«We are one family.» BelAZ dealers linked to Lukashenko's sons earn as much as BelAZ itself
For Alexander Lukashenko's planned meeting to eliminate the brokerage to make sense, he would have to invite his own sons to it. Perhaps only they can explain why dealers like Avtotekhinmash and B-24 earn about as much from selling dump trucks as BelAZ itself with its 9,600 employees. And why poetess and songwriter Anna Lukashenko (Seluk) received a luxurious income from the BelAZ Trading House.
BelAZ is one of the most profitable enterprises in Belarus. It produces quarry dump trucks. BelAZ is the only manufacturer of them in the former USSR and one of only a few in the world. In addition to BelAZ, they are produced by Caterpillar, Komatsu and literally several other factories around the world.
The main market for BELAZ is Russia. More than 90% of dump trucks are sold there.
Unlike MAZ, which has been balancing on the brink of unprofitability for the last decades and whose share in the Russian market has been constantly declining, BelAZ is not just profitable, but very profitable, because it is the only one in its segment in the entire Eurasian Union.
Sales of BelAZs to Russia occur as follows: the Zhodino plant ships products to the Russian distributor, Trading House BELAZ, which then distributes them to dealers, each of which is assigned a specific region of Russia.
This sales scheme is theoretically absolutely normal, this is how many equipment exporters operate. But in practice, the distribution of income in the BELAZ sales chain is upside down and leads to the unfair enrichment of dealers. Among the founders of TD BelAZ is the Belarusian Presidential Sports Club, which is managed by the middle son of the ruler of Belarus, Dmitry Lukashenko. But, apparently, the dealers themselves are connected with the sons of Alexander Lukashenko. We will show this with facts and figures.
In 2023, the dealer Avtotekhinmash, which sold 23.7% of BelAZ products and employed only 164 people, received $66 million in net profit. In 2022, another $32 million.
Dealer B-24, through which 39.7% of BelAZ products passed in 2023 and which employs 722 people, received $73 million and $46 million in profit in 2023 and 2022, respectively.
For comparison: BelAZ currently employs about 9,600 people (in 2019, this figure was 11,185, but optimization is ongoing). Since 2021, the income of the Zhodino auto giant has been classified. But its size can be roughly estimated, because its income figures in pre-COVID times are known. In 2018, they amounted to $161.3 million, converted at the average exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble for the year, and $127.2 million in 2019. In 2022 and 2023, the amount is most likely comparable, since the total sales volume was comparable and the sales profitability (which we will provide below) is approximately the same by year. For example, in 2018, gross revenue was $1 billion, and in 2019 — $788 million. This data was removed from official websites after 2021, but it remained in reprints.
It turns out that dealers together earn on BelAZ sales commensurately, and sometimes even more, than the plant itself. Calves are bigger than cows. How so? And is this normal?
Net profit, in millions of $ | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| Autotechinmash | 20.1 | 10.9 | 13.2 | 12.3 | 32.7 | 66.4 |
| B-24 | 43.3 | 29.3 | 4.8 | 14.5 | 45.8 | 72.5 |
| TD BELAZ | 30 | 25.4 | 1.4 | 33.6 | 39.1 | 46.6 |
| OJSC BELAZ | 161.3 | 127.2 | 12.7 | no data | no data | no data |
Gens a sum
Let's start the story from afar.
Drozdy tend to adopt the fashions and trends of the metropolis. Once Shamil Tarpishchev began throwing tennis balls to Yeltsin — Minsk got its own Sergei Teterin.
Over time, the children of the new Russian elite developed a fetish that was shared by the children of the new Belarusian elite — Harley Davidson motorcycles. Russian mafiosi, governors, businessmen and security officials rode them. An unofficial circle of interests of the authorities formed into an elite movement.
Artem Chaika and Viktor Lukashenko
In 2012, a club of fans of the brand called Iron Birds was established in Russia. Its founders were businessman Artem Chaika, the son of former Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, and Viktor Lukashenko, the eldest son of Alexander Lukashenko. The club's motto was borrowed from the International Chess Federation: "Gens una sumus" — "We are one family."
