A good vein - a dead vein? Mikhail Zhivilo Zhivilo Mikhail Yurievich

Mikhail Yurievich Zhivilo(b. July 28, 1966) - Russian entrepreneur and investor, specialized in the metallurgical business. Former head of the MIKOM company.

After a criminal case was opened against Zhivilo in Russia, he has been living in exile in France since 2000.

Biography and career in Russia

Mikhail Zhivilo was born in Selidovo, Donetsk region. His father worked as a miner at the Rossiya mine.

In 1990 he graduated from the Moscow Financial Institute. In 1990 - 1992 - chief broker of the Russian Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange.

In 1991, Mikhail Zhivilo and his brother Yuri created the Metallurgical Investment Company (MIKOM), which declared its goal to attract investment in the non-ferrous metallurgy of Russia.

In 1996, MIKOM was transformed into a closed joint stock company. Mikhail Zhivilo was appointed president of the MIKOM Group of Companies, and his brother was appointed vice president of this group.

Many large metallurgical enterprises in Russia came under the control of MIKOM, including such a large one as the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant. In 1995 - 2000 M. Zhivilo was the chairman of the board of directors of NKAZ.

In 1996 - 1998 served on the board of directors of Mosbusinessbank, in 1998 - on the board of directors of Toko-Bank, in 1998 - 2001 - on the board of directors of Sberbank.

In 1999, he lost the corporate war for the Chernigovets coal mine to Vladimir Gridin and Mikhail Fedyaev, who were supported by Aman Tuleyev.

In 2000, Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov was arrested on charges of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev. Mikhail Zhivilo was declared the mastermind of the assassination attempt; it was connected with the redistribution of property in the region.

In exile in France

In August 2000, Zhivilo, fearing arrest in the case of the assassination attempt on Tuleyev, left Russia and settled in France.

In February 2001, Zhivilo was arrested in France for three months at the request of Russian law enforcement agencies. However, in mid-May he was released; the Paris court refused to extradite the Russian Prosecutor General's Office. In Russia, the criminal case against Zhivilo has been suspended, but not closed. He completed the sale of his Russian business from France.

In France, Zhivilo is engaged in investment business. In 2003, he founded the company Browston in Paris with 30 employees. The company operates in the foreign exchange market, specializes in the sale and purchase of shares, collects and analyzes commercial information, and has subsidiaries in Luxembourg, Switzerland and Cyprus. According to Zhivilo himself, who plays the role of chief analyst at the company, “in 90% of cases my forecasts turn out to be accurate, but I don’t always have the courage to take a reasonably risky but well-founded step and invest a lot to get a big profit.” When choosing between several purposes for investing funds, Zhivilo always chose the company in which he knew the manager better.

In 2004 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Law in absentia.

In the spring of 2005, he received lifelong status as a political refugee in France. Lives in Paris, bought an apartment near the city center, near the Bois de Boulogne. Drives a Mercedes car.

Personal life

Mikhail Zhivilo is not married. At the beginning of 2003, his daughter Anna was born in France.

