Oleg Voronin, son of Moldova's president and the richest man in Europe's poorest country, shown on the cover of VIP-MagazinSon of Moldova's president defends his riches: "I don't steal other companies"
The richest man in Moldova is the son of the president. At the same time, the country just happens to be the poorest in Europe. Coincidence?
07/Mar/2007
By Karen Ryan
The Tirapol Times (Moldova Republic)
CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - He is the richest man in Moldova. His name: Oleg Voronin. A biologist, and the son of a former Soviet-era General, Vladimir Voronin, today leader of the Communist Party and the Communist President of Moldova.
Under Papa Voronin's rule, two things happened in Moldova: With spiralling poverty and record emigration out of control, the country officially got classified as a failed state in 2006. At the same time, Oleg Voronin's business empire expanded like never before, making him the richest man in Europe's poorest country.
Meanwhile, Moldova - with Voronin as its leader - has kept up a smear campaign against Pridnestrovie, discrediting the unrecognized country and its elected leaders. Many in Tiraspol ask if this is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and now some in Chisinau are beginning to ask themselves the same.
By now, it has long been well-documented that there are no ownership ties between Igor Smirnov or his sons Oleg and Vladimir to large Pridnestrovie firms such as 'Sheriff Ltd' or 'Green'. In contrast, ties between Vladimir Voronin or his son Oleg and a number of large Moldova firms are well known and no longer denied by the family.
Today, while admitting ownership and control of large holdings in Moldova, the younger Voronin now merely limits his defense to saying that he obtained the businesses legally and that his enormous wealth is not the result of corruption.
Oleg Voronin: "There's no family corruption"
In a just-published interview with Chisinau's VIP-Magazin, the Moldovan president's son maintains that he is not an usurper of other people's businesses. In the interview, Oleg Voronin said that he does not, in a dishonest way, take over the businesses of others. He said that he was "shocked" at such ridiculous and ungrounded gossip.
" - They say, for example, that I am withdrawing the marshroutkas [route taxi minibuses] currently working in Chisinau's city streets in order to replace them with my vehicles. They also claim that I have allegedly bought up the companies of the fast food chain Andy's Pizza, Supraten, and DAAC-Hermes. That's delirious. I stand ready to expose and energetically combat every effort of the banditry businesses that are being imputed to me, or, rather, to my dad - President Voronin", the younger Voronin said.
" - Those around President Voronin are all honest citizens of Moldova," he said, adding that "any 'family corruption' is absolutely out of the question."
" - I know what business is for an entrepreneur. This is your life, and that's why I do not accept treating other people's businesses in such a [usurping] way, like I shall never let anyone treat my business so, either", said the President's son.
But not everyone agrees. Moldova's own "Centrul de Investigatii Jurnalistice" (Investigative Journalism Center) looked into Vladimir Voronin's dealings and, despite heavy official secrecy, concluded that he promoted clan interests and what can most kindly be described as shady business.
During Vladimir Voronin's presidency, his son, Oleg Voronin, quickly became Moldova's most successful businessman. He and persons from his entourage took over the control over most of the country's profitable business sectors, including, but not limited to, large holdings in energy, financial/banking, constructions, sugar and the lucrative wine and brandy industry, according to the Center's report.
The Center states that with Voronin in the presidency, companies and government entities transferred their finances to to “FinComBank”, a bank owned by Voronin's son Oleg, and whose Chairman of the Board of Directors is also Oleg Voronin. Charity money, like that earmarked for reconstructing Moldova's Căpriana monastery, also ended up in the Voronin-family's bank. When the General Prosecutor’s Office began investigating, it was told in no uncertain terms to back off and the case never saw a satisfactory conclusion. Three other criminal cases involving companies owned by Oleg Voronin also never got off the ground, leading the Investigative Journalism Center to use the clear term "companies protected by Voronin".
