Global Jewish leader guilty of fraud
A court has found that Andrey Adamovsky, vice president of the World
Jewish Congress, defrauded former business partners to the tune of
$34.7 million (£22.3m).
A civil court judge handed down the verdict last October, but Mr
Adamovsky, who was found to have illicitly deprived two co-owners of his
Oledo Petroleum company of their 45 per cent share of its sale, has not
yet paid them back.
The 53-year-old was born in modern-day Kyrgyzstan but is now
co-president of the Association of Jewish Organisations and Communities —
a rabbi’s council — in Ukraine, in addition to his WJC role.
At the end of the five-year case — during which Mr Adamovsky made
“ridiculous” and “rubbish” claims, according to prosecuting lawyer
Martin Kenney — the judge found he had indeed conned his business
partners.
One day before the proceeds arrived from the sale of Oledo
Petroleum’s share in Vik Oil, a Ukrainian petrochemicals company, Mr
Adamovsky terminated shareholder Andriy Malitskiy’s powers over their
joint bank account.
The British Virgin Islands (BVI) court noted that Mr Adamovsky then
shifted the $71.6m fee, only half of which was legally his, to Stockman
Interhold SA, his other BVI corporation, without the knowledge of his
co-owners.
In his closing remarks, the judge said Mr Adamovsky was “selfish”,
adding that he “had no right to expropriate the property of others for
his own advantage”.
Mr Kenney, a Canadian lawyer who specialises in prosecuting
large-scale fraudsters, said it was “unconscionable” that a proven thief
could still represent the WJC.
He said: “It’s shocking to me that a reputable organisation like the WJC would make such an appointment.”
A WJC representative said: “Mr. Adamovsky is a member of the WJC Executive by
virtue of having been being elected co-chairman of the Vaad of Ukraine, which
under the WJC Constitution automatically makes him an ex-officio member of the
WJC Executive Committee. Mr Adamovsky’s civil litigation over a
commercial dispute is totally unrelated to the World Jewish Congress or
the Jewish community of Ukraine. It began and ended well before he
became a member of the WJC Executive Committee in March 2015.
“Mr. Adamovsky, like all other ex-officio vice-presidents of the
WJC, only speaks on behalf the WJC when explicitly mandated to do so by
the WJC president or the CEO.”
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