The hunt for the disgraced businessman will continue until the end

"IN In the competitive struggle, all means are fair.” This fundamental theorem of wild Russian business, it seems, will live until the redistribution of large property ends. Which, taking into account the appetites and wolfish grip of individual representatives of the domestic breed of entrepreneurs, can last more than one presidential term stipulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
The game of equidistance between the oligarchs, started by the president and his entourage, ended in their polarization along the political axis. Some, taking advantage of their proximity to the Kremlin, remain on horseback, while others found themselves abandoned to the “Pole of Cold”. Berezovsky, Gusinsky, Zhivilo... How do representatives of the Russian business elite become defectors? Differently. Someone made the wrong political bet and is now forced to defend their business from abroad from the claims of invaders. And someone has already lost their business, and competitors, feeling behind their backs the unspoken (but not too hidden) support of the supreme power, stop at nothing to push the defeated enemy out of the country and finish it off on foreign territory. By any means. Regardless. Because it is possible.
Mikhail Zhivilo, president of the independent investment company MIKOM, was unlucky. He fell under an iron roller, which is strictly allowed to drive through a red light in the oncoming lane at an excessive speed, not paying attention to either the “traffic rules” or the norms of criminal law.
The instructive story of the Zhivilo brothers, Yuri and Mikhail, has recently become the focus of attention in the Russian press. In the early 90s, the brothers, who already had good experience working on the stock exchange, organized a company to attract investment in the domestic metallurgy. Young managers of MIKOM energetically set about restoring the industry of Kuzbass: they agreed on preferential electricity tariffs for the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant (KMK) and the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant (NkAZ), ensured the flow of taxes into the regional treasury, and gave people new jobs. But one day, far from perfect, everything suddenly turned upside down. In 1998, the government changed in the region. Instead of Governor Kislyuk, Aman Tuleyev came to Kemerovo.
Behind him stood a then unknown graduate of the Moscow State University physics department, Oleg Deripaska, who at one time traded sugar and iron, but was purposefully striving for a serious business and big money. By that time, the first major victim of the young businessman had already become the Sayan Aluminum Plant (what circumstances prompted the international company TWG to transfer SaAZ to Deripaska’s management in 1994 is still unclear).
For the Zhivilo brothers, the nature of the agreements between Tuleyev and Deripaska was never a secret: the rising tycoon received NkAZ and KMK in exchange for financing election campaigns. The combination with NkAZ was played out like clockwork. Taking advantage of friendly relations with the head of RAO UES, Anatoly Chubais, Deripaska initiated a lawsuit from Kuzbassenergo for one and a half billion rubles, allegedly underpaid by the plant for electricity, and took over a successfully operating, profitable plant. The first blow was followed by a second: resorting without any hesitation to administrative resources, the governor-oligarch combination simply ousted MIKOM from the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant, handing it over to Deripaska’s longtime friend Iskander Makhmudov.
They say that Mikhail Zhivilo, who previously, of course, had no illusions about the methods of introducing competition, was shocked by their practical implementation in the example of his own business. Defending the case they created, MIKOM leaders tried to challenge their defeats at NkAZ and KMK in courts of various levels. “I protect my business from bandits and speculators,” said Mikhail Zhivilo. “Justice should not take the side of criminals.” But the forces were too unequal.
Everyone can hear what happens next. A few months later, the head of MIKOM was put on the wanted list on charges of preparing the murder of Tuleyev (which Novaya Gazeta was the first to report), and in February 2001, Mikhail Zhivilo surrendered to the French authorities and is now awaiting a decision on extradition in a Paris prison. He told his lawyers that he feared for his life: “Everyone knows this man. He threatened me more than once."
The background of the case, according to the comrades of the disgraced Mikhail Zhivilo, is obvious. Yuri Zhivilo, who today fears both for the fate of the Parisian prisoner and for his safety, was forced to retire from public life into the shadows, but among his friends he does not hide his knowledge about the secret springs of the events that preceded the arrest of his younger brother: “Mikhail was ordered and imprisoned by Deripaska ..."
Before giving himself into the hands of the French police, Mikhail Zhivilo managed to turn to international justice. In a lawsuit filed in a New York court, he described in detail the process of ousting companies under his control from Russian enterprises and spoke in detail about the methods that Deripaska and his partners used in doing so. So far, the American court has not yet ruled on this case. And, most likely, Yuri Zhivilo will have to confirm the validity of the charges at the upcoming hearings soon. To do this he will need some courage. “I remember meeting Deripaska in Chicago at a trade conference,” Yuri Zhivilo admits today in his close circle. “Then he threatened that he would kill Misha if he refused to follow his lead. He's dangerous. He is very dangerous..."
Will he be able to prove anything? To many in Russia, Deripaska’s victory today seems final and irrevocable. Europe has no time for Russian problems yet. Meanwhile, it is obvious that the refusal of the French police to provide Mikhail Zhivilo with territorial asylum does not put an end to this unsightly story for all Russian business. The policy of integration into Europe announced by President Vladimir Putin gives the European community every right to take a closer look at the rules by which Russia and its economy live today.

(10) Russian entrepreneur and investor, specialized in the metallurgical business. Former head of the MIKOM company. After a criminal case was opened against Zhivilo in Russia, he has been living in exile in France since 2000

"Biography"

Mikhail Zhivilo was born in Selidovo, Donetsk region. His father worked as a miner at the Rossiya mine.

In 1990 he graduated from the Moscow Financial Institute. In 1990 - 1992 - chief broker of the Russian Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange.

"News"

Zhivilo and other oligarchs

The Metallurgical Investment Company (MIKOM), the head of which was entrepreneur Mikhail Zhivilo, controlled many assets in Kuzbass in the late 90s - for example, the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant, the Chernigovets coal mine and the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant.

However, Zhivilo’s relationship with Tuleyev did not work out. According to Zhivilo himself, the issue was MIKOM’s reluctance to transfer money to the “risk fund” created by the administration (the prototype of the socio-economic partnership model). As a result of a short struggle, Zhivilo lost his business.

By the end of the 1990s, MIKOM, whose largest shareholders were Mikhail Zhivilo and Dmitry Chirakadze, controlled a significant part of the economy of Kuzbass - the company owned and operated aluminum and metallurgical plants, as well as several coal mines. However, Zhivilo first refused to make contributions to the regional risk fund created by Tuleyev, and then decided to sell the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant - as it was believed, to affiliated structures. Tuleyev did not like these plans. After some time, the Zhivilo company lost its assets and was bankrupt; The businessman himself was accused of trying to organize an assassination attempt on Tuleyev; he fled abroad.

