Attempt to appropriate the "Apple logo," or who is behind the "Yabko" network and its tax debts

The scale of the gray electronics and household appliances market in Ukraine is estimated at billions, and no, we are not talking about hryvnias, but about billions of dollars. UNN explores aspects of the functioning of this market. We decided to pay attention to its players: in a series of publications, we will try to understand who is behind the networks that import equipment illegally and sell it while evading taxes. And first, we paid attention to the "Yabko" network, whose representatives themselves actually admitted to violating the rules.

Road map worth billions 

In October 2024, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance and Tax Policy held a meeting, which, in particular, discussed the issue of de-shadowing the electronics market. Representatives of the TM "Yabko", such as Mykola Kakhnych and Vitaliy Turkovets, were present at the meeting, among others. Then they stated that they needed a road map to comply with all the rules, said that they could not agree with the company that sells Apple products in Ukraine (we are talking about the only official distributor in Ukraine, ASBIS-Ukraine LLC) and much more, actually admitting that they worked with violations, selling illegally imported equipment and evading taxes. When the chairman of the committee, Danylo Hetmantsev, pointed out to them that such actions fall under Article 212 of the Criminal Code (Tax Evasion), they began to nod to the fact that, they say, the entire market works this way and said that they had drawn conclusions for the last quarter and began to correct themselves... And here is an interesting point - they drew conclusions for the last quarter, that is, for 4 months. But from the information that was heard during the committee meeting, and from other messages, in particular, from the tax authorities, it is easy to understand that the violations lasted for years and, according to approximate estimates, the state budget losses from such violations alone exceed UAH 3 billion. More than UAH 3 billion - once again - this is only what smart businessmen did not pay to the budget! And this is only what representatives of the relevant authorities managed to identify and roughly calculate. In reality, the losses may be much greater. 

"Yabko" has repeatedly attracted the attention of the relevant authorities. Thus, in 2021, a scheme was exposed, according to which, starting in 2019, small batches of goods (within the limits of non-taxable norms) were imported into Ukraine from Poland without paying the relevant taxes and customs duties. This was done by an established network of sole proprietors and simply involved persons who agreed to import equipment for a reward, allegedly for their own use, but in fact for its further sale through stores. Then law enforcement officers seized equipment worth about UAH 14 million. 

In addition, in October 2023, the Bureau of Economic Security opened a criminal proceeding "on the grounds of committing a criminal offense under Part 3 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine," which also includes "Yabko." 

"Yes, the prosecutor notes that officials of WEST UAY LLC (the previous name of Yabko Yuay LLC) in the period from January 01, 2021 to December 31, 2022, in order to cover up illegal activities and evade corporate income tax, sold household appliances, mobile phones and accessories, using the Internet platform jabko.ua and the Yabko chain of stores to end consumers, by documenting transactions for the sale of goods, using the details of controlled individuals - entrepreneurs." That is, "Yabko" actually minimized the payment of taxes by selling goods through a network of sole proprietors. And these goods were imported into Ukraine, as we already understand, unofficially. 

In the mentioned BEB investigation, we counted 49 sole proprietors, but we assume that there are many more of them. But even within this network of 49 sole proprietors, the budget losses are staggering:  thus, for the period from January 2021 to December 2022, WEST UAY LLC, according to law enforcement officials, understated its income tax by more than UAH 63 million.  

Is there a "Yabko"? 

The former Yabko Yuay LLC, now West Uay, which is featured in the BEB investigation, is owned and managed by Viktor Viktorovych Kruk. There are no Mykola Kakhnych or Vitaliy Turkovets in the structure of the company. At the same time, Mykola Kakhnych acted as the applicant for the registration of the Yabko trademark, which currently belongs to the INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY company - this company specializes in the leasing of intellectual property.

By the way, this company is managed by Ulyana Mykolaivna Kropyvnytska. A person with a similar full name, according to information posted on the You Control website, represents the interests of West Uay in litigation with tax authorities.

Also, in 2024, Intellectual Property Company filed an application for registration of the TM "Hello, special equipment!". This slogan is actively used by "Yabko" in its promotion.

As for Kakhnych, in 2019 he also filed an application for registration of a trademark that is too reminiscent of the logo.... Apple. Ambitious, you'll agree. But the registration of such a TM potentially opens up more opportunities for sellers of Apple equipment illegally imported into Ukraine to position and promote themselves among consumers as a completely legal representative of the American brand. But the application is still under consideration.

As for Vitaliy Turkovets, he is not formally related to "Yabko". But he is related to a number of related firms. 

Real estate business partners 

Kakhnych and Turkovets are or were co-founders of a number of companies that conduct real estate transactions, mostly in Lviv and Lviv region. The ownership structure of some companies has changed over time - Kakhnych and Turkovets withdrew from the founders, and their place was taken by relatives, such as Yuriy Turkovets or Raisa and Sofia Kakhnych.

The activity profiles of these companies do not mention the sale of equipment. However, in the court register, we find information that these companies may be involved in the illegal import of Apple equipment into Ukraine for its further sale through the website and offline stores of "Yabko." 

The situation becomes even more interesting when studying these companies more thoroughly, namely the related persons, the number and registration address of the firms.

For example, the company "City-Development Group" (headed and founded by Mykola Kakhnych), according to YouControl data, has common telephone numbers with another company that goes back to the Financial and Industrial Group "Dyminsky Family Group" of the famous Lviv oligarch and ex-MP Petro Dyminsky. A similar situation is with the company "D-6" from the Kakhnych-Turkovets orbit.

