Vadim Shulman’s Crimes Exposed (2024)

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31 Min Read

Originally Syndicated on May 31, 2024 @ 9:55 am

Vadim Shulman is the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited.

Ukrainian industrialist Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate Beneficial Owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, has developed a large commercial empire since the collapse of the Soviet Union, including businesses such as mining, chemicals, energy, and telecommunications.

He has served as chairman of the Ukraine Tennis Federation since 2006 and is close friends with other Ukrainian businessmen Gennady Bogolyubov and Ihor Kolomoiskyy.

According to Appleby records, Shulman, who lives in Monaco, paid $35 million for a brand-new Gulfstream G450 plane in 2012. To maintain and operate the aircraft, Appleby assisted Shulman in establishing a network of enterprises in the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Man. Internal documents identify the aircraft sale as a “higher danger.”

Partial victory in fight with Vadim Shulman, the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited.

Hogan Lovells, an American-British law company with offices in London and Washington, DC, has partially won a High Court case involving charges of conflicts of interest and dereliction of duty brought by a Ukrainian businessman.

Gennadiy Bogolyubov and Igor Kolomoisky, the former owners of the Ukrainian bank PrivatBank, are the defendants in a lawsuit filed by Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate Beneficial Owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, against the firm for alleged breaches of duty that, in his words, prevented him from having a “high percentage chance” of recovering up to $500 million from them.

In May 2017, he retained Hogan Lovells International (HLI) and filed a claim. However, the lead defendant Bogolyubov successfully appealed for a declaration that the High Court lacked authority to hear the case because of the “overwhelming evidence.” The month before, Bogolyubov moved his residence to Switzerland.

In addition to defending Victor Pinchuk, who settled a billion-pound lawsuit against Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky in 2016, Shulman claims HLI had “many conflicts of interest” by representing PrivatBank in its case against Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky while also working for it.

Shulman had already lost the opportunity to sue Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky in England and Wales by the time Hogan Lovels was engaged by the bank in August 2017, thus the firm contended that any purported prejudices against PrivatBank had not surfaced until that date.

In response, Shulman requested that the particular terms of the claim be changed to show that HLI’s alleged breaches of duty occurred before April 2017.

The High Court decided that Shulman’s claim that the alleged financial conflicts and violations of duty as a consequence of Hogan Lovells’ contract with PrivatBank had no genuine chance of success was awarded default judgement on this portion of Shulman’s claim.

Vadim Shulman has not raised a credible basis for arguing that, at any time leading up to early April 2017 and by reason of HLI’s activities relating to [PrivatBank] (such as they were), HLI placed itself in a position where its own interests conflicted with those of Mr. Shulman or acted in such a way as to violate its duty to act in Mr. Shulman’s best interests,” said Daniel Toledano QC, sitting as a High

The judge, however, denied HLI’s request for summary judgement on Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate Beneficial Owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited’s assertion that he could have obtained a blocking order that could have been used to force a resolution before the High Court determined jurisdiction.

However, HLI has already approved the claims of conflict and duty violation based on the PrivatBank retainer as arguable and deserving of a jury trial.

Vadim Shulman, the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, versus James Plante

Vadim Shulma, the Ultimate Beneficial Owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, filed a contract against James Plante on January 26, 2018. The case was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Courts and the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, both of which are located in Los Angeles, California. TERESA A. BEAUDET is the judge in charge of this case. The issue has been resolved and released.

Vadim Shulman, the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited vs. Yuriy Gurevich.

Vadim Shulman, the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, has filed a contract-based debt collection case against Yuriy Gurevich. The case was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Courts and the Santa Monica Courthouse, both of which are located in Los Angeles, California. Judge NANCY L. NEWMAN is in charge of this case. The matter has been concluded, and a judgement has been entered.

Kolomoisky and Boholiubov utilized their 15-year acquaintance to swindle him in economic transactions.

According to the Kyiv Post magazine, Ukrainian millionaire Vadim Shulman, the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, is presenting evidence to a jury in London alleging Ihor Kolomoisky and his colleague Hennadiy Boholiubov stole more than $500 million.