Popular autocrat

“It was strange that Tuleyev agreed to become an appointed governor, since he could have simply gone to the polls and won them, but he chose to come to the region, having been appointed by Yeltsin’s decree. The secret of his longevity is that until recently he had good health, and at the same time, in the late nineties and early 2000s, he provided the state with serious political services by taming Kuzbass. He behaved constructively and during the 2000 presidential campaign, he established constructive relations with the oligarchs in the region - in fact, the only one who suffered was Zhivilo. He showed managerial talent, becoming a friend both to the people and to big business. He spoke harshly to the oligarchs, but also gave them a lot. With his departure, the “golden age” of Kuzbass will end. In recent years, the economic situation has not been the most favorable for him, but is Tuleyev to blame for this?” - argues Ivanov, characterizing him as “a very successful politician, one of the best governors in the last twenty years.”

Novaya Gazeta has compiled an encyclopedia about Kuzbassbashi and Kemerovo socialism

As a result, the “small encyclopedia” written by the special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta has 41 chapters, among which there are chapters devoted to such high-profile episodes in the activities of the Kemerovo governor, such as the confrontation with businessman Mikhail Zhivilo in the 1990s (the businessman was accused of an attempt on Tuleyev’s life, lost his assets and was forced to leave for France), the situation with the extortion of a controlling stake in the Inskoy coal mine, or the hunt for Yeti announced by Tuleyev.

Mikhail Zhivilo, accused of an attempt on the life of the governor of Kuzbass, is trying to challenge his international wanted list

The alleged organizer of the case involving the preparation of an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev in 2000, businessman Mikhail Zhivilo now living in France, tried to get the international search canceled, Kommersant reports. First, FSB investigators refused him this, and yesterday, the Novosibirsk court refused.

Mikhail Zhivilo remains wanted

The investigation does not lose interest in the alleged organizer of the assassination attempt on Aman Tuleyev

As Kommersant learned, the high-profile case of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev, has received new developments. The alleged organizer of the failed assassination attempt, businessman Mikhail Zhivilo living in France, insisted on canceling the international search for him. First, FSB investigators refused him this, and yesterday, the Novosibirsk court refused.

The head of the MIKOM group, Mikhail Zhivilo, was put on the wanted list in 2000 as the alleged organizer of the impending murder of Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev. The investigation cites the businessman's intention to regain lost influence in Kuzbass enterprises as the motive for eliminating the official. Also in the conspiracy against the head of the region, according to the case materials, were Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov and his brother Viktor Tikhonov. The first, according to the investigation, organized a meeting of the businessman with a relative, which took place at the MIKOM office in Moscow, the second, through an intermediary, found a candidate killer, Vladimir Kharchenko, in Novosibirsk and gave him an advance in the amount of $179 thousand. The FSB Directorate for the Novosibirsk Region charged the Tikhonov brothers and arrested. The case against the intermediary and the would-be killer was closed due to their active repentance. Mr. Tikhonov and Mr. Zhivilo denied their guilt.

601 points against Russian Aluminum

Exiled businessman Mikhail Zhivilo has acquired new allies and, together with them, is demanding from Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Cherny, Iskander Makhmudov and companies close to them not $2.7 billion, but $3 billion. In parallel with this, in a lawsuit filed by Zhivilo and his supporters in In a New York court, two Russian governors, Aman Tuleyev and Eduard Rossel, are openly accused of corruption. Even the amounts of alleged bribes are named.

The new lawsuit is two and a half times longer than the previous one, filed in the same court in December last year by two trading companies close to Zhivilo in accordance with the American Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). At that time, neither Zhivilo nor the companies directly owned by him acted as plaintiffs, and charges were brought only against the shareholders of Russian Aluminum, Siberian Aluminum and related companies.

Now the list of plaintiffs includes the MIKOM company, owned by the brothers Mikhail and Yuri Zhivilo, which last year lost to Rusal the battle for control of the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant (NkAZ). Another new plaintiff is Davis International. Behind her is the former general director of the Kachkanarsky GOK, Jalol Khaidarov. Thanks to him, new defendants are also mentioned in the lawsuit - for example, co-owner of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company Iskander Makhmudov and MDM Bank. They, like all the characters in the previous lawsuit - Deripaska, Chernoy and a number of companies - are accused of conspiracy to seize Russian metallurgical enterprises, money laundering and other criminal acts. Among the charges against specific participants in the alleged “conspiracy” are organizing murders, bribing officials and judges, and extortion.
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 11021.htm

A group of companies makes new accusations against Russian Aluminum

In the United States, a group of businessmen brought new charges against the Russian Aluminum company (one of the largest aluminum producers in the world), demanding compensation for losses of $3 billion. The charges include suspicions of murder, bribery, fraud and money laundering.

The charges stem from the methods by which a number of Russian companies have been acquired over the past few years. The defendants should be Oleg Deripaska, who is the manager of the Russian Aluminum and Siberian Aluminum companies, his partner, Israeli businessman Mikhail Chernoy, as well as the Moscow MDM Bank.

The charging documents were filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The charges add to earlier claims filed last December for $2.7 billion, triple damages under U.S. racketeering laws. The losses, amounting to $900 million, according to the injured party, were the result of the “falsified” bankruptcy of the Novokuznetsk aluminum smelter last year.
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 11022.htm

Good Zhivilo - dead Zhivilo?

