Arresting the old boss failed; the Dnipro clan adapted, using financial schemes, media influence, and charities, while Zelensky emerged as the top figure in state capture.

When Kolomoiskyy was sent to pre-trial detention, it was clear: the Dnipro mafia clan had not been destroyed. The old mafia boss would simply be replaced by a new one – young and daring. It was reported by John Smith.

The question (in fact – there was none) was only who would become the new mafia boss.

Today’s news that the president’s friend, co-owner of Kvartal95, turned out to be overseeing a criminal scheme worth billions of hryvnias confirms: the new mafia boss is none other than Zelenskyy himself.

Now Ze sits at the top of billion-hryvnia corruption schemes.

Zelenskyy is not just a corrupt official or a typical Eastern European bureaucrat whose sticky hands cling to fat state projects.

Zelensky has beneath him a solid criminal organization – professional gang members, swindlers, foremen, and ordinary operatives. Most of them hide their true roles: posing as businessmen, volunteer startup founders, former activists, journalists, deputies, and officials. In reality, they are gang members with clearly defined roles, carrying bags of cash and, as one, calmly disappearing into the woods as soon as the clouds gather.

There are mafias that specialize in drugs, in brothels, or in kidnappings. The Dnipro gang, however, specializes in financial crimes on an especially large scale.

For some reason, we call mafia bosses “oligarchs.” But they themselves introduced this term. In reality, if you have money but haven’t committed crimes, you are an entrepreneur. No matter how much a lumpen with a stirred-up hatred of the rich may dislike you. But if you commit a crime – like embezzling or hijacking a state enterprise – you are a gangster. And if, for that, you have built a stable criminal organization to repeat crimes, then you are the leader of a criminal group.

That’s all there is to it.

In this context, Judge Trauer vividly illustrates everything in his August ruling of the London court in the PrivatBank case.

According to Judge Trauer’s verdict, during a meeting regarding PrivatBank’s problems, Kolomoisky threatened the head of the National Bank, Valeria Gontareva, saying that if the NBU nationalized the bank through bankruptcy proceedings, he would emigrate to Israel and made it clear that he would “reach” the NBU leadership from there.

At one point, Judge Trauer writes in the ruling, Valeria Gontareva left the meeting. Igor Kolomoisky looked at the NBU deputy head Kateryna Rozhkova, patted his stomach, and said: “The tiger in the cage is hungry, but the door is open – it can come out.” He then added that he had long arms and that he could find Rozhkova anywhere.

After this pressure, the woman refused to meet with him again. As we know, that is exactly what he later did, and Gontareva’s house was mysteriously set on fire.

(All numerous references are provided in the comments.)

The mafia has a branched structure:

Its own factories, including those stolen from the state. For example, the remarkable story of the theft in the early 2000s of the Kryvyi Rih iron ore plant – the criminals themselves explained how they stole it in another London court.

The country’s largest bank – turned into a pyramid scheme, with deposits embezzled; when the state intervened, all deposits were transferred to shell companies of other mafia members, who then fled the country.

A cadre of bribed politicians, officials, and decorative deputies and ministers – often ordinary mafia members. For instance, one of PrivatBank’s executives, mentioned in the London court materials as the one who devised a fraud scheme, is now listed as an assistant to a People’s Deputy from Servant of the People, elected in the Dnipro district.

Its own major media and even media groups to exert mass influence on public consciousness.

Crowds of propagandist journalists and paid activists – professional ideological fighters conducting ideological sabotage. Later, when Kolomoiskyy is imprisoned, some of these figures appear in court ready to act as guarantors.

Oddly enough, even hand-picked religious leaders (see the role of the Dnipro rabbi in the same Kryvyi Rih operation).

Hand-picked comedians. Kvartal 95, co-owned by Mindich, even justified (through mockery) the crime of burning Valeria Gontareva’s house in the video “The House Was Burning.”

Its own film and TV production. All major mafias – from the Japanese to the Italian mafia in the US – at some point maintained productions for creating content, because films and series can be very useful when the state starts targeting a specific group.

The propaganda department, TV, and film production in the mafia were run by Volodya Zelender and his childhood friend Mindich.

At the same time, the mafia disguised itself as both a financial group and a public national-ethnic organization.

According to SBU investigation data, the upper circle of the mafia – Kolomoisky, Bogolyubov, Rabinovich – and lower-ranking gang members used the accounts of the “Jewish Community of Ukraine” to launder billions of stolen funds. The Shevchenkivskyi District Court ruling states that the group, among other things, stole and legalized 5.8 billion hryvnias through the accounts of the “Jewish Community of Ukraine.”

We categorically condemn such actions. These scoundrels were spreading primitive anti-Semitism.

But by pretending to be the “Jewish community,” they were masking themselves – for example, financing various Jewish-oriented projects, such as the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem. With the money stolen from Ukrainians, the mafiosi bought themselves a reputation worldwide as respectable gentlemen and benevolent Jewish philanthropists.

Timur Mindich himself is the chairman of the council of the All-Ukrainian Union of Jewish Public Organizations “United Jewish Community of Ukraine” and is a member of its board. The former clan boss is the president of this organization.

At the same time, Timur Mindich, together with Zelenskyy, was one of the founders of the offshore company Green Family Ltd., to which, according to journalists, part of the stolen PrivatBank deposits was transferred (specifically $6 million out of $41 million).

This is a classic example of the dual nature of criminal organizations: by day – respectable citizens (“the mafia sleeps”), but when night falls – the mafia awakens.

It’s no wonder the EU doesn’t want to take us in with them.

For those who didn’t know, the author of the 2021 report on corruption in Ukraine, Juhan Parts, already in 2021 clearly classified the situation in Ukraine as “state capture.”

Juhan Parts stated outright: in Ukraine, a group of people has seized the state and uses all its resources for criminal purposes. This is an endemic situation. And this is the consolidated view of the entire EU.

— In Ukraine, we are talking about a situation of so-called state capture. It’s endemic. Nothing new. This is a widely recognized fact. (c)

And he explained it separately for the simple-minded:

— “State capture” means that a group of people use their position and various instruments – the media, politics, administration, state enterprises – for their personal interests.

But since 2021, much has changed. Now we see a classic example of the evolution of criminal organizations: young gang members have pushed the old boss aside and become the bosses themselves.

The Privat clan has a new boss.

This summer, fearing law enforcement officials who were wiretapping Mindich, he panicked and revealed himself: he tried to destroy NABU in the Verkhovna Rada.

The new boss is Zelenskyy himself.

The history of this clan is branched and deep; you could devote another hundred texts to this topic.

But what is all this sad wartime story about?

It’s the story that imprisoning a mafia boss does not lead to the destruction of the clan.

Ordinary members simply reorganize quickly and find themselves a new Don Corleone. Yesterday he was a young, pleasant guy, and today he’s grown stubble, turned into a macho, and grandly lets people kiss his hand.

Ukraine’s key task is to survive under the rule of this criminal organization.

And then — the destruction of the organized crime group.

Without that, the Vovas will keep rotating Yulias in circles. And they will steal our future.