According to the magazine, the lawsuit was filed in May 2017. In the article, he claims that Kolomoisky and Boholiubov took advantage of their 15-year friendship to defraud him in financial transactions, beginning with the 2000 joint purchase of Pivdenny Mines (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Dnipropetrovsk Steel Works.

According to the lawsuit filed in Delaware, businessmen Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov were in charge of “a series of large-scale and coordinated scams” that employed fraudulent methods to pilfer hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to Schulman and his organisation.

The three oligarchs had worked together on a number of economic agreements for several years, first in Ukraine and subsequently in the United States. The shareholder shares in various steel and coking plants where stakes were held were frequently obscure. In one of the most significant transactions of 2007, Roman Abramovich offered $1.06 billion in cash and a share in his company, Evraz Group, to acquire Kolomoisky’s holdings in his Ukrainian factories.

The PrivatBank balance sheet had been severely harmed by its owners, particularly Kolomoisky, who had exploited it as their personal piggy bank. At a meeting in the Hotel de Paris following the government’s recovery of the bank, Kolomoisky begged Shulman not to “beat a man who is down.” He made the debt repayment offer to his former business associate.

After comedian Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president, Kolomoisky announced his two-year exile from Ukraine. Zelensky, who has said that Kolomoisky does not have influence over him, is closely allied with the billionaire.

However, Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and head of the Batkivschyna Party, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, and Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian Choice public movement, are all named in the lawsuit, which traces a history of self-dealing and misrule from the late 1990s to 2016.

The claim also goes into greater detail regarding how PrivatBank was routinely used as a bogus equivalent to Kolomoisky’s own bank account and as a piggy bank for its shareholders.

Kolomoisky and Boholiubov have been ordered to pay back Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited.

Kolomoisky began to feel pressure from the impending nationalisation of PrivatBank in the summer of 2016. The billionaire pleaded with Vadim Shulman, the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited. The billionaire pleaded with Shulman not to “beat a man who is down” and repeatedly said that he would make payments every few months in an attempt to delay payback.

During a conversation in the spring of 2016 at the Hotel de Paris in Monaco, Boholiubov allegedly warned Shulman that they would not pay.

According to the lawsuit, Boholiubov added, “Just business”.

Judge: The action cannot stop the sale of Warren Steel.

A Trumbull County Common Pleas magistrate lifted a temporary restraining order preventing the sale of Warren Steel Holdings LLC after determining that the case should be dismissed.

The defendants in the civil case were Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate Beneficial Owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited of Monaco, and his Liechtenstein-based company, Bracha Foundation, and Magistrate Jami Bishop determined that they “lacked standing to initiate their lawsuit”.

Bishop points out in the decision that Shulman failed to show the Bracha Foundation’s legal authority to conduct business in Ohio and that his company is a legitimate Warren Steel stockholder.

Bishop stated in her decision that if the plaintiff claims that Bracha is (or should be) a stakeholder in the company, the court must investigate Halliwel’s “internal corporate activities”. The British Virgin Islands court, not the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, must decide whether Shulman is a shareholder in Halliwel and Warren Steel since Halliwel is a foreign entity, and the court lacks jurisdiction over that issue.

According to Bishop, only registered shareholders can “file lawsuits requesting compensation or injunctive relief regarding loss allegedly experienced as a shareholder” in the British Virgin Islands.

Within 14 days, parties may file written objections to Bishop’s decision. Judge W. Wyatt McKay may then adopt, reject, or alter Bishop’s decision, hear the case personally, ask Bishop to consider with instructions, or admit substantial evidence for discussion.

Vadim Shulman the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited has been compelled to pay court fees.

Shulman brought the lawsuit and claimed he was one of the original investors in Warren Steel and that the six prosecutors were attempting to oust him from the company, withhold financial data, and burden it with debt.

The defendants cited in the complaint are Panikos Symeos of Cyprus, Ihor Kolomoisky of Ukraine, Gennady Bogolubov of Ukraine, Halliwel Assets Inc. of the British Virgin Islands, Mordechai Korf of Miami, and Warren Steel Holdings LLC, 4000 Mahoning Ave. NW, Warren.