The hunt for the disgraced businessman will continue until the end

“In competition, all means are good.” This fundamental theorem of wild Russian business, it seems, will live until the redistribution of large property ends. Which, taking into account the appetites and wolfish grip of individual representatives of the domestic breed of entrepreneurs, can last more than one presidential term stipulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
link: http://kompromat.flb.ru/material1.phtml?id=805

Mikhail Zhivilo asks for questioning and wants to testify

Accused of organizing the assassination attempt on Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev, Mikhail Zhivilo sent a week ago by express mail from Paris to the Novosibirsk regional court a statement in which he “asks to interrogate him as a witness” at the trial of Viktor Tikhonov, RIA Novosti reports with with reference to lawyer Galina Nilus.
link: http://lenta.ru/russia/2002/06/06/witness/

Mikhail Zhivilo wants to take Chelsea away from Roman Abramovich

Russian businessman Mikhail Zhivilo filed a £2 billion lawsuit against Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in an American court. He accuses Abramovich of extortion. According to Ekho Moskvy, such a complaint once took place. However, she was rejected. The American court decided that this case should be heard in Russia. Now that Abramovich owns property abroad, in particular, the English football club Chelsea, the case can move forward. If Abramovich loses the case, the club could be taken away from him as compensation. Abramovich's lawyers said that any attempts to take Chelsea away from the Chukotka governor are nothing more than black PR.
link: http://www.sem40.ru/index.php? newsid=64940

Mikhail Zhivilo was allowed to return to his homeland

The notorious businessman Mikhail Zhivilo received a legal opportunity to return to Russia from France. The Russian Constitutional Court has determined that prosecutors cannot reopen criminal cases on the same grounds multiple times, as was the case with the prosecution of Mikhail Zhivilo and his brother Yuri. Thus, the brothers, whom the Russian Prosecutor General's Office tried to accuse of organizing the assassination attempt on the Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev, were essentially found innocent.

The reason for the meeting of the Constitutional Court was the complaint of Mikhail Zhivilo and his younger brother Yuri, who indicated that criminal proceedings against them had been repeatedly terminated due to the lack of corpus delicti in their actions. However, each time the proceedings were resumed “due to the incompleteness of the investigation.” The Constitutional Court accepted the brothers' arguments, and now prosecutors can no longer cancel decisions to terminate a criminal case and resume proceedings on it at any time and an unlimited number of times. In fact, this provides an opportunity for the entrepreneur currently hiding in France to return.

Mikhail Zhivilo acquired his scandalous fame in the mid-90s of the last century, when he was the owner of the MIKOM group of companies. He controlled the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant (NkAZ) and the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant (KMK). However, in 1998, the entrepreneur encountered problems. Relations between Mr. Zhivilo and the governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev, worsened, and MIKOM began to be removed from the management of metallurgical enterprises. In August 2000, a criminal case appeared regarding the assassination attempt on Aman Tuleyev. The Zhivilo brothers were accused of organizing it. As a result, Mikhail Zhivilo left the country and lost control over his enterprises
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 12636.htm

Mikhail Zhivilo arrested in Paris

The head of the MIKOM group of companies, Mikhail Zhivilo, who was on the international wanted list on suspicion of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev, was arrested in Paris, Interfax reports, citing representatives of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office.

Zhivilo was arrested at the request of the Russian National Bureau of Interpol on the basis of a corresponding decision of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. According to the head of the information and public relations department of the Prosecutor General's Office, Leonid Troshin, the arrest was made by French law enforcement agencies.
link: http://lenta.ru/russia/2001/02/22/zhivilo/

Jalol Khaidarov and Mikhail Zhivilo against Eduard Rossel and Aman Tuleyev

Ekaterinburg, August 13 (Region-Inform, Mikhail Dezhnev) – On Monday, another defendant in the New York lawsuit against Oleg Deripaska, Iskander Makhmudov, Aman Tuleyev, Eduard Rossel, Mikhail Cherny and MDM Bank appeared. This is Jalol Khaidarov, former general director of the Kachkanarsky GOK.

Just a year ago, it seemed that control of the Kachkanarsky GOK, the world’s only producer of iron-vanadium ore, had firmly passed into the hands of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company. None of the observers had any doubts that UMMC had finally defeated its former employee Jalol Khaidarov, whom the head of the company, Iskander Makhmudov, first appointed to lead the mining and processing plant, and then, accusing him of withdrawing shares, forcibly expelled him from the enterprise. But Khaidarov does not let himself be forgotten.
link: http://www.nr2.ru/ekb/13_ 28445.html

Interpol will again look for Mikhail Zhivilo and Alexander Tikhonov

The FSB directorate for the Novosibirsk region intends to soon resume criminal proceedings against the head of the Metallurgical Investment Company (MIKOM) Mikhail Zhivilo and Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov, who are accused of organizing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev. The prosecutor of the Novosibirsk region, Vladimir Tokarev, announced this yesterday. The resumption of the investigation, suspended two years ago, became meaningful after the verdict of the third defendant, Viktor Tikhonov, came into force. Now, according to law enforcement agencies, there is every reason to achieve the extradition of Tikhonov and Zhivilo, who are now abroad.
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 13218.htm

