In the timeless movie The Golden Calf, Ostap Bender gave his protégé Koreyko a book called Capitalist Sharks, opening with the phrase, “Every major modern fortune has been earned through the most unscrupulous means.”
And the reaction to this book by Oleksandr Koreyko, who «at another time would have bought such an interesting little book himself, but now even grimaced in horror»?
That’s the association that comes to mind when reading the material «He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. How Rocket’s Investor is Linked to a High-Profile Fraud Case in Europe», published on dev.ua, and the reaction to this material from one of the main characters of the publication – Timur Rokhlin.
We recommend carefully reading the specified article at the link above – it’s very interesting, but it’s not only about Rokhlin, as it mentions a significant circle of people. They are all interconnected, and the main motive that unites them is banal scams, although it’s at least tens, if not hundreds, of millions of euros.
But in this case, we are interested specifically in Timur Rokhlin, so let’s briefly recall the sequence of events in the context of his persona. The chain of events began to unfold at the beginning of 2020 in the little-known German city of Bamberg, where the prosecutor’s office launched an investigation into the activities of a group of certain Israeli and Ukrainian citizens who fraudulently obtained several tens of millions of euros from trusting European pensioners under the pretense of investing money in precious metals, real estate, and cryptocurrencies.
Enterprising fraudsters created «exchange» websites where trusting «investors» were shown their investments’ enormous growth. But when attempting to cash out the profits, it turned out that the «investor» had to pay a 15% commission, only after which they could withdraw both the earned and invested money.
What happened next, you can probably guess – after paying the «commission», which for some reason wasn’t deducted from the investment account but had to be paid additionally, all contacts with the «investor» were cut off, and naturally, they did not receive any money at all – neither the mythical «profit» nor the very real investments that were transferred to the fraudsters’ accounts at the very beginning.
That’s a concise version of the scheme. What is notable about this simple yet brilliant scam is that the money was not transferred offshore, as one might think, but to Ukraine. And, as it turned out, most of the scheme’s organizers hold Ukrainian passports, as strange as that may sound. This was reported by one of the scheme’s participants, police informant Alexander Ignyatevich, a Serb, a few days before his death from a strange heart attack.
This is why the German prosecutor’s office turned to the Ukrainian authorities for help. Surprisingly, the latter worked quite professionally, and by December 2020, arrests and searches had been conducted in Ukraine among the suspects. It was here that Timur Rokhlin’s name and the Rocket delivery service surfaced.
This name came to light due to the panic that arose in the wife of one of the detainees in criminal case No. 62020100000000583, initiated on the grounds of discovered fraud, Igor Kozlenko. The fact is, she created a Facebook page «Justice for Igor Kozlenko» after her husband’s arrest, where she attempted to clear his name. In these attempts, she posted a screenshot of the title page of the request from Bamberg’s prosecutor’s office to Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s Office:
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
In this document, the Germans requested an additional investigation «regarding fraud committed on a professional basis by a criminal organization» relating to several individuals, including Timur Rokhlin.
Law enforcement authorities (both German and Ukrainian) are quite sparing in details in this regard, but in the age of the Internet, some of these details quickly became public knowledge, which, of course, did not please Rokhlin himself, but nothing could be done about it.
Yes, the public learned that in the course of the investigation of the aforementioned criminal case No. 62020100000000583, the following property was seized:
1. LLC «Spectorg», owned by Israeli citizen Igor Rokhlin, Timur Rokhlin’s father. According to cadastral numbers provided in the case, the company owns a private house of 1,408 sq. m. in the village of Kozyn, located right on the banks of the Dnipro River. The arrest was lifted from this company at the end of July 2021 by the appellate court.
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
2. LLC «Ukrdonstroyniyi». The ultimate beneficiary is Igor Rokhlin. The company owns office real estate totaling 1,694 sq. m. in a business center at Sychovykh Striltsiv St., 62. The arrest of the company was lifted by a decision of the appellate court at the beginning of August 2021.
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
3. LLC «Building Empire» (the ultimate beneficiary is Igor Rokhlin), which owns a non-residential building in Podil (853 sq. m) at Borysoglibska St., 15B. This address houses the BeeWorking coworking space. The appellate court in July 2021 decided to leave the decision of the first instance unchanged. The arrest has not been lifted; court proceedings continue.
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
4. «Renome Rent» – an office center at Dilova St., 5, covering 11 thousand square meters. The arrest was also not challenged. Court proceedings continue, and Rokhlin’s lawyers are quite active.
Now go back up a bit and pay attention to the photo of the house in Kozyn owned by «Spectorg». And compare it to this:
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
And with the video posted by the Prosecutor General’s Office on their Youtube:
It was in the garage with the round roof that the collection of cars bought by fraudsters with their income from «investment» activities was seized:
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
At that time, law enforcement seized a fleet of 8 elite-class cars: Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Mercedes Benz, and other well-known brands. Among them (as seen in the video) is a 2020 Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster worth 650 thousand euros, which Timur Rokhlin drove:
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
In addition to this information, the following was also established. As is known, after the scandal, the company Rocket claims that Timur Rokhlin is not connected with it. But here is the history of the company’s ownership changes:
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
The name Igor Rokhlin (that’s Timur’s father, let’s remind) runs like a red thread through its history, along with Timur Rokhlin, «Ridgewood Holdings Ltd», and the Cypriot «Tisea Fresh Food Ltd». And judging by the latest changes in beneficiaries, it seems that Timur Rokhlin is not related to Company Rocket, and the beneficiary of «Tisea Fresh Food Ltd», which owns Rocket, is Igor Rokhlin.