Defendant Halliwel Assets Inc. is “a basic shell organization created under the regulations of the British Virgin Islands,” and the lawsuit alleges that the Bracha Foundation owns one-third of the company.

The suit alleges that Warren Steel Holdings, Halliwel’s sole asset, is designed to continue providing Shulman and the defendants Kolomoisky and Bogolubov ownership rights in the steel business.

Vadim Shulman the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited alleges that he committed an initial investment of $13.5 million and an additional $15 million to acquire the former Copperweld Steel Co. He asserts that his cumulative investment throughout the years was $58.5 million.

The suit claims that the men founded Warren Steel in 2001 and then combined several properties to launch current operations in 2006.

Shulman alleges that his stake in Halliwell guarantees him a one-third equity stake in Warren Steel, while not actively overseeing the business. He asserts that the joint venture agreement forbids actions about Warren Steel to be taken without the agreement of the three parties.

The lawsuit claims that Warren Steel’s assets had grown to $34.3 million and its liabilities had surpassed $143 million, leaving insufficient finances to pay back Vadim Shulman the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, or provide him a chance to profit from his investment.

Additionally, Shulman asserts that “despite Warren Steel’s allegedly precarious financial position,” Korf, Symeou, and other individuals involved intend to sell Warren Steel to a business connected to Korf and possibly revoke the loans to obtain complete stock.

A criminal complaint has been brought against billionaire Vadim Shulman, the ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited.

A criminal case against millionaire Vadim Shulman has just been started by the Kiev Dnepropetrovsk District Court. behind the snout.  Megaron Sports Complex in Dnepropetrovsk. Attacked by a bearded man is a stocky uniformed man. His face is covered in blood. Although two guards are standing beside the assailant, ready to run to his aid, he does not even attempt to defend himself. Tennis player Yuriy Androsyuk was beaten to blood by Vadym Shulman, the president of the Tennis Federation of Ukraine, in front of numerous witnesses.

Therefore, the tale prompted the Dnipropetrovsk District Court in Kiev to file a criminal complaint against billionaire Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited

A trail of abandoned buildings, unpaid taxes, shuttered businesses, and hundreds of jobless steelworkers was left in the wake of accused tax cheats.

Leaders from the ageing steel factory in northern Ohio met in Pittsburgh to discuss the company’s future after explosions there threw workers against guardrails with serious burns and bloodied faces.

In 2013, they called in a new plant manager to seek methods to fix the problematic facility and boost output at a private aviation industry at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Yet, it wasn’t the selling of steel that would keep the mill’s bank account intact.

The U.S. Justice Department contends that hundreds of millions of dollars were secretly shifted from a Ukrainian bank—losses that would have devastated the nation’s economy—to the United States, where they were used to bolster Warren Steel’s cash reserves in a national money-laundering conspiracy.

The 48-year-old Mr. Korf declined requests for interviews, but according to his attorney, he hasn’t broken any laws.

Mr. Korf “has never had any dealings with laundered money,” according to Marc Kasowitz, a longtime personal attorney for President Donald Trump, and any claims to the contrary, including the civil forfeiture lawsuits taken by the government, are untrue and reckless. They will ultimately be dismissed.

The speaker stated that Mr. Korf never compromised on safety and that he always operated himself and his firm “in complete transparency and in full compliance with all relevant rules and regulations.”

According to prosecutors, Ihor Kolomoisky, a renowned businessman from Ukraine who was denied entry to the United States by the State Department, covertly bought a dozen other steel mills in little communities from Texas to Ohio.

He and his partners bought approximately two dozen properties in all, including a 484-room hotel with views of the water and four office skyscrapers in downtown Cleveland, which would later serve as the cornerstone of his real estate business.

The money that flooded into the Ohio steel plant would become important evidence in one of the earliest money laundering investigations involving the U.S. steel sector, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette research revealed, even though federal authorities tracked millions to the sites.

According to two sources who are familiar with the investigation, a federal grand jury investigating the finances of the Ohio mill that prosecutors allege functioned as a gateway for tens of millions of dollars taken from PrivatBank in Ukraine received bank records, emails, and other crucial papers.

Explosions and safety failures highlight the risky effects that financial crimes like financial fraud may have on regular people, including cost-cutting, carelessness, and a lack of investment when buildings and workplaces are used to clean currency.