Excerpts from the statement of claim by Mikhail Zhivilo
link: http://compromat.info/main/deripaska/obvinenia1.htm

Mikhail Zhivilo is ready to come to any court

Entrepreneur Mikhail Zhivilo, suspected of ordering the assassination attempt on Aman Tuleyev, was not going to appear in the Novosibirsk Regional Court as a witness in the case of Viktor Tikhonov. On June 17, in a fax message addressed to the Novosibirsk Regional Court, the notorious entrepreneur refuted the words of his lawyer Galina Nilus, who gave this information at a press conference in Moscow on June 6.
link: http://kompromat.flb.ru/material1.phtml?id=2519

Mikhail Zhivilo wants to speak in court

Yesterday, the lawyers of Alexander and Viktor Tikhonov, Sergei Sevruk and Galina Nilus, held a press conference at which they promised to report “new sensational details” of the case of the assassination attempt on Aman Tuleyev. There was only one sensation: Mikhail Zhivilo, accused of organizing this assassination attempt, was ready to come from Paris and speak in court. Everything else boiled down to stories about the poor quality of the investigation and the “extreme unusualness” of the case.
link: http://kommersant.ru/doc/ 326482

Mikhail Zhivilo is being held in the Santé prison in Paris.

Mikhail Zhivilo, detained the day before by the French criminal police, is currently in the Santé prison in Paris, RIA Novosti reports, citing the Russian embassy.

Mikhail Zhivilo was detained the day before by criminal police officers in the 14th arrondissement of the French capital on an international Interpol warrant.
link: http://www.newsru.com/world/23feb2001/zhivilo1.html

Mikhail Zhivilo refused $2.4 billion

On Thursday, the federal appeals court in New York approved the dismissal of the trading companies controlled by Mikhail Zhivilo from the lawsuit against the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant and Russian Aluminum OJSC.

In October of this year, the trading companies BMT S.A, Alucoal Holding Ltd, MIKOM and BMT Ltd, controlled by Mikhail Zhivilo, filed a petition to reopen the claim against the Novkuznetsk Aluminum Plant (NkAZ), Russian Aluminum OJSC and Oleg Deripaska as an individual. The plaintiffs' lawyers confidently stated that this time, most likely, the case would proceed. However, today BMT S.A. and Alucoal Holding Ltd removed themselves from the process by withdrawing this claim, thereby reducing the total volume of claims by $2.4 billion.
link: http://www.gazeta.ru/2003/11/27/ziviloiderip.shtml

Mikhail Zhivilo: “I don’t want to prove anything to anyone”

Mikhail Zhivilo was one of the most famous players in the Russian metallurgical market. But for six years now, little has been known about him. At the age of 34, he was forced to quickly leave the country because a criminal case was opened against him. Before leaving, Zhivilo failed to resist the onslaught of Oleg Deripaska and his partners and lost control over the Novokuznetsk aluminum smelter, and after this he lost his assets in the coal and metallurgical industries. In an interview with Vedomosti, he spoke for the first time about where and how he lived these years and what he plans to do in the future.
link: http://www.banki.ru/news/interview/?id=233968

Mikhail Zhivilo was denied three billion dollars

Last Friday, a federal judge in New York rejected a $3 billion lawsuit brought by companies associated with Mikhail Zhivilo against Russian Aluminum and Oleg Deripaska personally. The plaintiffs accused Russian courts of corruption and bias. “The Russian legal system is an adequate alternative to American jurisdiction,” the American court rendered a verdict.
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 12933.htm

A dark horse

“Today our level of influence and business volumes are already so great that you can’t just come to us and “run into us.” We have already been tested and enlightened. Both the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs already know everything about us. They are more friendly with us than they want to put a spoke in our wheels. Because they understand perfectly well that today we need to seek mutual understanding with such structures.” Mikhail Zhivilo thought so arrogantly back in 1998. A successful entrepreneur, a socialite, then still the owner of almost half of the entire Kuzbass. Only two years have passed. For Russian business, this is a huge period of time, during which everything can change with dizzying speed. This is exactly what happened with Mikhail Zhivilo and his coal and metallurgical business. His enterprises were dispersed to different owners, and the former “regional oligarch” himself has been in an unknown place for half a month. It cannot be said that he is on the run: he has not yet been put on the wanted list. But he is definitely not on an ordinary business trip to St. Petersburg, as his press service claims. On ordinary business trips, businessmen usually do not turn off all means of communication and do not hide their location.
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 10071.htm

Will Mikhail Zhivilo be expelled from Paris?

On May 2, the Paris Court of Appeal will consider the extradition of Mikhail Zhivilo. However, the Prosecutor General's Office has no doubt that the businessman will appear before Russian justice. Representatives of the prosecutor's office believe that Russia sent to France all the documents necessary for the extradition of the entrepreneur. In the meantime, Mikhail Zhivilo is in a Paris prison.

