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Human rights foundation had dodgy connections, claims weekly

PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek 28.08.2018 15:25
The Open Dialogue Foundation, which is based in Poland and aims to support people oppressed by former USSR countries, is funded by tax haven companies and has dodgy connections with Eastern European oligarchs, Poland’s Sieci weekly magazine has reported.
Lyudmyla Kozlovska and Bartosz Kramek as pictured in the Sieci weekly's report entitled "Dirty money for Polish maidan".Lyudmyla Kozlovska and Bartosz Kramek as pictured in the Sieci weekly's report entitled "Dirty money for Polish maidan".

The foundation has come under fire since its president, Ukrainian human rights activist Lyudmyla Kozlovska, was expelled by Poland from the Schengen area earlier this month.

Sieci reported that Kozlovska travelled to Brussels, where the Open Dialogue Foundation has an office, where she was detained at the airport after passport control said she was not allowed to enter the Schengen area.

The weekly said it found information connected to Open Dialogue which could explain why Polish authorities put Kozlovska’s name in the Schengen Information System used to control the area’s external border, adding that a lot of it was connected to her Polish husband, Bartosz Kramek, who called for a “rebellion to overthrow the government”.

The weekly reported that in 2014, Kozlovska and Kramek made themselves appear to be the main source of support for Ukraine’s opposition during Euromaidan demonstrations, adding that it was clear that the pair was trying to make themselves appear as young, fun, energetic and trustworthy in the Polish public opinion.

Sieci quoted the CEO of Belarusian-language broadcaster TV Biełsat Agnieszka Romaszewska, who the magazine said was an expert in Eastern European affairs, as saying that Kozlovska’s foundation was “exceptionally brazen” in its self-promotion, adding that Open Dialogue’s staff lacked the passion usually characteristic of people in aid organisations.

“One way or another, a quiet foundation grew and became important, and its main activists, while Kramek at the helm, kept a low profile. Until suddenly they stepped forward and went ahead giving advice on how to make a Polish ‘maidan’,” Sieci quoted Romaszewska as saying.

“In one move it confirmed everything: that all the ‘maidans’ are the work of specialized services in the West ... that Ukrainians are trying to fuel an anti-government coup in Poland, and that behind it all is some trans-national leftist-liberal organization with [Hungarian-American billionaire George] Soros at its helm”, Romaszewska added, according to Sieci.

The magazine continued quoting Romaszewka, who said Kramek stepped into the limelight from relative obscurity after last year publishing a 16-point plan for “turning off the government” – which incited people to “paralyse the state’s functioning” by not paying taxes, having teachers and judges go on strike, holding constant street protests, ostracising people associated with Poland’s political right, especially the governing Law and Justice party, and specifically taunting its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, outside his Warsaw home – thus positioning himself as a highly involved political activist, and his wife’s organization as a major defender of democracy in Poland.

Sieci reported that Kramek’s “aim was clear: to bring about bloody demonstrations and overthrow the government. It failed,” but that does not mean his followers have changed their goals, the weekly added.

The weekly also suggested that dirty money was fuelling Kozlovska’s foundation.

According to Sieci, the Open Dialogue Foundation was set up in late 2009 by two men, then aged 28 and 29, each of whom put PLN 5,000 into the organisation.

Kozlovska and Kramek joined the organisation later, Sieci said.

But the weekly noted that one of the founders, Iwan Szerstiuk, had run a consultancy company in Kiev, Kharkiv, and Kozlovska’s hometown of Sevastopol.

The magazine added that Szerstiuk had been accused of supporting Mukhtar Ablyazov’s party in elections, during which he should have been an “observer”, and was thus deported from Kazakhstan.

He later tried to influence the result of 2008 elections in Georgia, where he was also supposed to be an “independent observer”, Sieci added.

The weekly also claims that Szerstiuk had been detained in Lviv on charges of ordering the contract killing of someone who owed him money.

Sieci reported that the Open Dialogue Foundation’s past showed that it was a “lobby for hire” organisation which defended very rich people from former Soviet countries who had been accused of embezzlement in their home countries, among them the aforementioned Ablyazov, who is wanted in Kazakhstan for defrauding a bank.

The Open Dialogue Foundation stepped in to defend Ablyazov, who had escaped to France but faced extradition, saying that Ablyazov faced torture and possible death if he returned to his native Kazakhstan, Sieci reported.

Sieci claimed that Ablyazov’s case was not a one-off; the foundation also tried - but failed - to protect Nail Malyutin from extradition from Austria after he was wanted in Russia for allegedly extorting millions of dollars from a state leasing company.

The weekly also reported that, through direct and indirect donations, Ablyazov was at one time one of the Open Dialogue Foundation’s main financial backers, though Sieci added that Kramek and Kozlovska both vehemently deny the claim, saying most of the foundation’s funding comes from charity drives and donations from family and friends.