It also demonstrates how a foreign businessman, who was the subject of a corruption investigation in his own nation, was able to gain access to the US steel market at a time when the sector was deemed crucial to the country’s national defence.

Former millwright Brian Shaffer was seriously hurt in an explosion at Warren Steel in 2010. He underwent three back surgeries, and four neck surgeries, and is now incapacitated as a result of his injuries. He hurried to transfer a wounded steelworker onto a medical helicopter after a second explosion at the factory in 2011. 

Former steelworkers in Warren claim they are still irate over what they characterised as hazardous and dangerous conditions that resulted in severe injuries, even though prosecutors are now attempting to seize some of the properties.

“They devastated the lives of a lot of people,” said millwright Brian Shaffer, 53, who was severely hurt in one of the explosions. “I don’t see how they got away with what they did.”

While state environmental agents discovered widespread concerns with hazardous waste that had persisted for years, federal safety investigators uncovered major violations at the site.

A fellow was put on a medical helicopter while the flesh was peeling off of his forearm and blood was seeping from his eye, according to Mr. Shaffer, a crippled man who uses a cane. This happened after one of the explosions at the Ohio factory. The most god awful thing I’ve ever seen, he declared.

The Post-Gazette conducted interviews with nearly a dozen retired employees who worked at facilities owned by Mr. Kolomoisky and his partners, evaluated federal workplace safety reports, and examined hundreds of initially sealed court documents and sworn declarations in order to better understand a major money embezzling case that penetrated the mainland of the United States.

The accusations against the oligarch and other parties have thus far been made in civil forfeiture lawsuits, but the authorities requested a federal judge to freeze the litigation temporarily so they could move on to the criminal case.

The impulsive Mr. Kolomoisky, 58, who once funded his own militia to repel pro-Russian insurgents, did not reply to repeated demands for an interview.

Known worldwide for his aggressive tactics, he made a fortune in the free-for-all economy that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union by founding businesses in the metals, energy, and aviation sectors. From 2006 until 2016, he then went on a spending binge in the United States.

Michael J. Sullivan, his American criminal defence attorney, would not respond to queries, but he had previously told the media that he disputed all of the charges.

John Goodish, a native of Greene County and a former director of one of Mr. Kolomoisky’s metals companies, said he was unaware of the oligarch’s involvement with Warren Steel or the other plants. Goodish, a retired executive vice president of U.S. Steel, did not know the oligarch was linked to the plants.

Mordechai “Motti” Korf, a Florida businessman who is charged by prosecutors with taking part in the money-laundering scheme and working as one of Mr. Kolomoisky’s top partners, allegedly asked Mr. Goodish, who resides on a substantial estate in the Laurel Highlands, to join the board of Optima Specialty Steel.

In his capacity as a board member and consultant to Warren Steel, Mr. Goodish controlled a business with locations in Texas, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan.

Mr. Goodish claimed he was unaware that millions of dollars were flowing into the company’s coffers from Ukraine during the four years he was on the board, attending meetings in Pittsburgh, Miami, and other places.

The senior steel executive claimed he thought the amounts invested in the companies came from Mr. Korf, the CEO of the steel factories who resides in a lavish waterfront home in Miami Beach.

Further on Mr. Goodish remarked, “I’ve always been told it’s Motti’s money. He was in the UK and in Ukraine. Sometimes he would disappear two or three times a month, but I have no idea what he was accomplishing.”

Although he had access to the operating statements, Mr. Goodish claimed that no illicit activity was apparent from the materials he had reviewed. He claimed that the majority of his duties were limited to assessing “the efficiency of the operations.”

Mr. Goodish claimed he met with Mr. Korf and others in Pittsburgh in 2013 to appoint a new manager and explore methods to properly run the facility after years of issues in the Ohio unit.

Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited invested millions into Warren Steel

Warren Steel investor Vadim Shulman,  the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited claimed to have noticed red flags of fraud.

In the beginning, the Ukrainian engineer claimed to have discovered millions of dollars in what were called “loans” transferred to the business, according to court documents.