In Russia, the entrepreneur is one of the defendants in the case of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev. The famous former biathlete, four-time Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov and his younger brother Viktor are also involved in the same case. The conflict occurred due to the struggle for the Novokuznetsk aluminum plant, located in the Kemerovo region, which once belonged to MIKOM.
Read completely:

I envy Russian oligarchs. No, not because of wealth. They live interesting lives! They experience such ups and downs that it takes the breath away even of an outside observer. October 2003 ushered in new turns in the life of the main newsmaker of the year, the rich man Roman Abramovich and the half-forgotten ex-oligarch Mikhail Zhivilo, who was in forced emigration. And what a turnaround - Abramovich could lose Chelsea, and Zhivilo could return to big business!

Lost wealth...

Mikhail Zhivilo, an exiled Russian oligarch, has filed a lawsuit in a New York court against the company Russian Aluminum, of which Roman Abramovich is a shareholder, for damages amounting to 2 billion pounds sterling (approximately 3.4 billion US dollars).

Two years, by the standards of Russian business, is a long time. The story of Zhivilo’s expulsion from Russia has already been so forgotten that the lawsuit seems to have surprised Abramovich himself. Meanwhile, the story is interesting.

Zhivilo was born in 1966 into a miner’s family, graduated from the Moscow Financial Institute and in 1989 got a job as a broker at the Russian Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange. His further path from an aspiring financier to the “master of Kuzbass,” as the press dubbed him, is very interesting, but does not directly relate to the topic of this article. And any Russian has a general idea of how fortunes were made in those years. In any case, in 1998, the owner of the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant (KMK) and the Novokuznetsk Metallurgical Plant (NKAZ) said: “Today our level of influence and business volumes are already so great that you can’t just come to us, “run over.”

He was wrong. People who know the businessman claim that the subjective reason for the failures of the young entrepreneur is his complex character. Zhivilo ruined relations with Governor Tuleev, the Russian aluminum kings, the Cherny brothers, and the current head of Russian Aluminum, Oleg Deripaska. The objective reason is this: the MIKOM company, led by Mikhail Zhivilo, lost control over KMK and NKAZ as a result of bankruptcy trials. The Novokuznetsk aluminum smelter became the property of RusAl. Then Mikhail was accused of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev.

In 2000, Zhivilo left for France, where he remained, not wanting to go to the dock. In France, he was arrested at the Russian request, but the Parisian court did not extradite the fugitive to our law enforcement agencies, considering that insufficient evidence had been collected to prove his involvement in the crime. Finding himself far from his homeland and deprived of his main assets, Zhivilo did not give up. In December 2000, a lawsuit was filed in a New York court, where it was proved that the general director of RusAl, Oleg Deripaska, together with entrepreneurs Lev Cherny and Iskander Makhmudov, as well as the governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev, took away NKAZ from Zhivilo through extortion and threats. At the end of March 2003, the court rejected the claim on the grounds that the case was not subject to its jurisdiction and should be heard in Russia.

...and the wealth gained?

On October 27, 2003, the British newspaper The Observer reported that the ex-oligarch's American lawyers filed an appeal. The amount of the new claim is 2 billion pounds sterling. The Observer cites the opinion of lawyer Bruce Marks, who is confident that they will win the appeal, since due to the corruption of the Russian judicial system, the client has no opportunity to obtain justice in his homeland. The opinion of a lawyer from the United States is justified - due to recent events (the YUKOS case, refusals to extradite Berezovsky and Gusinsky), trust in the Russian law enforcement system has fallen. Moreover, tempting prospects are opening up for Zhivilo. Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Chernoy may be named as co-defendants in the case. Abramovich owns shares in Russian Aluminum, which in turn owns the ill-fated NKAZ. Mikhail Chernoy is the former owner of TransWorld Group, several years ago the world's third largest aluminum producer. Cherny’s business did not work out in Russia, he sold all his assets and moved to Israel, where he lives to this day and owns significant funds. If the case is successful, it is much easier to obtain material compensation by arresting the British assets of Abramovich and the Israeli assets of Cherny, rather than trying to seize the property of other defendants located in the Russian Federation and offshores.

Of course, besides Zhivilo, many people are laying claim to Mikhail Cherny’s money - the justice system of Bulgaria, Russia and Israel has claims against him. In Israel, two criminal cases have been opened against Cherny. But if the claim is successful, you can probably get at least something. The victory over Abramovich will also be incomplete: the Chelsea club was acquired for 150 million British pounds, which is much less than the amount of the claim. Nevertheless, money is never superfluous, especially for Zhivilo, who was practically expelled from the country and deprived of capital. By the way, the amount of the new claim of 2 billion pounds is not accidental - this is exactly how much Abramovich’s share in Russian Aluminum is worth.

