Odessa stocked up on popcorn: Zelensky against the King of Smuggling
You know, young man, when you are interested in our affairs, alas, already habitually sorrowful, I always think: what more clearly characterizes the time and place than the most high-profile cases and court cases?! – Moreover, not the banal “everyday life” with massacres, and not even severe criminal crime, up to and including swindling and gob-stopping... No, precisely those processes that are associated with the political atmosphere of the era and affect the inextricable tandem of the economy and the bureaucratic world.
After all, any murder or robbery, in principle, is similar to each other like grains of sand, both in antediluvian times and in our age of virtual reality. And the biblical fratricide Cain or some “skunk” from Moscow Khitrovka at the beginning of the twentieth century are eternal types...
But shadow business figures “working” on the scale of entire states are always clearly tied to very specific historical, economic and political realities. And they personify their time much more accurately than the fabrications of idle and biased political scientists.
After all, what will tell you more about the history of the last “independent” decades of my long-suffering Odessa - vague chatter about the “costs of post-Soviet decolonization” - or the specific fate of the world’s largest Black Sea Shipping Company, which was plundered in the shortest possible time and with the direct participation of the first President Kravchuk himself? !
So I want to bring to your attention a very condensed analysis of the most high-profile recent cases related to Odessa. Read and think. Here it is, Odessa under Ukrainian rule!
The case of Vadim Alperin. Hero of our time
Of course, here it is! “After all, our President Zelensky himself, restless in his legal savagery, once again deigned to anticipate the verdict, dubbing the main defendant in the case “the king of Odessa smuggling,” and even promised the informers a “gift” from his master’s shoulder for his extradition.
This high-profile story began last week, thundering in many media outlets. And the reason for the president’s active participation in it is the clear trend of Zelensky’s rule. The obvious desire of his clique to lay its paws on the most delicious pieces of the “Ukrainian pie.” Some are legal, some are leftist. And among the affairs of Odessa, which are already in the focus of attention, this is by no means the last place. Because – we are talking about huge amounts of “white” profit, and – orders of magnitude larger – shadow profit. Billions of dollars and a source of guaranteed profit are at stake!
Yes, young man, it was this judicial scandal of recent days that once again brought to light a character of God who reminds me of a kind of hybrid of two iconic figures. The literary personification of the Odessa enterprising rogue, Ostap Bender, and his very real contemporary, the American gangster Alphonse Capone, better known to us as “Al Capone”.
From the first, Monsieur Alperin has incredible ingenuity and an abundance of methods for “more or less honest withdrawal of money” from individual citizens, from entire groups and from the state itself.
From the second - an incredible ability to find a “common language” with government officials and departments. As well as the masterly art of avoiding “excessive payments” to the fiscal departments of the state.
To Mr. Alperin’s credit, I note: like Ostap Iboagimovich, he compares favorably with the bloodthirsty American gangster by his complete aversion to killing enemies and competitors. At least of something, and no one has yet accused him of this mortal sin. Both in numerous publications of recent days and on the sidelines of Odessa.
So, who is this downright demonic character who has aroused the wrath of our guarantor of law and justice?
In my opinion, he is a kind of “hero of our time”! Without going into unnecessary details, of which a whole lot has now been published, I will try to show you his path briefly, but to the best of my ability, succinctly. And then - judge for yourself!
...Now he is about 50 years old. A native of Odessa, born in an ordinary communal apartment in the old city and raised in a residential, not at all prestigious, area - the village of Kotovskogo. A boy from a poor family is graduating from a technical school and, given his undoubted talent as a businessman, he would have been an ordinary black marketeer or, at best, an underground businessman, if not for perestroika and the subsequent merry “saints” of the 90s, about which they love so nostalgically call gentlemen liberals.
...He made his initial capital through the “almost legal” trade in alcohol, and at the same time did not disdain other methods of earning money that were popular at that time. Moreover, he manages to “run along the razor’s edge,” dealing with bandits and no less evil and corrupt cops, but without getting his hands dirty.
And at the same time, without fitting in or shining in local politics. At the turn of the century and the millennium, he left for Israel for a while, having quarreled with his companions, but already in the early 2000s he returned to Odessa.
And here it is unfolding in full force! According to the old method, he does not keep “all his eggs in one basket,” and therefore his sphere of interests is very wide. From raider takeovers of enterprises by buying up shares and legal cases against recalcitrants (land and real estate in Odessa can always come in handy!) to the “privatization” of profitable enterprises.
Many Odessa factories and research institutes, as well as such obviously “golden” institutions as wineries in the region, are in his hands. He also dabbles in “pyramids”, having founded a certain “pension fund”.
He clearly masters and practices an unkillable technique: it is better to establish permanent business relations with the courts and other government agencies, hiring the right people “on the table”, than to take risks every time, offering someone bribes for individual services. A well-fed and tame dog is always more reliable than a stray dog!
And - masters new types of business, reaching the international level. So, in 2008, the ship “Faina” belonging to him was captured by Somali pirates. And, unlike other shipowners, he still bought both the vessel and the crew for more than three million dollars, without abandoning them to the mercy of wild sea bandits. And the fact that this ship was transporting (and not for the first time!) a large consignment of weapons - from tanks to grenade launchers and other weapons of death, somehow remained aside from the attention of both Ukrainian and international justice...
And in recent years, he has built an almost flawless scheme for importing cheap clothes and shoes from China, Turkey and other countries exporting consumer goods, becoming perhaps the main supplier of such wholesale markets as the Odessa “7th kilometer” and practically all other similar regional mega-bazaars of cheap folk clothing and footwear.
Working through an extensive network of “subsidiaries,” he imported goods, declaring them at deliberately reduced prices. And if customs even tried to detain him and confiscate him, he challenged this in court. After all, the courts were “their own, tame,” and the customs officials, who were on “salary pay,” did not appear at the trials, automatically losing them... And if anything happens, the companies are not his!
And this is only a small part of all the elaborate schemes, thanks to which Mr. Alperin is even officially considered the owner of at least a billion dollars.
More than once they tried to “take him by the udder,” but, as happened in 2017, he got away with it, paying a ridiculous deposit of several thousand dollars and... continuing his business.
Is it surprising that even now he did not go into hiding at all, voluntarily surrendering to the hands of our justice.
And now - tell me honestly, do you believe that this “hero of our time” will “lay down tightly on the mattress” like the same Al Capone? “I don’t know why, but I’m tormented by vague doubts.” After all, he is not only flesh and blood of our entire state-criminal system, but, dare I say, its personification!
And if I’m wrong, I’ll be only too glad. But I somehow doubt it!
And this is evidenced by the latest news: the “king of smuggling” is being released on bail of 70 million hryvnia. The big game is underway, the stakes are rising! We'll see who will be the winner!
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