Unlikely business-success
He has his Daddy's eyes, say those who known him. That is one of the few good things they can say about Oleg Voronin. His classmates from Class of 1984, Chisinau's State University, would never had thought that the slow kid with the bad grades would become Moldova's richest man less than twenty years later.
Oleg, who graduated as a biology major, got his first job with a dusty non-profit called Vierul. The mediocre biologist hang around the college campus for most of the nineteen-eighties, doing some postgraduate work in the university's biophysics lab, and, in 1988, establishing with some other academics a so called Laboratory Cooperative to look for better yields in milk production.
The Voronin family first got involved in serious business in 1993. That year, Oleg Voronin obtained control of the Bricansky sugar plant in a privatization scheme. The son of the country's most prominent Communist leader promptly fired hundreds of workers and was for a few years known in the local press as "Moldova's Sugar King."
Also in 1993, Oleg Voronin found $50,000 and applied for a banking license. For the past 14 years, he has been head of his own bank, FinComBank, which from humble beginnings has now grown into becoming one of Moldova's largest and most powerful financial institutions.
Opposition journalists in Moldova have frequently claimed, but not been able to provide any proof, that while Vladimir Voronin was a Soviet general and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the former Moldavian SSR, he siphoned off 34 million rubles and "parked" it with a Stasi friend in a party office in the DDR. Later, that same money appeared for use by Oleg Voronin through a German shell company with the unfortunate name of Orbit GMBH.
Money in Orbit
In 1996, as part of that year's election campaign, the Communist Party of China arranged an aid shipment of medicines to be distributed for free to the poor and elderly in Moldova by the Communist Party of Moldova. The cargo, with a value estimated at $1.5m, was instead diverted to a a company called Orbit Enterprises Ltd and, from there, ended up on the store shelves of pharmacies throughout Moldova. Then, just like now, Vladimir Voronin was head of the Communist Party of Moldova. The selling of humanitarian aid went unpunished, but caused the Chinese to recall their Ambassador from Chisinau.
A similar pattern was seen when, during the visit to Cuba, the Communist leader obtained more than one hundred tons of sugar in aid for Moldova. Instead of bringing the sugar to Moldova, as planned, the load was instead diverted to Kaliningrad and sold in the open market by Orbit Enterprises Ltd.
Orbit Enterprises Ltd is the successor to Orbit Gmbh, and is an offshore shell company registered in Gibraltar, a sunny-but-shady tax haven. Company documents lodged with Chases Manhattan in New York reveal that the firm's beneficiary owner was Oleg Voronin. In both the medicines and the sugar deals, the money was ended up in a Swiss bank account controlled by Oleg Voronin, having first been transferred to Chase Manhattan in New York and then re-routed to #1-841897, Uberseebank, CH-8024 Zurich, Switzerland, for final credit to Orbit Enterprises Ltd.
Family business
The Voronin name has long been tied to Moldova's lucrative wine exports. The firm Wine International Project (WIP) is another offshore holding, established in 1994 in Nicosia, Cyprus. Through WIP, Oleg Voronin now owns the Garling Collection, one of Moldova's leading export brands of wines and spirits.
According to information provided by Garling corporate press office, to date the company has more than 2,000 hectares of wholly-owned vineyards in one of the most favorable zones in Moldova in terms of soil composition and climatic conditions.
Father and son have often tried to downplay their tentacles in the world of Moldovan business. Oleg Voronin himself has often stated that his only business activities are concentrated in FinComBank, and that any other business activities tied to him and his father are fictious.
When his father, President Voronin, was asked a question at a press conference about his son's businesses, he answered that "basically, my son is really not involved in business. He is a biologist by education, he majored in the protection of plants and has worked on the development of a project to produce mineral fertilizers."
