Businessman Convicted of Fraud in Minsk Opened a School in Warsaw. At Some Point, Parents Raised the Alarm

Ilya Volakh

American Elite School (private school No. 99) was excluded from the register of schools on August 31, 2025, one day before the start of the academic year. According to the report of the Education Superintendent, accessed by Gazeta Wyborcza, inspections of the institution showed that the school did not meet five basic conditions. Among other things, it does not implement educational programs that would take into account Poland's core general education curriculum.

In particular, almost no one at the school speaks Polish — neither students nor teachers. Instead, the school implements the Oxford program, and students use exclusively British textbooks. Documentation of the learning process is missing.

Officials first visited the school in January 2024. After inspections, seven out of 12 teachers were sent to postgraduate pedagogical courses, which last three semesters; however, throughout the year, the management did not provide the education department with information on their progress. According to the controllers, one of the teachers, who taught mathematics, computer science, and fine arts, had no pedagogical training whatsoever.

Issued letters with stamps

More than a hundred children attend American Elite School — from zero to eighth grade. It is unknown whether their current academic year will be credited or if they will have to repeat the studies. All students are foreign, mainly from Ukraine and India, most often children of employees of Polish branches of foreign corporations. Tuition fees, depending on the child's age, range from 42.2 thousand to 56.2 thousand zlotys (approximately 10.5 to 14 thousand dollars per year) annually.

Parents were unaware that the school had been removed from the register. They raised the alarm when they started receiving letters from ZUS demanding the return of the 800+ state benefits paid. The fact is that foreigners can receive it only if their school-age children are covered by the Polish education system. A check in the Education Information System (SIO) showed that they were not reflected there.

The school responded to worried parents that there had been a mistake in the education department that would be corrected within a few weeks, and that American Elite School had not received notifications regarding its status and only learned about its exclusion from the register in mid-January 2026. Meanwhile, according to Gazeta Wyborcza, the school director was in constant contact with the education department.

The school sent parents letters with stamps confirming that the children attend an educational institution. This was intended to be proof that they were entitled to the 800+ benefit.

In October 2025, already after the school's exclusion from the register, parents received another document — an addendum to the agreements, in which the administration specified new bank account numbers for tuition payments. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, these are private accounts, not found in the official list of entities registered as VAT payers, maintained by the Ministry of Finance. The documents bear the signatures of Ilya Volakh/Slakatovich or his right-hand person Alexandra Katushonak.

The "Grushavsky Posad" case and the conflict in Warsaw

Ilya Volakh was building the residential complex "Grushavsky Posad" in Minsk, Belarus, but only completed half of the construction. As the investigation found out, between 2016 and 2020, the businessman attracted 58 million rubles for the construction of the complex but spent 24 million of them on other needs, including the purchase of personal real estate, expensive cars, and luxury items.

Volakh was accused of deliberate bankruptcy and abuse of official position. 430 people suffered from his actions. In 2024, Volakh was sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony. The trial was in absentia, as the businessman had by then left for Poland and obtained Polish citizenship. He changed his surname to Slakatovich.

Belarus declared Ilya Volakh wanted via an Interpol "red notice." The businessman was interrogated by the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, but Poland did not extradite him due to concerns related to human rights violations in Belarus. Moreover, the Polish constitution prohibits extraditing its citizens to other states.

In the summer of 2025, Volakh's name surfaced in the Polish press in connection with another conflict. Employees of a restaurant that Slakatovich opened in Warsaw's Wilanów district and which later closed, sought payment of wages from the businessman.

What will happen to the school

Although the school has announced enrollment for the upcoming year, education officials state that it is closed. The city promises to find places in public schools for all students who wish to attend Warsaw institutions.

The school management appealed the decision of the Education Superintendent to the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw. However, according to the law, filing a complaint with the court does not suspend the execution of the issued decision. Slakatovich did not respond to Gazeta Wyborcza's report.

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