Hetmantsev, "Hezbollah" and 650 thousand dollars: the story of one "buried" NACP check

The head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, complained that the NACP was "chasing" him, but it turned out that the National Agency on Corruption Prevention is not currently conducting any checks. However, UNN found out that the check did indeed begin in 2021, but was never completed. Among the reasons that could have attracted the NACP's attention to Hetmantsev's declaration is a loan of 650 thousand dollars that the MP's mother provided to the Lebanese Rodrigue Merhezh, who is under US sanctions due to his ties to "Hezbollah".

During one of the committee meetings, Danylo Hetmantsev complained that the NACP was "chasing him" and that his lawyer was clarifying all the details. In this regard, UNN decided to ask the National Agency what the MP meant.

In response to the editorial board's request, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention reported that as of the date of the response, the National Agency is not conducting full checks of the declarations of People's Deputy of Ukraine Danylo Hetmantsev and monitoring his lifestyle.

At the same time, the NACP reported that they had started checking the MP's declaration for 2020, but it was not completed.

Additionally, we inform you that in 2021, the National Agency began a full check of Danylo Hetmantsev's declaration for 2020. However, the said check was not completed due to the prohibition of checks by the Law of Ukraine "On the Protection of the Interests of Reporting Entities and Other Documents during the Period of Martial Law or War" dated 03.03.2022 No. 2115-IX, due to the introduction of martial law in Ukraine.

At the same time, as Kateryna Butko, head of the Public Council at the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, explained to UNN, there is no point for the NACP to return to the unfinished check of Hetmantsev's declaration for 2020, because if violations are found, it will no longer be possible to bring him to justice.

There is no point in returning to checking declarations for these years, because all terms for bringing to justice have expired there. That is, it will only be a check for the sake of checking, and now there are already declarations submitted for 2024.

What's in the 2020 declaration

It should be noted that, according to the declaration for 2020, during that period Danylo Hetmantsev lived with his wife and children together with his mother Olena Hetmantseva.

The MP indicated that on September 25, 2020, his mother purchased a land plot of 9,200 sq m in the village of Velyka Motovylivka in the Kyiv region. However, Hetmantsev did not indicate the purchase price, nor the value of most other real estate objects. In total, there were 28 of them at that time.

In addition, in 2020, he indicated that he uses a TOYOTA AVALON car registered to his mother. In addition, Olena Hetmantseva owned two more TOYOTA cars - LAND CRUISER PRADO and LAND CRUISER.

Danylo Hetmantsev had a total of 34,631 hryvnias and 10 dollars in bank accounts. At the same time, he kept 27,800 hryvnias, 40,000 euros, and 35,300 dollars in cash. The MP's wife, Olha Hetmantseva, had 10,000 dollars in cash and 294 hryvnias in a bank account in 2020.

In 2020, MP's mother Olena Hetmantseva had 1,414,743 hryvnias, 124,278 dollars, and 142,154 euros in bank accounts, and 216,000 dollars in cash. Hetmantsev, together with his mother, also had the right to claim deposits in "KAMBIO" bank, which was declared insolvent in 2014.

However, what attracts attention in the 2020 declaration is not the fact that the family owns significant funds, as Hetmantseva's mother is an entrepreneur, and he himself was engaged in legal practice before becoming an MP, but rather to whom Olena Hetmantseva lent a large sum of money.

Iran, Hezbollah, and a loan of over half a million dollars

Thus, in 2020, the MP's mother lent 650,000 dollars to a foreign citizen, Merhezh Rodrigue Elias. But apparently, the MP made a deliberate mistake in the surname to complicate the search for information about this person. It is obviously about the Lebanese citizen Rodrigue Elias Merhezh.

According to media reports, Lebanese Rodrigue Elias Merhezh is a member of the Russian FSB intelligence network, recruited back in the KGB era. In 2013, the US authorities imposed personal sanctions against Rodrigue Merhezh for his airlines' cooperation with Iranian airlines Mahan Air and Iran Air. This decision was made due to the leasing and sale of aircraft to Iranians, which were used to transport the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian Ministry of Defense, and Lebanese "Hezbollah", and to deliver cargo to Syria.

In addition, the media reported that Rodrigue Elias Merhezh may be a relative or close friend of Bashar Merhezh, who is suspected of having contacts with the head of security of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, General Bassam Merhezh. The latter is linked to contract killings in Lebanon aimed at inciting war. Bashar Merhezh could also have had contacts with the war criminal Hassan Merhezh, a military commander of the 4th assault detachment, who had ties to the terrorist Russian group "Wagner".

Journalists note that Hetmantsev and Rodrigue Merhezh could have been closely connected, in particular, through businesses, and they have a circle of mutual friends.

In one of his interviews in 2020, Hetmantsev confirmed that his mother cooperated with Merhezh and gave him a loan of over half a million dollars. In addition, he did not deny that he was aware of the Lebanese's reputation:

"— One more point regarding the declaration. It states that there is a loan from your mother to some…"

— Rodrigue. Well, I don't want to comment on that. There is a loan, I confirm it. This is her business, these are her relations.

— Do you know who this is? Is this Rodrigue Merhezh?

— Yes. He is the owner of an airline that cooperated with my mother's airline. They had some kind of relationship there. Ask her.

— He has a very… reputation…

— Strange? Yes. But, you see, this is confirmed by what exists," the MP then explained the loan to journalists.

It should be noted that the law firm "Yurimex", founded by Hetmantsev, closely cooperated with Olena Hetmantseva's travel agency and conducted business with her partners, and therefore obviously received part of its income from contracts with sanctioned Lebanese individuals.

It is not precisely known whether Rodrigue Elias Merhezh returned the 650,000 dollars to Olena Hetmantseva, as Danylo Hetmantsev did not include her data in subsequent declarations, because he obviously moved with his family to a separate residence.

We assume that the National Agency on Corruption Prevention became interested in this particular episode from the declaration of the head of the Rada's tax committee, the obvious manipulations with the surname and the MP's ties to a sanctioned person, possibly involved in terrorist groups. But Hetmantsev managed to get away with it, the check was buried, and the statute of limitations for bringing him to justice for this episode from the declaration expired.

At the same time, it is worth recalling that crimes related to cooperation with terrorists, which are under the jurisdiction of the Security Service of Ukraine, have no statute of limitations.

Recall

Danylo Hetmantsev is also connected with another Russian FSB agent - Volodymyr Sivkovych. Before becoming a people's deputy, he worked for a long time as an assistant to MP Sivkovych, who, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, worked for the Russian special service, and with the beginning of the war with the Russian Federation in 2014, fled Ukraine. Experts interviewed by UNN do not rule out that Hetmantsev may still communicate with his boss. They are convinced that the SBU should thoroughly check the MP for ties with the enemy.