Apart from Oleg Voronin's FinComBank, he also owns a large publishing empire with some of the best-known media titles in Chisinau under his control. And the list of companies which the opposition links to Voronin is longer than just FinComBank and his publishing interests. It includes Garling Collection, Jolly Allon, Zahar, Transline (shipping), Orbit (sale of sugar and medicine), Trimol (passport manufacturing), M.S.I. Trading Company, Metal Market, MedAzur, Andys Pizza, Boena Group and a number of others.
But it wasn't until 2001, when Vladimir Voronin became Moldova's President, that the family business really took off.
Foreign press reports now put the monthly turnover of Oleg Voronin at $30 million from imports of oil and gasoline, alcohol, cigarettes and a number of goods and products on government contracts. It also states that he has a stake in a Moldovan-Romanian car joint venture, DEU, and that he until recently had the contract to manufacture Moldova's passports through a company named Trimol. The family also had a stake in Chisinau's wellknown Jolly Allon hotel, and - through a company named Zahar - controls a large portion of Moldova's sugar exports.
Like many international businessmen, Oleg Voronin prefers the use of foreign-registered companies. One of his firms, bearing the name of M.S.I. Trading Company, is located in Iasi in Romania. Others are pure offshore plays, with brassplate registrations in Gibraltar, Bahamas and Cyprus. Through one of his Gibraltar entities, Oleg Voronin handled a public procurement contract for coal deliveries to Moldova.
Moldova's own Centrul de Investigatii Jurnalistice has publicly stated that the companies protected by Voronin and by those around him have been involved in public scandals related to smuggling.
Nevertheless, the president’s son is still one of the most prominent businessmen in the country, and, says the Center, the companies owned by Oleg Voronin are in control of the most advantageous state contracts and orders. According to the Center, in Moldova the government lets this happen without the organization of public tenders.
How to make money in a failed state
In June 2006, Moldova was officially placed on the Failed State Index. The index, compiled in Washington DC, is a select list of places with serious governance problems. In its ranking, Moldova scored even worse than Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America.
Economically, Moldova ranked equal to Afghanistan and Sudan ... and, on average, much worse than most of the failed African countries on the list. In terms of human rights, it tied with Eritrea for the "honors" of an equally terrible human rights record; just a step below Cambodia and Sierra Leone.
All of this bad news didn't prevent the Voronin family from making money like never before. In 2006, Vladimir Voronin set his sights on Pridnestrovie, or Transnistria as his government prefers to call it. Through his reintegration ministry, he announced that privatizations done in Transnistria were "illegal" and would be undone once Moldova took control of the region.
The announcement was not lost on current owners of companies in Pridnestrovie: If a joint state with Moldova ever happens, their right to private property would be in danger. With Moldova openly telling them in advance that earlier privatizations would not be recognized by the Moldovan government as valid, the new owners feared a renationalization and subsequent transfer to none other than Oleg Voronin.
" - I guess that is one way to make money," said the owner of textile factory the same week the announcement was made.
" - You pass a law saying that everything done before you arrived to the scene is now illegal. Then you redo the whole thing and pocket the cash."
Predictably, no single business owner in Pridnestrovie is in favor of a joint state or common state with Moldova. Many businesses openly campaigned for independence and sovereign statehood in Pridnestrovie's 17 September 2006 independence referendum.
Pridnestrovie declared independence in 1990 and has functioned as a de facto independent state for nearly 17 years. Its strongly independent-minded population is mostly Slav, but even its ethnic Moldovan minority has no wish to integrate with Moldova in a common state. Voters overwhelmingly prefer independence and have expressed their wish to see Pridnestrovie recognized internationally as a sovereign, independent state.
" - What Moldova does is up to them. Keep stealing and running your country into the ground," says one voter, a Rybnitsa resident of 44. "Just don't force us to be part of your mess."
Refusing to become part of a failed state, officially Europe's poorest country and what many here see as a kleptocracy, voters in Pridnestrovie prefer independence. The new and emerging country of 555,000 inhabitants has decided that independent statehood is the best way forward and is currently seeking formal diplomatic recognition and integration into the international community. (With information from Infotag)
The richest man in Moldova is the son of the president. At the same time, the country just happens to be the poorest in Europe. Coincidence?
