Aluminium Wars Continuing - Reuben Brothers Sue Deripaska - Independent - 27Feb2005
Stefan Lemieszewski
http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/2002/12/0030.html
Aluminum Corruption - RusAl - UkrAl - MAP - Solntsevo
Date: Sat Dec 14 2002 - 14:00:15 EST
The Mykolayiv Alumina Plant (MAP) in Ukraine supplies
most of the alumina used by aluminum plants in Russia,
now mostly controlled/owned by Russian Aluminum
(RusAl) after the "Aluminum Wars" of the 1990s which
resulted in dead bodies and a host of lawsuits linked to
various mafia oligarchs.
http://russia.jamestown.org/pubs/view/mon_006_238_000.htm
Platt's Metals (20Dec00) wrote that RusAl was hit with a
$2.7 billion racketeering lawsuit against RusAl's CEO,
Oleg Deripaska, and shareholder, Mikhail Chernoy,
"alleging racketeering, money laundering, extortion, fraud,
and attempted murder."
Some of these oligarchs were/are linked to the inner
'familia" circles of Yeltsin, Putin and Kuchma. In the 1990s,
the aluminum was looted and sold globally through shady
international commodity traders such as Clinton-pardoned
and Mossad-linked Marc Rich.
Recall some of the players. RusAl was established in
2000 by Sibneft, controlled by Roman Abramovich, and
Sibirsky Aluminium (SibAl) controlled by Mikhail Chernoy,
Iskander Makhmudov and Oleg Deripaska.
Mikhail Chernoy has been referred to as a Russian Mafia
crime boss. Presently, Chernoy (along with Gad Zeevi) is
being sued in Israel in a criminal conspiracy involving the
illegal takeover of Bezeq (Israel's national phone company)
through money laundering at Swiss banks. The $640 million
takeover resulted in the largest bank foreclosure in Israeli
history. Ha'aretz linked Mikhail Chernoy (along with oligarch
Roman Abramovich, Runikon) to the Bank of New York money
laundering scandal linked to Semion "Brainy Don" Mogilevich
and the Solntsevo crime family.
[. . . . ]
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http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/2002/08/0070.html
Russian Mafia - Tokhtakhounov - Malevsky - Chernoy - Ivankov - Kislin -
Lerner - Lansky
.
Fortune
12Jun2000
Russia: Capitalism In A Cold Climate
The story of Trans World's aluminum empire is filled with
bribes, shell companies, profiteers, and more than a few
corpses. Then again, in today's . . . .
Richard Behar
[ . . . ]
As we'll see, that probe ebbed and flowed over the years to follow.
(The plant manager himself was later implicated in the affair.) In
the meantime--with the profits from tolling as fat as ever and the
gangs' rivalries intensifying--what came to be known as the
"aluminum wars" began in earnest. Within weeks of the Krasnoyarsk
share erasure, a government supervisor for the metals sector died
in a suspicious car crash. So did Alexander Borisov, who had been
involved with Lev in the central bank case. In March 1995 two
private eyes in Israel were indicted for plotting to kill Michael
Cherney and his pal Anton Malevsky. (The assassins were
equipped with a silenced pistol and a $100,000 contract.) A
month later Vadim Yafyasov was sprayed with gunfire just weeks
after being named a deputy director at the Krasnoyarsk plant. Not
long after Yafyasov's funeral, the throat of Oleg Kantor, a banker
with close business ties to the plant, was cut. As one Russian
newspaper remarked, "The recarving of the local aluminum
market has been going on to the accompaniment of machine
guns."
[ . . . ]
Russia's new Interior Minister, Anatoly Kulikov, announced
publicly in 1997 that he was intensifying the investigation of Lev
and his associates in the central bank caper. The minister also
linked the aluminum trade to the Izmailovo gang, which he
claimed was being led from Israel by Michael's friend Malevsky.
And he announced that "almost all" the deals in the Krasnoyarsk
and Bratsk plants were controlled by mobsters. Four days later,
journalist Vadim Birukov was found dead in his garage, his body
badly beaten, his mouth taped. Birukov's Business in Russia
was the first independent magazine to expose organized crime's
role in aluminum in any detail, and he had attacked the Chernoys
mercilessly. The culprits were never found.