In addition, some companies associated with Kakhnych and Turkovets are registered in Lviv at 6 Danylyshyna Street. This address in Lviv is the location of the The Office Business Center. Some companies that are part of the "Dyminsky Family Group" are also registered there. For example, Taras Ihorovych Pankevych, one of the managers of TC Magnus LLC, has been repeatedly mentioned in the media as a person close to Petro Dyminsky and who is somehow involved in companies from his group. He, like Kakhnych and Turkovets, was also related to the already mentioned company "D-6" - whose ultimate beneficiaries today are Sofia Kakhnych and Yuriy Turkovets. The founder of "D-6" is the company "Raven Service", which also belongs to Sofia Kakhnych and Yuriy Turkovets.  The same "D-6" is listed as the successor of TC Magnus LLC.

Taras Pankevych is connected with the Kakhnyches and Turkovets by another address. 

In 2020, the Property Management Department of the Lviv Regional Council put up for auction a technical room with stairs in a four-story building at 3 Mykoly Voronogo Street. As journalists found out at the time, the initiator of the purchase of the premises on Voronogo Street was Business Center Office-Voronogo LLC, which at that time owned 1.3 thousand square meters of the entire building, that is, most of it. Since the end of 2019, Taras Pankevych was the sole owner of the company for some time.

Currently, this company has changed both its name and its owner, but it is still part of the "Dyminsky Group" and, according to our information, still owns part of the building on Voronogo Street. And in the same building are also registered companies that are related to Kakhnych and Turkovets. For example, MV RENT LLC or REIVEN-SERVICE LLC.

Are they improving or not so much? 

At the already mentioned committee meeting, Kakhnych and Turkovets said that they had taken into account the mistakes of the past and were starting to work honestly. But is this really the case? 

Facts are stubborn things, especially when they are recorded in court documents. But first, it should be explained that another company, Specialtech LLC, appeared under the Yabko TM in July 2024. It was probably registered and started to be used after West Uay became a defendant in a law enforcement investigation. The name of the company "Specialtech" is indicated on the receipt that recorded the purchase of headphones in the "Yabko" store as part of a study of the gray market for the sale of equipment, conducted by the Test Expert Center.

This company is already registered at the address we know - Lviv, 6 Danylyshyna Street. The founder and manager of this company is Anna Serhiivna Bryzhak. This person was previously one of the beneficiaries and manager of V-113 LLC, the previous name of which we have already mentioned - Business Center Office-Voronogo LLC. And as we already know, this company is part of the "Dyminsky Family Group." In 2023, Anna Bryzhik became a beneficiary of V-113 LLC instead of Dyminsky's daughter Zhanna. But in the summer of 2024, Bryzhak left this company, registered Specialtech and started selling equipment under the Yabko banner. 

We decided to take a closer look at Specialtech and discovered a number of court rulings and decisions mentioning this company. For example, one such court document is quite recent. In it, Specialtech challenges a fine of over UAH 357,000 imposed by the tax authorities in December 2024 (that is, after the meeting of the tax committee at which Kakhnych and Turkovets repented and stated that they had corrected themselves).

Or a court decision from December 2024, which states: 

"... during the inspection of Specialtech LLC, it was established that Mr. PERSON_1, the head of Specialtech LLC, according to the inspection report at 4:41 p.m. from 10/21/2024-10/30/2024 of the Yabko store at the address: Bila Tserkva, 40 Yaroslava Mudrogo Street, which belongs to Specialtech LLC, the fact of violation of the procedure for conducting settlements established by law was established, namely on 10/27/2024, when selling an iPhone 13 Pro phone, an adapter and a color package for a total amount of UAH 26,279.0 in cash, the PRRO was not used, the settlement document of the established form was not correctly, also the specified phone was unaccounted for in the manner prescribed by law, invoices TTN and any other documents confirming the movement of TME were not provided for inspection, which violates clauses 1, 2, 12 of Article 3 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Use of Registrars of Settlement Operations in Trade, Public Catering and Services" No. 265/95VR dated 06.07.1995 and committed an offense under Part 1 of Article 155-1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses." 

Simply put, Spleshleh continues the long tradition of Yabko to sell equipment bypassing all the rules established by law, and therefore without paying taxes in full.

And that's not all. Vitaliy Turkovets is the applicant for the registration of two AppGrade trademarks (one of which is registered)

It turns out that another network for selling "apple" equipment worked (and perhaps continues to work) under this TM. 

"AppGrade is a chain of stores that sells and services Apple equipment," the company's description on its Facebook page reads. However, this page has not been updated since 2022.

But on the OLX service there is a seller with a very similar name. AppGrade Mobile, which operates in Chernivtsi and quite actively posts ads, including for the sale of equipment of the American brand.

At the same time, the phones are not just used, but clearly gray, we understood this, for example, from the content of the ad for the sale of Iphone, posted in AppGrade Mobile. The product description states - "Global version, no blocking."

In the Lviv region, there is AppGrade store&service, which has stores in Stryi and Drohobych, which also actively sell "apple gadgets." 

At the moment, we do not have 100% certainty that AppGrade Mobile and AppGrade store&service are indeed connected with Turkovets, but we cannot rule this out either. 

But even if they are not connected with this person, the court documents mentioning the activities of Specialtech give us the right to assume that after all the fines and investigations of law enforcement officers, the owners of Yabko have not changed their strategy, at least radically - they continue to sell gray equipment and evade taxes. And if the conclusions about the involvement of this equipment sales business with the Dyminsky family are also true, then we can also assume that Yabko is not just the luck of two guys who skillfully took advantage of Ukrainians' love for the equipment of a well-known brand and the desire to save money, but a carefully built network of a number of firms, sole proprietors, their people in government agencies, especially at customs, because for years to transport contraband equipment across the border without a corresponding "green corridor" and cover from above is hardly possible. 

To be continued...