07/Mar/2007
By Karen Ryan
The Tirapol Times (Moldova Republic)
CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - He is the richest man in Moldova. His name: Oleg Voronin. A biologist, and the son of a former Soviet-era General, Vladimir Voronin, today leader of the Communist Party and the Communist President of Moldova.
Under Papa Voronin's rule, two things happened in Moldova: With spiralling poverty and record emigration out of control, the country officially got classified as a failed state in 2006. At the same time, Oleg Voronin's business empire expanded like never before, making him the richest man in Europe's poorest country.
Meanwhile, Moldova - with Voronin as its leader - has kept up a smear campaign against Pridnestrovie, discrediting the unrecognized country and its elected leaders. Many in Tiraspol ask if this is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and now some in Chisinau are beginning to ask themselves the same.
By now, it has long been well-documented that there are no ownership ties between Igor Smirnov or his sons Oleg and Vladimir to large Pridnestrovie firms such as 'Sheriff Ltd' or 'Green'. In contrast, ties between Vladimir Voronin or his son Oleg and a number of large Moldova firms are well known and no longer denied by the family.
Today, while admitting ownership and control of large holdings in Moldova, the younger Voronin now merely limits his defense to saying that he obtained the businesses legally and that his enormous wealth is not the result of corruption.
Oleg Voronin: "There's no family corruption"
In a just-published interview with Chisinau's VIP-Magazin, the Moldovan president's son maintains that he is not an usurper of other people's businesses. In the interview, Oleg Voronin said that he does not, in a dishonest way, take over the businesses of others. He said that he was "shocked" at such ridiculous and ungrounded gossip.
" - They say, for example, that I am withdrawing the marshroutkas [route taxi minibuses] currently working in Chisinau's city streets in order to replace them with my vehicles. They also claim that I have allegedly bought up the companies of the fast food chain Andy's Pizza, Supraten, and DAAC-Hermes. That's delirious. I stand ready to expose and energetically combat every effort of the banditry businesses that are being imputed to me, or, rather, to my dad - President Voronin", the younger Voronin said.
" - Those around President Voronin are all honest citizens of Moldova," he said, adding that "any 'family corruption' is absolutely out of the question."
" - I know what business is for an entrepreneur. This is your life, and that's why I do not accept treating other people's businesses in such a [usurping] way, like I shall never let anyone treat my business so, either", said the President's son.
But not everyone agrees. Moldova's own "Centrul de Investigatii Jurnalistice" (Investigative Journalism Center) looked into Vladimir Voronin's dealings and, despite heavy official secrecy, concluded that he promoted clan interests and what can most kindly be described as shady business.
During Vladimir Voronin's presidency, his son, Oleg Voronin, quickly became Moldova's most successful businessman. He and persons from his entourage took over the control over most of the country's profitable business sectors, including, but not limited to, large holdings in energy, financial/banking, constructions, sugar and the lucrative wine and brandy industry, according to the Center's report.
The Center states that with Voronin in the presidency, companies and government entities transferred their finances to to “FinComBank”, a bank owned by Voronin's son Oleg, and whose Chairman of the Board of Directors is also Oleg Voronin. Charity money, like that earmarked for reconstructing Moldova's Căpriana monastery, also ended up in the Voronin-family's bank. When the General Prosecutor’s Office began investigating, it was told in no uncertain terms to back off and the case never saw a satisfactory conclusion. Three other criminal cases involving companies owned by Oleg Voronin also never got off the ground, leading the Investigative Journalism Center to use the clear term "companies protected by Voronin".
Unlikely business-success
He has his Daddy's eyes, say those who known him. That is one of the few good things they can say about Oleg Voronin. His classmates from Class of 1984, Chisinau's State University, would never had thought that the slow kid with the bad grades would become Moldova's richest man less than twenty years later.