Paradoxically, the more oligarchs expelled from Russia abroad, the greater the chances Zhivilo has of regaining his Russian wealth. At first, the new Russians vacationed abroad, then they began to store money there and register companies, then they bought real estate and began to live in the West. Now the oligarchs who have moved to the civilized world are beginning to sue there. This is a bad sign. If this continues, then not only Russian resorts, the economic and tax systems, but also the courts will lose competition with foreign structures. And after them the state as a whole. And if the borders are not closed in time, everything will be like in the old joke about Gorbachev.

Nikolay Dzis-Voinarovsky

- a native of the Donetsk region, born in August 1966. After he graduated from the Moscow Financial Institute, he became the main broker of the commodity exchange in Russia, trading non-ferrous metals, including aluminum. Mikhail’s father, who was a high-ranking official of the USSR Ministry of Nonferrous Metals, worked in this industry. His brother Yuri also works in the metallurgical business.

Already in the fall of 1992, Mikhail Zhivilo, as one of the co-founders of the Metallurgical Investment Company (MIKOM), became its president. Also taking part in the creation of the company were the NPO All-Russian Institute of Light Alloys, the Bratsk Aluminum Plant, and JSB Inkombank, a member of whose investment committee in 1992-1993 was Mikhail Zhivilo.

In 1996, the MIKOM company was reorganized into a closed joint stock company, and Mikhail Zhivilo became the president of the entire group of this company. The main declared goal of the company was to attract investment in the domestic non-ferrous metallurgy.

Over time, MIKOM already controlled a number of metallurgical enterprises, the largest of which was the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant (NkAZ), then occupying the 4th place in the production of primary aluminum in the Russian Federation. MIKOM bought a large share of the company's shares, and Mikhail Zhivilo headed the Board of Directors of this plant. MIKOM also became the owner of large coal mining enterprises - Mezhdurechye and Chernigovets. In the best periods of development, the company's group turnover was $2 billion.

In 2000, Alexander Tikhonov, a businessman, former athlete (Olympic champion-biathlete) and simply a friend of Mikhail Zhivilo, was arrested, accused of preparing an attempt on the life of Aman Tuleyev. After this, Mikhail Zhivilo left Russia, going abroad.

Gradually, the MIKOM group is losing control over NkAZ. On February 22, 2001, he was detained in Paris at the request of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the case of an attempt on the life of Aman Tuleyev. Zhivilo's arrest still leaves many questions. Firstly, to this day it remains a mystery how Mikhail managed to move freely around the world if he had already been wanted by Interpol for six months. Why was he suddenly arrested in Paris, where he had previously lived in complete peace and prosperity?

Mikhail's lawyer put forward a funny version - the fire alarm that went off in his apartment was allegedly to blame. Not only firefighters, but also police officers went to the scene; Mikhail Zhivilo did not have documents that would prove his identity. He was taken to the station, accidentally entered into the Interpol file and was arrested as an international fraudster.

Despite this, on May 16, 2001, after a short hearing, the French court decided to refuse extradition to Russia, after which the businessman was released. The French court considered that the Russian side provided insufficient information to extradite and prosecute Misha. The French authorities explained that according to their laws, a person who only intended to commit crimes cannot be extradited, thereby recognizing the very fact of the attempt on Aman Tuleyev. Thus, French justice prevented Russian investigators from bringing this criminal case to its logical conclusion. As a result, a man has been released against whom Russian law enforcement agencies have a motivated suspicion of an attempt on the life of an influential political figure.

The criminal activities of Mikhail Zhivilo (nickname - Misha Kemerovsky) began in 1994, when he and his brother Yuri, using threats of violence and murder, forced one of their partners Ruslan Shamurin to transfer to them his share of ownership in jointly founded companies, all funds from a bank account in London and apartment in Moscow. Directly in these ways, the MIKOM company, founded by Mikhail Zhivilo, already by the mid-90s took control of many levers of management of the largest enterprises in the Kemerovo region. The purchase of shares in all these enterprises took place under the direct control and participation of local organized criminal groups. One of the authorities of these groups was Oleg Videnin (Videnya), who and his team forced the sale of shares. The organized crime groups also controlled Zhivilo's management of robberies of all controlled enterprises.

The production facilities acquired by Mikhail Zhivilo were subject to regular “seizure of funds,” as a result of which Russian manufacturers suffered colossal losses. Already in 1998-2000. A number of criminal cases were opened against Zhivilov’s managers in connection with the legalization (laundering) of money, failure to return funds from abroad, tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and abuse of power.

In 2001, V.V. Putin made a statement that the situation with Zhivilo went beyond all legal boundaries. Back in August 2000, the USFB of the Novosibirsk region opened a criminal case regarding the preparation of an assassination attempt on A. Tuleyev, the head of the Kemerovo region. In this case he acts as a customer.