But it’s not that simple. To prevent the reader from getting confused with all these offshore entities owning each other and the structure of true beneficiaries hidden in complex ownership structures, we will explain as simply as possible: before, the founder of the food delivery service «Rocket Delivery» (TM Rocket, Raketa) was «Homeland Ukraine». Then – «Ridgewood Holdings Ltd», benefiting from which, Timur Rokhlin was listed. Now, TM Rocket is controlled by another structure - the Cypriot company «Tisea Fresh Food Ltd». But in reality, the main ultimate beneficiary remains the same – Rokhlin Sr. (Igor) (86% of the capital). So why is Timur Rokhlin linked to Company Rocket, instead of his father, Igor?
The thing is, at the time of investing in Rocket, a material appeared in the Ukrainian Forbes which said that Timur Rokhlin bought the service Rocket, «because he couldn’t find anyone to deliver food to him». It’s a beautiful story, but the question arises – where did the money come from?
And here we return once again to the investigation of the German prosecutors from Bamberg and the criminal case opened by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office. For according to the investigation, Timur Rokhlin took the money to purchase «Rocket Delivery» directly from the «investment» activity he was involved in. And he (as well as the rest) faced a problem – where to invest the millions received from successful scams. As mentioned earlier, the fraudsters decided to invest their money in Ukraine because they weren’t worried about anyone being interested in the money’s origin here.
According to the investigation, only from September 2018 to March 2020 did 35.9 million euros supposedly from criminal activities arrive in the account of the British company Remini Consulting LP. Allegedly, 10.8 million euros of it were transferred to the accounts of RIJV Holdings Ltd (Great Britain). This company had been controlled since October 2018 by Timur Rokhlin.
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
Interestingly, it is stated that he is a citizen of Israel, although Timur Rokhlin himself, as well as investigation materials, claim he is a Ukrainian citizen. Nevertheless, there are no contradictions – he simply holds two passports, even though Ukrainian law does not permit dual citizenship. This is yet another question for law enforcement officers.
The materials of the investigation published state that in 2019, RIJV Holdings Ltd became a founder of several companies in Ukraine: «Ukrdonstroynii», «Beeworking» (BeeWorking coworking network), «Beconstruct» (office center at Dilova, 5A), «Buildings Empire», «Arnas Group», «Podil Group», «Homeland Ukraine». The current ultimate beneficiary of all these companies is Igor Rokhlin, Timur’s father.
This happened because, in 2020, in order to hide assets acquired with funds from criminal activities, Timur Rokhlin re-registered control of these business entities to his father’s structures. At least, this is stated by the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Overall, it turns out that the Israeli Rokhlin family owns elite real estate in the center of Ukraine’s capital, spanning tens of thousands of square meters. This is not counting the plot in the equally elite Kozyn, with access to the Dnipro. The family also owns several firms, some of which we have already mentioned.
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
Remarkably, all these companies appeared in Ukraine precisely in the period after 2017, that is, just when German law enforcement claimed that a group of fraudsters, with which the scandal associated with Timur Rokhlin and delivery service Rocket began, had started operations in Europe.
Of course, this could just be a coincidence. But how to explain another coincidence – immediately after the material about Timur Rokhlin appeared on the dev.ua platform (from which our investigation began), dev.ua underwent a massive DDoS attack. Furthermore, Timur Rokhlin filed several lawsuits against them. The latter was supposed to confirm that dev.ua published false information, yet Rokhlin made rather odd demands: «to oblige actions and compensate for moral damages»:
From scam with fake exchanges to bankruptcy: how Timur Rokhlin destroyed Rocket with criminal money
Moral damages are somewhat understandable, but what actions exactly is Timur Rokhlin demanding «to be performed»? Cancel the criminal proceedings initiated by the German prosecutor’s office? Remove his name from the official German request that directly names him as involved in the giant scam? Remove his name from the registers of tens of thousands of meters of Kyiv real estate owners? Remove his name from the list of TM «Rocket Delivery» beneficiaries?
Nevertheless, we will wait for the court’s decision. Not regarding Rokhlin’s lawsuit, but the investigation of the activities of an organized group of international fraudsters. Influencing its decision, as well as the investigation, will be rather difficult for Timur Rokhlin – despite any domestic juridical corruption, we should not forget about the Germans who initiated the investigation. And while Ukrainian courts and law enforcement can be quite inexpensively bought, this is not likely to work with law-abiding Germans.
Finally, one last touch on the portrait of «investor» Timur Rokhlin: there was no public mention of him in the «startup he saved from the trash heap», namely Rocket, describing their primary beneficiary as «the third partner». This gives plenty of food for thought, does it not?
Author: Maria Sharapova