In the British Virgin Islands, where a holding company owns the Ohio steel factory, Mr. Kolomoisky filed a request for the court to intervene, but was unsuccessful, thinking that Mr. Kolomoisky was trying to raise the company’s shares in order to force him out. He also filed a lawsuit in Ohio, but it was rejected due to jurisdictional issues.

Records were provided to his attorneys through subpoenas that showed “hundreds of millions of dollars” were coming into the nation from offshore firms owned by Mr. Kolomoisky and his partners three years prior to the completion of an audit in Ukraine that discovered an identical trend.

According to Mr. Shulman’s attorneys, some of the money that Mr. Kolomoisky brought into the nation was funnelled via Warren Steel, acting as a cash machine.

Mr. Shulman, who is a partial owner of the company, said that it was losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year, while documents show that the steel mill appeared to have made more than $100 million in the years prior to 2014.

In one instance, Mr. Shulman,  the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited discovered that money worth $80 million had been sent through the business account but was not intended for the steel firm. Instead, it was employed to purchase a different metals facility in Detroit.

The Post-Gazette stated that despite the court’s order to keep the information secret, some of the evidence, including bank records, emails, and transfers of money, were given to a federal grand jury in Cleveland that is looking into the acquisitions of the properties in the United States.

The FBI executed raids on the partners’ offices in Miami and Cleveland after the grand jury issued search warrants, and agents removed boxes of records.

According to the prosecution, the oligarch and others used the hundreds of millions of dollars that went into Warren Steel to launder the money, to promote the continuous misuse of funds from PrivatBank, and to obscure the ownership, origin, and source of the money.

Billions drained from Bank- The biggest problem surfacing in Ukraine

Despite regulators’ doubts of improper conduct at the bank, an audit revealed a startling shortfall of $5.5 billion in what auditors regarded as “a large-scale and coordinated fraud.” They also noted that more than 95% of the bank’s business loans went to overall interest to Mr. Kolomoisky and his associates.

Danyliuk, who was Ukraine’s finance minister at the time, described it as a rapidly approaching time bomb. “The bank is the biggest in the nation.”

According to court documents, Warren Steel was shut down, leaving a lot of staff members without health insurance and retirement funds. Because the bills were not paid, the gas was turned off, and the trash was filled to the brim.

‘It was heartbreaking,’ the former IT manager Nancy Waselich recounted. “To have so many people put so much effort into trying to succeed — and it’s ruined. it in every aspect. It is horrible. 162 persons in all lost their livelihoods.

The corporation deducted health benefits from the employees’ paychecks but failed to cover insurance premiums, staff members said to the office of the attorney general. Ex-staff have been scurrying to the unemployment queues for weeks, according to Joanne Satterthwaite, the company’s mortgage broker.

Days after the facility shut down, Mike DeWine, who was then Ohio’s attorney general, successfully argued for an injunction, claiming the mill’s owners had abandoned it and left piles of toxic trash and untreated wastewater that risked reaching the Mahoning River.

Baghouse dust is a combustion waste particle that, if inhaled in excess, can harm the kidneys and liver. State officials allege they spotted the firm illegally dumping baghouse dust on the ground.

Untreated wastewater was reportedly dumped into the Mahoning River in 2017, prompting Ohio environmental authorities to investigate.

The state put pressure on the facility to fix the faults and pay fines for five years, but it didn’t. They took advantage of Warren Steel and then simply left the room when operating the steel plant became unprofitable. 

Despite being aware of environmental concerns at the site, such as the possibility of sewage treatment facility discharges overflowing into the Mahoning River, they did nothing.

Mr. Kasowitz, the attorney, stated that Mr. Korf has spent more than $1 million to clean up the neighbourhood in the last year. Nonetheless, following a court decision, the state attorney general moved to file criminal charges against Mr. Korf and the company, according to records. The environmental infringement prosecution is set to begin.

In Cleveland, where Mr. Kolomoisky and his associates allegedly controlled four buildings and a hotel, the portfolio imploded: paperwork revealed that the hotel is currently in foreclosure, and two of the office towers were sold at a significant loss.

The Bottom Line

Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate Beneficial Owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, and the other businessmen will not bring about justice in Ukraine since they continue to wield great power in the Ukrainian government. 

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