Former members of the organized crime group of the crime boss Tatarin - V. Ermishin and A. Spichenko (Spic), who were then awaiting the start of the trial in a Brooklyn prison, expressed a desire to testify against Mikhail Zhivilo, who is hiding in the United States. The case of the “Tatar brigade” was supposed to be considered in April 2002, and these prisoners were facing capital punishment, but in the United States, in case of cooperation with the prosecutor’s office, one can count on leniency. V. Ermishin and A. Spichenko took advantage of this chance and confessed to committing some criminal offenses ordered by Zhivilo. For example, through extortion and threats, the brothers from the Tatar group wanted to get part of the shares of the Sayan Aluminum Plant, but, according to the instructions of Mikhail Zhivilo, they retreated due to severe resistance. The bandits also admitted to carrying out orders from the owner of MIKOM of an international nature, namely covering up multimillion-dollar scams in matters of exporting NkAZ products.

During his testimony against Mikhail Zhivilo, he himself was relatively safe and fell under the so-called witness protection program. However, the further the case was investigated, the clearer it became that this program was just another scam. The investigation had to understand all the scams of the Russian businessman.

The FBI began to trace Zhivilo's interest in big-time sports, namely his involvement in the murder of boxer Kobozev, connections with biathlete Tikhonov and their involvement in the assassination attempt on A. Tuleyev, the murder of a boxer in the United States - a contender for the title of champion among professionals in the cruising category. If it is possible to prove at least involvement in the last crime, then according to US law Mikhail Zhivilo faces the death penalty.

The direct initiator of the organization of the fight against all criminal structures of Mikhail Zhivilo was the governor of the Kemerovo region A. Tuleev. Aman, better than anyone, can talk about the principles of work of the head of MIKOM.

Zhivilo from the very beginning, having entered the business as a broker of the Russian Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange, began to look for ways to quickly get rich.

Aman Tuleyev claimed that Mikhail Zhivilo was not a political figure for him, but simply a swindler. According to Tuleyev, the French court’s decision to refuse to extradite Zhivilo to the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office is complete absurdity. Thus, they rehabilitated a real bandit who robbed the Novokuznetsk Metallurgical Plant for an estimated $300 million. It’s hard to imagine how much money ended up in Mikhail Zhivilo’s personal accounts. He got away with a lot, and this, according to A. Tuleyev, convinced Mikhail of his impunity.

At each production under his control, there were two main methods of pumping out money: raw materials and commodity, when offshore intermediaries dictated prices for raw materials and final products. Every month Zhivilo received about $10 million through offshore companies.

According to Aman Tuleyev, the mechanism of robbery by MIKOM is very simple: all raw materials that go to the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant or Chernigovsky first pass through MIKOM companies, where inflated prices are set. There was also such a case: between Prokopyevsk and Novokuznetsk the distance is about 3 kilometers, but first coal from Prokopyevsk was sent to Greece, where one of the Mikomov companies was located, and only then to KMK. This automatically increased the cost of production by 7-8 times. It turns out that the plant regularly pays huge sums of money to the companies of the MIKOM group, and thus increased its debts. At the same time, MIKOM companies received the same goods at the lowest prices. Salaries at the plant were low, working conditions were terrible.

In order to escape responsibility, which could come soon, Misha Kemerovo went into politics and nominated 35 candidates for the next elections, many of whom were criminals. None of the candidates passed.

More than once there was information about the Zhivilo brothers’ connections with the communists. After the statement by party leader Semago about the financing of the party by the Zhivilo brothers, the silence of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation lasted about a week and a half. According to Aman Tuleyev, communists have long ago moved away from their beliefs, since selfish unprincipledness comes first for them. Thus, the party uses money illegally received by Yuri and Mikhail Zhivilo for its activities, which does not benefit it.

After the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was slightly squeezed out, Mikhail tried to change his political orientation, and even briefly joined Unity. But soon his services were abandoned due to the interest of law enforcement agencies in him.

Zhivilo laundered criminal money through the Bank of New York

It is worth noting that Misha Kemerovo has found refuge in the USA. Here he was greeted with open arms, since even before his arrest in Paris he was recruited by the CIA and worked for American intelligence. Mikhail Zhivilo was recruited after the discovery of facts of involvement of MIKOM group companies in money laundering through the Bank of New York. Unofficial data says that Zhivilo was listed as an informant in the CIA file cabinet under the pseudonym Mike. He is very useful to the Americans, as he knows well all the ins and outs of the Russian metals trade, and is also well versed not only in the shadow activities of the Russian metallurgical oligarchs, but also in international trade. Thus, the United States is protecting Mikhail Zhivilo in every possible way, since he is a useful personnel for the American intelligence services.

In 2004, Mikhail graduated from the Law Institute in Moscow in absentia, and in 2005 he received political refugee status in France, which is granted for life.

In 2005, the conflict over NkAZ was resolved. Zhivilo accused the owners of Rusal of obtaining NkAZ illegally. Oleg Deripaska concluded a truce with Mikhail Zhivilo and paid him monetary compensation, thereby breaking all ties with him.

In the same year, with his business partner Dmitry Chirakadze, they bought the North-East Alliance bank in Moscow. In addition, Mikhail also received a share in Gazprom.

It seems that all the criminal activities of Mikhail Zhivilo will remain unpunished.