Oleg, who graduated as a biology major, got his first job with a dusty non-profit called Vierul. The mediocre biologist hang around the college campus for most of the nineteen-eighties, doing some postgraduate work in the university's biophysics lab, and, in 1988, establishing with some other academics a so called Laboratory Cooperative to look for better yields in milk production.
The Voronin family first got involved in serious business in 1993. That year, Oleg Voronin obtained control of the Bricansky sugar plant in a privatization scheme. The son of the country's most prominent Communist leader promptly fired hundreds of workers and was for a few years known in the local press as "Moldova's Sugar King."
Also in 1993, Oleg Voronin found $50,000 and applied for a banking license. For the past 14 years, he has been head of his own bank, FinComBank, which from humble beginnings has now grown into becoming one of Moldova's largest and most powerful financial institutions.
Opposition journalists in Moldova have frequently claimed, but not been able to provide any proof, that while Vladimir Voronin was a Soviet general and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the former Moldavian SSR, he siphoned off 34 million rubles and "parked" it with a Stasi friend in a party office in the DDR. Later, that same money appeared for use by Oleg Voronin through a German shell company with the unfortunate name of Orbit GMBH.
Money in Orbit
In 1996, as part of that year's election campaign, the Communist Party of China arranged an aid shipment of medicines to be distributed for free to the poor and elderly in Moldova by the Communist Party of Moldova. The cargo, with a value estimated at $1.5m, was instead diverted to a a company called Orbit Enterprises Ltd and, from there, ended up on the store shelves of pharmacies throughout Moldova. Then, just like now, Vladimir Voronin was head of the Communist Party of Moldova. The selling of humanitarian aid went unpunished, but caused the Chinese to recall their Ambassador from Chisinau.
A similar pattern was seen when, during the visit to Cuba, the Communist leader obtained more than one hundred tons of sugar in aid for Moldova. Instead of bringing the sugar to Moldova, as planned, the load was instead diverted to Kaliningrad and sold in the open market by Orbit Enterprises Ltd.
Orbit Enterprises Ltd is the successor to Orbit Gmbh, and is an offshore shell company registered in Gibraltar, a sunny-but-shady tax haven. Company documents lodged with Chases Manhattan in New York reveal that the firm's beneficiary owner was Oleg Voronin. In both the medicines and the sugar deals, the money was ended up in a Swiss bank account controlled by Oleg Voronin, having first been transferred to Chase Manhattan in New York and then re-routed to #1-841897, Uberseebank, CH-8024 Zurich, Switzerland, for final credit to Orbit Enterprises Ltd.
Family business
The Voronin name has long been tied to Moldova's lucrative wine exports. The firm Wine International Project (WIP) is another offshore holding, established in 1994 in Nicosia, Cyprus. Through WIP, Oleg Voronin now owns the Garling Collection, one of Moldova's leading export brands of wines and spirits.
According to information provided by Garling corporate press office, to date the company has more than 2,000 hectares of wholly-owned vineyards in one of the most favorable zones in Moldova in terms of soil composition and climatic conditions.
Father and son have often tried to downplay their tentacles in the world of Moldovan business. Oleg Voronin himself has often stated that his only business activities are concentrated in FinComBank, and that any other business activities tied to him and his father are fictious.
When his father, President Voronin, was asked a question at a press conference about his son's businesses, he answered that "basically, my son is really not involved in business. He is a biologist by education, he majored in the protection of plants and has worked on the development of a project to produce mineral fertilizers."
Apart from Oleg Voronin's FinComBank, he also owns a large publishing empire with some of the best-known media titles in Chisinau under his control. And the list of companies which the opposition links to Voronin is longer than just FinComBank and his publishing interests. It includes Garling Collection, Jolly Allon, Zahar, Transline (shipping), Orbit (sale of sugar and medicine), Trimol (passport manufacturing), M.S.I. Trading Company, Metal Market, MedAzur, Andys Pizza, Boena Group and a number of others.
