" – statutory capital is 490,000 hryvnias. Beneficiary and founder – Felix Chertok.

According to YouControl information, the firm is listed in 40 court documents.

And in the court registry itself, we already count 191 documents on its account, among which there are many criminal cases.

5. LLC "Adagma Trade" – another company with a huge statutory fund of 450 million, where Felix Chertok is the main and sole beneficiary.

This company also periodically has tax debts to the local budget. So, in 2020, the debt was almost 100 thousand hryvnias.

This company is listed in six documents of the court registry.

6. LLC "Ra Topcity" – beneficiary Felix Chertok, and the company’s statutory capital is 20,000 hryvnias.

Yermolayev and Chertok: how the international corrupt alcohol empire works

Regarding the company «Alef-Vinal», the publication «Current Time» and the anti-corruption project «Municipal Scanner» conducted a joint investigation. It is known that after the annexation of Crimea, the corporation «Alef-Vinal» officially, in accordance with legal aspects, divided its large-scale business structure into two parts: separately for Russia and for Ukraine. So, at the moment, the company sells wine «with a protected geographical indication of Crimea». At the same time, products for export to European countries and the United States of America are bottled on mainland Ukraine. At the same time, the same grapes are used for making the wine material.

As is known, due to sanctions from the European Union and the USA, export and import from Crimea are prohibited, but by using such a division, or rather a cleverly thought-out scheme, the company easily bypasses the sanction restrictions

Among the owners of the corporation are European companies, behind which stands the notorious Dnepr businessman Vadim Yermolayev.

About offshore schemes and sanctions

What is known about LLC «Alef-Vinal-Crimea»?

Statutory capital – almost 186 million rubles. Among the founders is a certain PJSC «Burlyuk».

This enterprise also lists over 90 percent of the Russian companies «Alef-Vinal».

The statutory fund of PJSC «Burlyuk» is 4 million hryvnias. 12 documents in the court registry.

And the founder of this PJSC «Burlyuk» is the Ukrainian PJSC «Alef-Vinal» with a statutory fund of 40.55 million hryvnias. The owners are Austrian and Cypriot companies.

And here’s a very interesting visualization of the connections in this story…

Until 2018, the owner of half of the shares of the Ukrainian part of «Alef-Vinal» was the Austrian company «Alef Investment Holding GmbH», and the director there – Vadim Yermolayev.

In the fall of 2018, this Austrian company sells its 50% of «Alef-Vinal» to offshore entities – the company «Ac-Terra International LTD». And, voila, the director there is also Yermolayev.

One of the companies in Cyprus – «AD Vinal Invest Limited» has a share in both the Ukrainian and Russian Vinal and Bulryuk.

And here’s an interesting point: according to the investigation data from the site «Nastoyashchee Vremya» and the anti-corruption project «Municipal Scanner», LLC “Trading House AV” is also involved in the schemes of «Alef-Vinal», whose founder and beneficiary is Felix Chertok. Recall that this LLC is listed in 191 documents in the judicial registry of Ukraine. We wrote about this in detail above.

In general. We could continue this topic of schemes for a long time, but let’s take a pause for now.

To be continued.

Olga Balakina