Anti-Corruption Foundation investigation into the Chaika business empire, 2015
As informed sources tell us, people from Viktor Lukashenko's circle and generation immediately ran to this club. For example, the current Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Belarus Dmitry Korzyuk, as well as former minister Igor Shunevich, "businessman of fortune" Alexey Oleksin — members of the Russian Iron Birds. And many others.
It’s funny, but true: Shoigu’s deputy Timur Ivanov, who was recently loudly arrested for corruption, also has a rather unusual “Harley Triumph” in his declaration.
Artem Chaika and Alexey Oleksin. Photo by Tut.by
The private Viktor Lukashenko, when he appears in public, usually wears a biker leather jacket.
Viktor Lukashenko at one of the propaganda events in the company of his biker friends, including former traffic police chief Dmitry Korzyuk (behind Viktor on the left) and Dmitry Shakuta, who, as follows from the investigation into the death of Roman Bondarenko, was at the scene where the protester received fatal injuries (second from the right). Photo by Belarus Segodnya
When it became clear that Harleys were becoming a way to enter Viktor Lukashenko's circle, or at least his friends, those who were looking for it rushed to Moscow to buy motorcycles.
What does it mean to buy a motorcycle from an official dealer? It means that you will come there for maintenance, for equipment, and for consumables.
At that time, Minsk had neither its own dealership nor its own serious club. The niche was free, and someone had to fill it.
Minsk Harley riders
This was understood at that time by the modest, little-known dealers of the German Liebherr in Belarus Yuri Khomich and Igor Podgorny, known in Belarus for the company "MegapolisInvest", who were bikers themselves. They opened a Harley Davidson showroom in Minsk, understanding who would come there.
Yuri Khomich is first on the right, holding an umbrella over the head of the YuzhUralZoloto group of companies. Second from the left is the then Minister of Industry of Belarus Pyotr Parkhomchik. Photo by Atim-belaz.com
"In parallel with this, they created the Belarusian branch of HOG (Harley Davidson Owners) Minsk Chapter, which they headed themselves and began to recruit people, since the dealer is granted such a right. Those of our figures who already considered themselves figures, but Iron Birds did not take them, flocked to the Belarusian branch," a person immersed in the details of this story told us.
In 2012, a Harley Davidson dealership opened in Minsk on Independence Avenue, in the Chelyuskintsev Park area, owned by the MegapolisInvest company (they would later move to Uruchye, and then closer to the target audience — to Arena City near Drozdy).
Igor Podgorny gives Artem Chaika a hand-drawn picture of him riding a bike against the backdrop of the Kremlin, 2014. Photo by Hog.by
In 2012, according to information from the Belpol databases, the first sales of motorcycles took place. And in the same year, Khomich and Podgorny's company Avtotekhinmash opened in Russia — the same one that will receive exclusive rights to sell BelAZs in the northwest of Russia.
Alexander Lukashenko at the head of the column
"Khomich and Podgorny were having a blast — people of the caliber of Alexander Lukashenko's assistant Igor Yevseyev and Chizhovsky fixer Alexey Oleksin started visiting the salon. Both really do have a Harley."
Everything went as they planned — almost the Apple success story, which everyone who was around listened to 10 times, — another interlocutor tells us. — They decided, since there was such an opportunity, to expand and go to the streets, they came up with the runs to the Mound of Slavy and the party in the capital Minsk HOG Rally. There was logic here.
People came to the opening and closing of the season, whoever they could, because it was really interesting, a motorcycle is an accessible and inexpensive technique for young people, an opportunity to hang out, the public also liked it. But they managed to drag the elder Lukashenko there. We like all sorts of mass crap like creating an image of a mass movement. Like, all these people are for you, Alexander Grigorievich, lead our column."
Alexander (center), Viktor (left) and Dmitry (to the right of his father) Lukashenko at a motorcyclists' rally in 2016. Photo: ezolotuhin.com
The HOG Minsk Chapter is not exactly a star-studded team, but it is not exactly simple either. Of course, there are also people who are simply loyal to the brand, motorcycle fans, and road romantics.
