A Russian's billion-dollar business circumvented sanctions and came to a new owner from Kiper's entourage

The assets of Russian businessman Igor Naumets, worth more than UAH 1 billion, were transferred to a new private owner despite sanctions and arrests, bypassing state control. The state has not used the mechanisms of asset confiscation in a year and a half.

This was reported in a story by Radio Liberty's Schemes.

According to the investigation, the assets in question are those of the Unigran holding, which specializes in the extraction of minerals from quarries in the Zhytomyr region and the production of paving slabs. They include production facilities, specialized machinery, hundreds of railcars and hundreds of hectares of land. According to an investigation by Skhemy journalists, the new owner of these assets is Serhiy Shapran, a Brovary businessman with ties to former Kyiv prosecutor and current head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration Oleh Kiper.

Unigran's assets were seized in the summer of 2022, when law enforcement became interested in the holding's activities. In the spring of 2023, the National Security and Defense Council imposed sanctions on the holding's owner, Igor Naumets, who is a Russian citizen. However, the seizure of the property was unexpectedly lifted by Judge Serhiy Vovk of the Pechersk District Court, who violated the jurisdiction of the case. The prosecutor was supposed to appeal the decision, but at the last minute he withdrew his appeal.

In early 2024, just a month after the arrest was lifted, some of the holding's assets, including land, production facilities and specialized equipment, were transferred to new private entities associated with Serhiy Shapran. Journalists note that the assets were sold at a significantly reduced value through a number of intermediary firms. Shapran, together with Volodymyr Sotskov, the manager of Naumets ' companies , created three new companies: "Uni Service, Uni Lux, and Uni Stone Plante, which acquired the assets from the intermediaries.

Serhiy Shapran, a former deputy of the Brovary City Council, also has business ties with Volodymyr Osipov, a former deputy of the Odesa Regional Council, who, according to journalists, is the "godfather" of the head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, Oleh Kiper. This points to possible informal agreements between the key figures in this process.

In his commentary, sanctioned businessman Ihor Naumets confirmed that Shapran had promised him to help solve his business problems in exchange for a 50% stake, but instead he allegedly "raided" the entire business. Shapran himself said that all the deals were legal, while Oleg Kiper denied the accusations, claiming that he did not know either Naumets or Shapran, although he confirmed that he knew Volodymyr Osipov, but did not interfere in his business.

The journalists also received video footage of a man resembling Serhiy Shapran talking to the deputy head of the Podil District Prosecutor's Office, Dmytro Kutovyi. It is this office that is now in charge of procedural supervision over the investigation of the Unigran case.

Ірина Глухова