[ . . .]
But if the Reubens thought they could buy peace, they
miscalculated. Instead, civil war broke out. Michael, feeling
underpaid and humiliated after all he'd done for Trans World,
proceeded to plot revenge on his brother and the Reubens. At
his villa in Israel later that year, he assembled a group of Trans
World's plant managers (as well as Malevsky, according to one
Trans World insider) to lay the groundwork for a coup. In the
end, it proved easy enough: Lev's relations with the managers
had been deteriorating since he left Russia, and some of them
controlled blocks of stock that had been parked in their names
as a way for Trans World to skirt Russia's antimonopoly laws.
It didn't take much prodding from Michael to induce the managers
to combine their shares with his; by year's end Trans World had
lost control of half its empire.
[ . . . ]
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http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/2001/06/0066.html
Kuchma and Deripaska Decide on $250M Aluminum Plant in Ukraine - 13Jun01
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http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=615118
The Independent on Sunday (UK)
27Feb2005
Scarred by the aluminium wars, Oleg the oligarch steels himself for a new
battle
He's gone from Siberia to Belgravia, but now Russia's second-richest man
faces a $300m lawsuit over a joint venture that turned sour
By Adrian Gatton and Brendan Malkin
Russia's second-richest man, Oleg Deripaska, is being sued for $300m (£156m)
by Britain's billionaire Reuben brothers over a disputed aluminium trading
venture, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.
The long-running dispute will revive fading memories of Russia's bitterly
fought "aluminium wars", at a time when Mr Deripaska, who is partially based
in London, is seeking legitimacy in Britain and an eventual Stock Exchange
listing for his giant RusAl aluminium corporation.
The claimant Trans-World Metals - a business formed by David and Simon
Reuben and their former Russian business partner, Lev Chernoi [asa
Chernoy] -- last week requested jurisdiction in a British Virgin Islands
(BVI) court to sue Mr Deripaska and his associates for allegedly breaking a
joint-venture agreement and illegally diverting assets. Trans-World's claim
for lost profits, damages, interest and costs totals $300m.
The dispute dates back to an aluminium trading business venture formed in
1995 in the heady days of Russia's privatisation process. At that time the
Reuben brothers, ex-scrap-metal traders who had their own meteoric rise,
allegedly brought in the young Mr Deripaska as an agent to buy up shares in
the privatisations of Russia's giant Bratsk and Sayansk smelters. But Mr
Deripaska rapidly grew powerful in his own right and soon was strong enough
to join a 50/50 partnership with Trans-World in an Irish-registered
aluminium company Tradalco, which operated "tolling" companies trading at
huge profits.
According to the claim, by January 1998 Mr Deripaska "wrongly repudiated"
the joint venture with Trans-World - with immediate effect.
The claimants alleged that they subsequently discovered that Mr Deripaska
and his associates had diverted assets illegally into "shadow" companies -
Alucor Trading SA and Sayana Foil SA - that replicated the BVI companies
already operating for Tradalco in the Bahamas. These "mirror" companies, set
up without Trans-World's knowledge, had the same names but different
registrations and bank accounts. According to the claim document, these
companies were "used as part of an unlawful scheme wrongfully to divert
joint venture assets".
[ . . . ]
His Anglophile credentials are already good. Mr Deripaska is believed to
"weekend" regularly in London, to improve his English. In 2003, the
billionaire sponsored the lavish Art of Chess exhibition held at Somerset
House, featuring beautiful Fabergé chess sets. His wife, Polina, a member of
the Yeltsin clan, was educated at Millfield school in Somerset. Mr and Mrs
Deripaska recently bought a £25m grade-I Regency house in Belgravia.
It's a long way from bleak Siberia, where the 36-year-old billionaire made
his fortune in the 1990s in the bloody "aluminium wars" that resulted in
dozens of deaths as rival business factions battled for control of Russia's
prize assets. Mr Deripaska was the principal victor in that war, although
his reputation was tarnished by the experience.
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