But there are also, for example, the deputy chairman of the board of BPS-Sberbank Oleg Borodko, the son of a general, former deputy chairman of the State Border Committee Alexander Shugai, responsible for the supply of Belneftekhim products to the West Andrei Dauksha, the star of Russian TV Vadim Galygin, the technical director of the Slavic Bazaar Alexei Odarenko, the head of Top Tour and honorary consul of Thailand Ivan Chura and others.
The Minsk HOG Rally's peak of fame was 2016, when the entire Lukashenko family showed up at the closing of the season. The family and its friends, as well as the "adults" from Moscow, were in the vanguard. The remaining thousands of participants, mostly on scrap metal, followed them.
September 20, 2020. There are protests in Belarus, and Yuri Khomich follows Viktor Lukashenko at one of the Minsk HOG Rally events. He is wearing a red helmet. Photo by Sputnik.by
Only 70 Harleys in a decade
It is unlikely that MegapolisInvest's Harley-Davidson business was very profitable.
According to Belpol, from 2012 to the first half of 2021, MegapolisInvest imported and sold only 70 motorcycles to Belarus — an average of 8 per year.
A well-informed source told Nasha Niva that this retail activity was financed from other commercial activities of Khomich and Podgorny. Harleys were sold for the sake of acquaintances, not for income.
"In Khomich's office, above his head, there is a joint photo of him and Viktor Lukashenko. We are friends! And the topic of BelAZs at some point became something they were proud of and called it in response to the question "what do you do?" — one of the Belarusian financiers told "Nasha Niva".
The third co-owner of Avtotekhinmash, Igor Drozdov (30%), is also a member of the HOG Minsk Chapter club and is listed on its official website. According to information from the Belpol databases, he is also associated with the MegapolisInvest company.
"Avtotekhinmash" — a super-profitable BelAZ dealer
Thus, Avtotekhinmash was registered in Russia in the same 2012, when MegapolisInvest began active sales of Harleys in Belarus. The founders of MegapolisInvest are Yuri Khomich and Igor Podgorny. And the founders of Avtotekhinmash are Yuri Khomich, Igor Drozdov and Igor Podgorny (Podgorny is Russian by passport, but built his business career in Belarus). And so, Avtotekhinmash receives exclusive rights to a solid share of the Russian BelAZ market.
BelAZ's fixed assets are hundreds of millions of dollars. While Avtotekhinmash's fixed assets are 642 thousand with revenues of over $300 million (here is the dynamics of Avtotekhinmash's fixed assets ).
Apparently, Avtotekhinmash operates under a consignment scheme — when payment for the sold goods is made upon the sale. That is why it has a minimum of debt. Thanks to this scheme, the company, whose office is located in Smolensk, can withdraw almost 100% of its income as dividends without leaving working capital for the next year, which is reflected in the dealer's financial statements.
Miracles happen when selling BelAZ products: the product is the same, but the profitability of each participant in the chain is different — real magic.
To calculate the profitability of sales, we took the available financial statements of all three: Zhodino OJSC BELAZ, Russian Trading House BELAZ and Russian Avtotekhinmash.
Unfortunately, since 2020, BelAZ's financial reports have been effectively classified and not published, but any synchronous reports that are still available (2018, 2019, 2020) are suitable for illustrative calculations.
Profitability of sales of participants in the trade chain when selling products of the BelAZ plant in Russia (using the example of one of the dealers of Avtotekhinmash LLC)
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
| OOO Avtotekhinmash (Russia) | no data | no data | no data | 25.9% | 26% | 28.3% | 25% | 29.5% | 29% |
| TD BELAZ (Russia) | no data | no data | no data | 7% | 6.4% | 7% | 7.1% | 6.3% | 6.6% |
| OJSC BELAZ (Belarus) | 34.4% | 39% | 30% | 31% | 27.9% | 29.7% | no data | no data | no data |
So we see that the indicators of the top three are relatively stable: BELAZ profitability has been hovering around 30% for five years, BELAZ TD profitability fluctuates between 6 and 7%, and Avtotekhinmash profitability shows a smooth upward trend from 25-26% to 29% in the last year, 2023.
With these figures, we can use reverse calculations to calculate the cost-to-profit ratio, as well as calculate each participant's share of the profit.
