Fake loans, dumping, and ecological disaster: the criminal logic of Evgeny Renge’s business

13 марта 2020 г., 15:57

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Fake loans, dumping, and ecological disaster: the criminal logic of Evgeny Renge’s business

A typical Kuzbass local might not fully grasp or logically follow the rise of the so-called "new businessmen" — individuals who profit immensely from selling the region’s coal resources without actually participating in mining or funding land rehabilitation efforts.

But they emerge like mushrooms after rain. One of the vivid examples of such a "phenomenon" is Evgeny Renge, appearing to be an ordinary resident of Novokuznetsk from a family of doctors, likely not a fool, who figured out schemes for rapid enrichment.

It all began when Evgeny Renge, while working at Novokuznetsk coal holding "TopProm", displayed certain commercial abilities and caught the eye of the business owner Nikolai Korolev, who appointed him as the company’s director in 2013. The new manager started implementing his schemes within the company’s operations, which seemingly aimed at tax evasion. Of course, why not cash out funds by signing loan agreements? A surefire way to get rich. In 2013-2014, Renge, apparently without the founder’s consent, issued from JSC "TopProm" to one-day firms LLC "Metall-Service", LLC "Sibikom", and LLC "KDK Mega TR" three major loans totaling 230 million rubles for a term of three years, which were never returned. Most likely, the money was simply laundered. And there is no one to hold accountable, as the firms were obviously unable to fulfill their obligations to repay the loans and have long disappeared. The agreements were concluded on obviously unfavorable conditions for JSC "TopProm" at an interest rate of 10% per annum — at the time of signing the loan agreements, JSC "TopProm" itself was using credit funds from PJSC "Sberbank" at a higher interest rate of 10.37% per annum. As a result, according to the company itself, it suffered damages, including from tax reassessments, resulting in losses exceeding 300 million rubles.

Consequently, Korolev predictably fired Evgeny Renge, sparking loud, lengthy legal disputes between them with mutual claims amounting to hundreds of millions of rubles, continuing in various court instances up to the present time (including the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation). The work at "TopProm" brought Renge significant dividends — he accumulated both knowledge and connections in the coal sales market as well as a certain amount of personal financial capital.

Later on, he was employed by the owner of JSC "YUKAS-Holding" Yuriy Kocherinskiy  to manage the sales activities of his Kuzbass coal holding "TalTEK" — LLC Management Company "Ugol Talteka", which served as a trading house. But Renge had already realized that he could act as a player in the coal market independently. He established his first company LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt" (TIN 4217163505, with its primary activity: wholesale trade of solid fuel), integrating it into the coal sales scheme. It seems that he continued to manage and control the entire coal shipment of the holding "TalTEK", redirecting significant flows to LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt".

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However, the amount of coal received from the quarries of the "TalTEK" holding evidently wasn’t enough for Evgeny Renge. It’s likely that he was the one who developed and organized the collection and concentration points for coal of illegitimate origin, simply put, mined by so-called "black diggers", including stolen coal, on and near the territories of the cities Prokopyevsk and Kiselevsk. For this purpose, the infrastructure of the liquidated Kiselevsk beneficiation plant "Cherkasovskaya" owned by local entrepreneur Agyekyan E.E. was involved. This allowed a significant reduction in the market price of coal and the application of dumping methods, as the cost of such coal lacks expenses for obtaining a mining license, project documentation development, various enabling examinations, ensuring industrial safety, land reclamation, etc. In the scheme of legalizing coal, illegally extracted and sold through LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt", several companies could have been involved, including LLC TD "Cherkasovskaya" (TIN 4223063192), JSC "Polyany" (TIN 4211018100), LLC "Sorting and Loading Complex ’Krasnogorsky’" (TIN 4223053758), and others.

LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt" has consistently been included in the official RBC rating as one of the fastest-growing companies in Kuzbass by business activity and revenue volume, taking the 2nd honorary place in 2018. But, as they say, greed led to the downfall — saving on cheaper coal, it wasn’t always possible to maintain its quality. Claims began arising from consumers — instead of the declared coal grades, completely different ones with lower quality characteristics were supplied, negatively affecting the end product — coke.

But once again, Evgeny Renge managed to rise to the occasion and decided to resolve the brewing conflict with PJSC "Koks" (Kemerovo) in a non-traditional way. Apparently, it didn’t go without a "bribe" in April 2018 to facilitate the organization of a meeting with one of the top managers of PJSC "Koks". Later, for unclear reasons, on October 25, 2019, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Kemerovo region issued an illegal decision refusing to initiate a criminal case due to the absence of a crime in Renge’s actions. Although one need not possess a legal education — just a glance at the Criminal Code of the RF would suffice to acknowledge the potential giving of a bribe to an official on a particularly large scale — a crime under Part 5 of Article 291 of the RF Criminal Code. No official assessment of the bribery act under the existing legislation has been given up to now.