But it wasn't until 2001, when Vladimir Voronin became Moldova's President, that the family business really took off.
Foreign press reports now put the monthly turnover of Oleg Voronin at $30 million from imports of oil and gasoline, alcohol, cigarettes and a number of goods and products on government contracts. It also states that he has a stake in a Moldovan-Romanian car joint venture, DEU, and that he until recently had the contract to manufacture Moldova's passports through a company named Trimol. The family also had a stake in Chisinau's wellknown Jolly Allon hotel, and - through a company named Zahar - controls a large portion of Moldova's sugar exports.
Like many international businessmen, Oleg Voronin prefers the use of foreign-registered companies. One of his firms, bearing the name of M.S.I. Trading Company, is located in Iasi in Romania. Others are pure offshore plays, with brassplate registrations in Gibraltar, Bahamas and Cyprus. Through one of his Gibraltar entities, Oleg Voronin handled a public procurement contract for coal deliveries to Moldova.
Moldova's own Centrul de Investigatii Jurnalistice has publicly stated that the companies protected by Voronin and by those around him have been involved in public scandals related to smuggling.
Nevertheless, the president’s son is still one of the most prominent businessmen in the country, and, says the Center, the companies owned by Oleg Voronin are in control of the most advantageous state contracts and orders. According to the Center, in Moldova the government lets this happen without the organization of public tenders.
How to make money in a failed state
In June 2006, Moldova was officially placed on the Failed State Index. The index, compiled in Washington DC, is a select list of places with serious governance problems. In its ranking, Moldova scored even worse than Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America.
Economically, Moldova ranked equal to Afghanistan and Sudan ... and, on average, much worse than most of the failed African countries on the list. In terms of human rights, it tied with Eritrea for the "honors" of an equally terrible human rights record; just a step below Cambodia and Sierra Leone.
All of this bad news didn't prevent the Voronin family from making money like never before. In 2006, Vladimir Voronin set his sights on Pridnestrovie, or Transnistria as his government prefers to call it. Through his reintegration ministry, he announced that privatizations done in Transnistria were "illegal" and would be undone once Moldova took control of the region.
The announcement was not lost on current owners of companies in Pridnestrovie: If a joint state with Moldova ever happens, their right to private property would be in danger. With Moldova openly telling them in advance that earlier privatizations would not be recognized by the Moldovan government as valid, the new owners feared a renationalization and subsequent transfer to none other than Oleg Voronin.
" - I guess that is one way to make money," said the owner of textile factory the same week the announcement was made.
" - You pass a law saying that everything done before you arrived to the scene is now illegal. Then you redo the whole thing and pocket the cash."
Predictably, no single business owner in Pridnestrovie is in favor of a joint state or common state with Moldova. Many businesses openly campaigned for independence and sovereign statehood in Pridnestrovie's 17 September 2006 independence referendum.
Pridnestrovie declared independence in 1990 and has functioned as a de facto independent state for nearly 17 years. Its strongly independent-minded population is mostly Slav, but even its ethnic Moldovan minority has no wish to integrate with Moldova in a common state. Voters overwhelmingly prefer independence and have expressed their wish to see Pridnestrovie recognized internationally as a sovereign, independent state.
" - What Moldova does is up to them. Keep stealing and running your country into the ground," says one voter, a Rybnitsa resident of 44. "Just don't force us to be part of your mess."
Refusing to become part of a failed state, officially Europe's poorest country and what many here see as a kleptocracy, voters in Pridnestrovie prefer independence. The new and emerging country of 555,000 inhabitants has decided that independent statehood is the best way forward and is currently seeking formal diplomatic recognition and integration into the international community. (With information from Infotag)
2 comments:
What is this to do with cambodia?
Dumbo it is similar case!
Every provonces would break down from Cambodia Hun Xen and joint with vietname for better living!
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