Sieci uncovered that one donation to the Open Dialogue Foundation, worth USD 20,000 was made by Leila Krapunov, the mother in law of Ablyazov’s daughter.

The Polish weekly also claimed to have heard reports that Ablyazov was funnelling money into the foundation via Szerstiuk and Kozlovska’s brother, Petro Kozlovski, who paid up to USD 1 million to the foundation each year.

Kozlovska previously claimed that her brother’s donations came from fundraising and his own income, Sieci reported, adding that Kozlovski earned money by taking over a manufacturer of lighting for ships for the Russian navy, and from the sale of real estate.

Sieci also reported that Poland’s Internal Security Agency spokesman Stanisław Żaryn said that Kozlovska was not allowed to enter Poland or the European Union because of “serious doubts about the financing of the Open Dialogue Foundation”.

The weekly reported that it investigated the Silk Road Bureau of Analysis and Information business consultancy, which has its office in the same Warsaw building as the Open Dialogue Foundation and is run by Kramek with Kozlovska his deputy.

Sieci also said there were links between other companies and Silk Road and Open Dialogue, indicating a few names which appeared in common between some of their management boards, and because of shared parent companies.

The weekly also claimed that Silk Road reported losses almost every year since Kramek took over; that Kramek repeatedly increased the company’s capital using his own funds; and that Silk Road sub-leased some of its office space to the Open Dialogue Foundation for “just” PLN 1.

Kramek, both individually and on behalf of Silk Road, also made numerous donations to Open Dialogue, as did Kozlovska, who earned money as a Silk Road employee, Sieci reported, adding that the consultancy gave staff significant pay rises under Kramek’s leadership.

What income Silk Road did make often came from Western Union transfers which are difficult to trace, Sieci reported, but the weekly said it did trace a number of transactions which appeared dodgy.

A significant Silk Road client appeared to be Kariastra Project LP, a Scottish company without a website or phone number, registered at the same address as hundreds of other firms, which gave Silk Road PLN 3.2 million, Sieci reported.

Another, with PLN 1.5 million in donations to Silk Road, was Stoppard Consulting LLP, which is no longer existent but which was made up of four tax haven companies, one of which was allegedly part of the Panama Papers scandal and two of which were parts of groups which the US investigation company Kroll, hired by Chișinău, said cheated Moldova’s banking sector out of USD 1 million, Sieci added.

Sieci claimed that behind the operation in Moldova was Ilan Shor, who managed Moldovan bank Banca de Economii at the age of 27, is one of Moldova’s richest men, owns the Milsami Orhei football club, and was put under house arrest on suspicions of involvement in the bank scandal, but went on to become mayor of Orhei.

According to the Romanian Intelligence Service, Shor helped Russia launder some USD 20 billion in 2012-2014, which he moved from Russia via Moldova to companies in tax havens and the European Union, Sieci reported.

Sixty-one journalists from a number of countries investigated the money laundering, Sieci reported, and found that about USD 9 million of the USD 20 billion went to Poland, with PLN 21,000 going to the European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis think tank, whose secretary general, Mateusz Piskorski, is under arrest on suspicions of spying for Russia.

The international team of investigative journalists found that a number of transfers went through the aforementioned Scottish firm Stoppard Consulting Ltd, while Moldovan bank Moldindconbank was used for transferring funds, the weekly reported, adding that the bank was run by Wiaczesław Platon, an oligarch with ties to the Russian establishment who was sentenced in Chișinău to 18 years in jail for laundering Russian money, USD 50 million of which he used to line his own pockets.

Platon ended up being extradited from Ukraine to Moldova, which Kozlovska in 2016 said was illegal, Sieci said.

The weekly added that Platon’s defence lawyer, Ana Ursachi, is a close partner of Open Dialogue and that the foundation claimed that she is being oppressed by Moldova.

Poland’s Internal Security Agency declined to confirm Sieci’s findings, the weekly said, but was quoted as saying: “One of the angles taken by the chief of the [agency] while preparing his opinion on Lyudmyla Kozlovska was the financing of the Open Dialogue Foundation by companies registered in tax havens, among them companies involved in extorting money from Moldova’s banking sector and companies described in the so-called Panama Papers case”.

Sieci reported that its sources claimed that Kozlovska was a threat to security in Poland.

The weekly added that Polish investigators worked with special services from the US, Ukraine and Romania.

The Polish weekly claimed that Open Dialogue might also face problems with the Polish tax office, if it claimed as tax-free more income that it should have in its corporate income tax return forms, adding that the foundation claimed PLN 347,698.34 in 2016, more than PLN 1 million the year before and nearly PLN 900,000 in 2014.

Meanwhile, Open Dialogue’s money transfers and tax exemption claims are being investigated by Polish tax officers.

Sieci reported that Polish authorities are investigating Kramek and Kozlovska and do not at this time suspect them of spying for Russia, but have not ruled the option out.

Source: Sieci

tags: russian spy
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