But the rope is only so long... If one trusts the website www.avant-partner.ru, Kuzbass’s tax inspection became interested in LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt’s" activities and, as a result of an audit, issued tax claims for concealing taxes totaling 2 billion rubles. The investigation even became the subject of a meeting in September 2019 between the Governor of Kemerovo Oblast and business representatives, with the participation of the head of the Federal Tax Service in Kemerovo Oblast Lyubov Arshintseva. According to tax officials, LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt", which demonstrated significant revenue from coal sales, 26 billion rubles, does not hold a subsoil license, does not engage in coal mining, and cannot declare the source of the sold coal, indicating its extraction source. Moreover, none of the region’s coal mining enterprises declared this volume of extraction. Thus, the mineral extraction tax payable by subsoil users was not calculated from the mentioned coal.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg because the depth of all of Evgeny Renge’s companies’ transactions is extremely convoluted. Yet, some aspects of them can be given a logical explanation. According to official data, LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt’s" revenues in 2016 amounted to 11.2 billion rubles, and in 2017 — 20 billion rubles. Revenue growth occurred due to increasing volumes of illegally mined coal sales. If about 3 billion rubles might have been received from illegal coal sales in 2016, then by 2017, revenues from illegal coal sales could have potentially reached over 7.5 billion rubles. Thus, only in two years, revenues from coal sales amounted to 10.5 billion rubles, which is about 1.8 million tons of the state’s "black gold".

In the scheme of acquiring and legalizing coal of dubious origin from "black diggers" by LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt", several intermediary firms seem to be involved, created precisely for this purpose, registered to individuals controlled or affiliated with Renge, allowing the withdrawal of funds from illegal coal sales. Using the described scheme, over 8 billion rubles may have been drawn out from under the taxation radar and laundered.

It appears that in the operation scheme of LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt", the empire of Yuri Kocherinsky and his coal holding "TalTEK" is tightly intertwined, with one of its mines — JSC "Polyany" — continuously serving as a source of legalized "dubious" coal for the past five years. In JSC "Polyany" over the past several years, the shipment volumes significantly exceed the quantity of mined coal. The deficit in its own coal can be topped off through coal of unknown origin. From 2014 to 2018, the company shipped (including to LLC "ASR-Uglesbyt") 9 million tons of coal worth 15.5 billion rubles. 23% of the revenues (over 3.5 billion rubles, or about 2.1 million tons of sold coal) — are revenues from selling coal of unknown origin. To obtain "dubious" coal, JSC "Polyany" might use a scheme involving coal extraction with contracting organizations, operating even beyond license boundaries.

Meanwhile, Evgeny Renge’s business empire has only expanded. Back in 2016, he decided to organize a personal hub where he could consolidate coal, set up its processing, and manage loading it into rail cars for shipment to customers. It looks like he registered a new company LLC "Carbon-Ugol" (TIN 4217173535), leasing (later purchasing) part of the area belonging to JSC "Prokopyevsk Transport Management", located near the village of Shkolny in the Prokopyevsk district, where he established a round-the-clock operation of a production complex for processing and shipping coal to customers. Despite numerous local residents’ complaints citing the impossibility of living due to the environmental situation (constant release of coal soot, unsuitability of land and water sources, increased noise levels), the newly established company continues to prosper, increasing volumes of coal processing and shipping.

All known cases of selling such "dubious" coal, obvious signs of tax evasion and concealment by Renge’s companies, and potential environmental harm to the environment could long have been of interest to appropriate law enforcement agencies. But for some reason, they seem uninterested so far. Or perhaps we don’t know something yet?

Evgeny Renge, naturally, doesn’t attend public events involving government and supervisory authorities, and how could he? It seems he has hurriedly left Russia and manages his companies from abroad. The geographical span here is vast, including European countries (Poland, France, Italy) and the Middle East (UAE). Meanwhile, through his representatives, he claims that his business faces discrimination, which in particular prevents him from developing a new business direction — the machine-building cluster of the Kuzbass economy.

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In 2018, it appears he still managed to enter as a majority co-owner (through affiliated persons) into several companies of the well-known Kuzbass entrepreneur P.A. Savkin (LLC HC "Center for Transport Systems", LLC "Zavod Elektromashina", LLC "Transport Systems" LLC "Mining Technologies" and others), as well as taking control over coal sales from an asset in a state of bankruptcy formerly owned by the Coal Company "Zarechnaya" — LLC "Shakhtoupravlenie Karagaylinskoe" (the primary creditor being JSC "Gazprombank").

That’s the brief story of the rise of one of the modern Kuzbass entrepreneurs, who in pursuit of his goals is ready to take any action. For everything ends with impunity...