In order not to torment the reader with eleven-digit figures and percentages, we will conditionally assume that the price of a unit of production of the BELAZ plant, which is paid by the end consumer, is 100 rubles.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Cost price (at a unit price of 100 rubles) | 47.61 RUB | 50 rub | 46.9 RUB |
| Profit (at a unit price of 100 rubles) | 52.39 RUB | 50 rub | 53.1 RUB |
| Profit of the dealer "Avtotekhinmash" | 25.9 RUB (49.4% of profit) | 26 rubles (52% of profit) | 28.3 RUB (53.2% of profit) |
| Profit of the distributor "TD BelAZ" | 5.1 RUB (9.7% of profit) | 4.7 rubles (9.4% of profit) | 5 rubles (9.4% hell of a profit) |
| Profit of the BelAZ manufacturer | 21.39 RUB (40.8% of profit) | 19.3 RUB (38.6% of profit) | 19.8 RUB (37.2% of profit) |
If we are not mistaken, Avtotekhinmash consistently keeps more than half of the profits for itself.
Of course, here we need to make an adjustment for the dealer's earnings from service services, but this adjustment will not significantly change the order of the figures and the essence of the picture, since BELAZs are very expensive machines with very expensive consumables, and the main added value is created in the workshops of the Zhodino plant, and not by mechanics from the Smolensk technical support group.
Who is the dealer "B-24" connected with?
The Belarusian Investigative Center wrote exhaustively about another similar dealer, B-24, a year and a half ago. B-24 is also assigned to a separate region of Russia.
If one can only hypothesize about the connection between Avtotekhinmash and Alexander Lukashenko’s eldest son, Viktor, then the connection between B-24 and Alexander Lukashenko’s middle son, Dmitry, was more than clear.
The BRC found out that at least in 2018 and 2020, Anna Lukashenko, the wife of Alexander Lukashenko's middle son, Dmitry, worked at the BelAZ Trading House. This is the company that sells equipment from the Zhodino concern in Russia. Let us recall that among the founders of the BelAZ Trading House is the Belarusian Presidential Sports Club, headed by Dmitry Lukashenko.
Since 2007, the Presidential Sports Club owned a third of the trading house, but by 2019 this share had grown to 45%. The rest of the company belonged to the parent company BelAZ.
Friendship through business or business through friendship?
In total, TD BelAZ has about a dozen partners in Russia. B-24 is the largest of them. As of 2022, its owners were Oksana Tachkova and Elena Lagun.
The first one is called in the Russian press the wife of Konstantin Makarov, the director of legal affairs of TD BelAZ. The second one is the wife of Viktor Kuluev, the former head of the board of directors of the same trading house. In total, Kuluev and his wife own shares in at least four companies engaged in the distribution and servicing of Zhodino equipment in Russia.
In 2020, the couple entered the top 10 Belarusians who earned the most in Russia. The net profit of their companies since 2017 is about $176 million, which is only half as much as the net profit of BelAZ itself. The owners paid themselves about half of this amount as dividends.
In addition, in 2018, Elena Lagun and Oksana Tachkova’s company B-24 entered the top 500 largest Russian companies by revenue.
Such incomes allow Kuluev and Lagun to lead a luxurious lifestyle. As BRC found out, Dmitry and Anna Lukashenko often kept them company. Thanks to "Cyberpartisans", BRC found 11 joint flights between members of the two families.
The geography of their travels was limited: in 2011, due to the suppression of post-election protests, Dmitry Lukashenko fell under European sanctions. Kuluyev continued to fly to the EU with Dmitry's wife, Anna Lukashenko. In 2011, they visited Vienna and Frankfurt together.
In 2013, the families set off on a trip in full force: Dmitry and Anna Lukashenko with their children and Kuluev with his wife and child. On March 22, they flew from Minsk to Istanbul on a private business jet.
There Dmitry Lukashenko celebrated his 33rd birthday. The company spent 9 days in Turkey.
Journalists calculated that the cost of Anna Lukashenko’s vacations alone exceeded both her official salary and the salary of her husband Dmitry at the “Presidential Sports Club,” his only official place of work (in 2016, for example, he officially earned about $30 thousand).
