Explosive charges were filed in Delaware last month accusing Ukrainian oligarchs of using a bank they founded as a private piggy bank used to become the largest owner of corporate real estate in Cleveland, Ohio.
Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov are said to have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from PrivatBank to purchase the real estate with Some were fraudulent loans and more were the deposits of 20 million Ukrainians.
The 104 page filings dubbed the theft as the “Optima Schemes.”
The money from the fraudulent loans were sent through dozens of shell companies created just for the purpose of money laundering and eventually the money was sent to holding companies in Delaware, which is why the suit was filed there.
Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov are metal magnates and they purchased metal fabricating plants and other commercial property in Cleveland.
They own mining factories and metalworking plants in Ukraine.
Three men operating in the United States stand accused of running the operation on the ground in this country through three companies created just for this purpose.
The men on the ground in the United States, according to the complaint, were a Miami-based trio: Mordechai “Motti” Korf, his brother-in-law Chaim Schochet, and Uriel Laber.
These three men managed the “Optima” companies: Optima International, Optima Ventures and Optima Acquisitions, all of which were created and ultimately controlled by Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov.
“Optima Ventures” should be a familiar local name. It was the company, launched in 2007, used to acquire properties in the U.S. for Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov. The majority of these properties were in Cleveland.
Chaim Schochet was Optima’s “front man” in Northeast Ohio. He told the Plain Dealer in 2012 that his local goals were twofold: “making money for investors betting on the upside of a Midwestern city, and contributing to the betterment of a downtown that more high-profile buyers ha[d] passed by.”