Where does Avtotekhinmash's income go?
And here we come to an important strange moment that accompanies the gigantic incomes of Russian BelAZ dealers in the amount of tens of millions of dollars annually. Money is earned — but it is not visible. Neither Minsk developers observe Avtotekhinmash's investments in real estate, nor bankers — in production.
"It seems that the balance of relations has been violated. Lukashenko always presented some kind of contract to the businesses that were allowed to sit on the schemes: like build this here, build that there, finance this here. But the "responsibilities" of these guys are not highlighted anywhere. This means that the matter is deeper here," a Minsk banker expressed his opinion to Nasha Niva.
The owners of Avtotekhinmash in Russia withdraw net profit in dividends every year, but where and with whom does this money end up?
We found only a hint, a half-answer. Maybe our colleagues from other media will be able to find more than us.
Singapore offshore companies
Thanks to Belpol, we received an interesting, but rather old document: the Belarusian company MegapolisInvest borrows $200,000 from the Singaporean company HDE Machinery at 0%. At the same time, the loan is transferred by HDE Machinery to the account of a British company — a European distributor of Harley Davidson motorcycles — for the obligations of the Belarusian company.
Document header
There is nothing criminal in this contract; the exclusive conditions only state that these two companies, the Belarusian MegapolisInvest and the Singaporean HDE Machinery, are interconnected, and that MegapolisInvest finances the purchase of motorcycles from HDE Machinery accounts.
When we checked the Singapore company, it turned out (according to the extract from the Singapore registrar) that there were three directors, among whom were two Belarusians: Igor Mishenev and Dmitry Shershen. And also some local guy named Richard Chan Wah Cheong.
This company owns another Singapore company — BELAZIA PTE LTD, in which the same people are directors and the same secretary.
HDE Machinery itself is owned by a third company, WNC PTE LTD, which is already fully registered to Richard Chan Wah Cheong.
Who are Igor Mishenev and Dmitry Shershen? According to Belpol extracts, they are people associated with the Belarusian company MegapolisInvest. According to witnesses, Mishenev is a direct business partner of Khomich and Podgorny in Belarus. We also saw a document where the "Singaporean" Mishenev issues a power of attorney to the "Russian" Podgorny.
Igor Mishenev (left) and Dmitry Shershen are people associated with the Belarusian company Megapolisinvest and at the same time co-owners of the Singaporean company
What do Singapore companies do and why such a multi-level offshore structure? Without knowing the inner workings, any theory will be speculation.
But in one of the years under review, the turnover of the "empty" offshore company of Khomich and Podgorny, registered to fictitious persons, almost coincided with the amount of dividends withdrawn from the Russian Avtotekhinmash. The subsequent fate of these funds is impossible to trace.
Presidential sport
According to data as of the end of 2022 (which is already hidden from public access), 45% of the BELAZ Trading House belonged to the Presidential Sports Club. It would seem that where is sports, and where is the sale of BelAZs.
When we say "Presidential Sports Club", we actually mean its permanent leader Dmitry Lukashenko, who, under the guise of caring about sports, runs a sure-fire lottery business, accepts "gifts" from businessmen into his organization's accounts, and also builds up Minsk.
It seems that it is Dmitry Lukashenko who has the decisive vote in the question of who will be the dealer in Russia and who will receive the shipments.
It is impossible to find a current full list of dealers in the public domain, and the principles by which products are shipped only to them — and to no other companies! — are unknown.
At the same time, every year two BELAZ dealer companies, Avtotekhinmash and B-24, appear in the top lists of the most profitable businesses in Russia with Belarusian capital.
In 2023, more than half of the equipment and components produced at BelAZ were sold through these two companies (23.66% — Avtotekhinmash, 39.7% — B-24).
And two companies with relatively modest staffs have incomes comparable to those of the plant itself.
While the Zhodino plant in some years spends all of its profits on loan payments, companies without fixed assets, which do not produce anything but only resell, spend their profits on paying dividends.
All this is happening under the long-term, merciless, theatrical criticism of the intermediaries from the lips of Alexander Lukashenko.
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