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Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko (; born 23 January 1953) is a Ukraine convicted criminal, international fugitive, and a former politician who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine from 1996 to 1997.
Born in 1953 to a peasant family in southern Ukraine, Lazarenko was active in agricultural activities before joining politics in the late 1980s. Originally Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Lazarenko was in 1995 made First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for energy affairs, placing him in charge of acquiring energy from foreign countries. Less than a year later, he was appointed by President Leonid Kuchma as prime minister, serving for just over a year before being replaced by Valeriy Pustovoitenko on 2 July 1997.
Lazarenko's time as prime minister and subsequent trials have established him as one of the most corrupt, authoritarian, and unpopular politicians in Ukrainian history. According to United Nations reports, Lazarenko stole around $200 million from the Ukrainian government. Following his 1999 flight from Ukraine, Lazarenko fled to the United States, where he was subsequently tried for extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud, and sentenced. Since 1999, he has been living in exile in the United States due to criminal charges against him in Ukraine.
After his military service, from 1973 to 1978 Lazarenko studied at the in the Agronomic Department. After graduating, Lazarenko was recognised as an agronomist. From 1978 to 1983, he worked variously as agronomist, chief agronomist, and head of kolkhoz administration in the Kalinin kolkhoz in Novomoskovsk Raion.
In 1984, Lazarenko was appointed a head of agricultural department of Tsarychanka Raion. From 1985 to 1987 he worked as a Communist Party functionary in Tsarychanka Raion, and from 1987 to 1990, Lazarenko worked for the Communist Party of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in agricultural production and food industry sectors. In February 1990, he was elected as head of Agro-Industrial Complex of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
In March 1992, President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk appointed Lazarenko as Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Lazarenko's candidacy was nominated by the council of working groups conference of the Dnipropetrovsk State Agrarian University, whose decision was supported by over 200 groups. Leonid Kuchma, then a People's Deputy, at that time proposed Valeriy Pustovoitenko, who would also later become prime minister.
Lazarenko remained as Governor until June 1994. Although he sided with incumbent Kravchuk in the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election, he managed to establish close ties with the election winner, Leonid Kuchma.
On 16 July 1996, Lazarenko survived an attempt on his life when a bomb exploded near his blocked car en route from Kyiv to Boryspil airport.Kolomayets, Marta. "Lazarenko escapes assassination attempt." Ukrainian Weekly, 21 July 1996, (Accessed: 25 August 2006)
Lazarenko has been linked to the deaths of several of his political opponents, though he has repeatedly denied his involvement in any assassinations. On 3 November 1996, Yevhen Shcherban, a prominent member of the Verkhovna Rada and natural gas executive, was murdered at Donetsk Airport, a few months after the assassination attempt on Lazarenko, which some media sources accused Shcherban of having a role in."Ukraine Tycoon Shot Dead." The New York Times, 5 November 1996 (Accessed:26 August 2006) Taylor: Firtash blames notorious 1996 murder on ex-premier Lazarenko, Kyiv Post (December 3, 2010) The clan from Donetsk PART I , The Ukrainian Weekly (January 12, 2003)
Following his departure from the office of prime minister, Lazarenko also allegedly ordered the assassination of Vadym Hetman, an independent People's Deputy who had been active in economic reform efforts.
He may have also plotted against Oleksandr Volkov, a close associate of President Kuchma. Reportedly, Volkov became aware of the planned assassination and made a phone call to Lazarenko threatening appropriate revenge.
Lazarenko is reported to have abused his official authority as Prime Minister of Ukraine to extort nearly 50% of businessman Peter Kiritchenko's $60 million in profits. Lazarenko then ordered him to assist in laundering the proceeds to accounts in Poland, Switzerland, Antigua, and eventually in the United States, where a shell company was used to conceal his property purchases. Kiritchenko pleaded guilty to one count of receipt of stolen property and agreed to testify against Lazarenko.
In 1998, he made unlawful transfers of $2.3 million from one Dugsbery account at WestAmerica Bank, which can be traced back to Mr. Lazarenko's Lady Lake bank account in the Bahamas, to an account at Bank Boston Robertson Stevens. Both the funds in this account and those in a San Francisco EuroFed can be traced back to Lazarenko's CARPO-53 account, where he deposited funds from the Naukovy fraud and from his extortion of Mr. Kiritchenko's funds. In total, Lazarenko was found to have laundered over $15 million from his Swiss bank account which ultimately ended up in Kiritchenko's EuroFed accounts in San Francisco. A Geneva court in June 2000 tried and convicted Lazarenko in absentia for laundering $6.6 million in illicit proceeds.
In a special investigative report conducted by Kelly Carr and Brian Grow, two Reuters journalists, it is stated that Lazarenko "was once ranked the eighth-most corrupt official in the world by watchdog group Transparency International" and that "Court records submitted in Lazarenko's criminal case and documents from a separate civil lawsuit, as well as interviews with lawyers familiar with the matter, indicate Lazarenko controls a shelf company incorporated in Cheyenne that owns an estimated $72 million in real estate in Ukraine through other companies". Lazarenko's shelf corporation is reportedly named Capital Investments Group.
He acquired the majority of his illegal funds through his activities in the gas and energy sector of Ukraine, both as Vice Prime Minister for Energy Affairs and as prime minister. He was reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to have been guilty of money laundering in the United States, and has routinely been on Transparency International's lists of most corrupt officials.
In the 2004 Global Corruption Report, Lazarenko made it into the list of the World's Most Corrupt Leaders. He was listed eighth, and was said to have amassed between $114 million to $200 million.
Lazarenko, who had no previous record of serious illness, was unexpectedly hospitalised in late June 1997. It has been alleged that he spent the two weeks of the leave for the sickness in vain attempts to mend fences with Kuchma. Technically, under the Ukrainian labour code law, a hospitalized individual may not be terminated from his position. However, when his dismissal became imminent, Lazarenko resigned on 2 July 1997, on his own initiative.
In the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary election, he was once again elected to the Verkhovna Rada from electoral district No. 40 of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as part of Hromada party. In the Verkhovna Rada, Lazarenko became a leader of the Hromada parliamentary faction. Hromada frequently sided with Socialist Party of Ukraine of Oleksandr Moroz.
In February 1999, shortly after arriving in the United States, Lazarenko was again arrested, this time on charges of visa irregularities. This case soon expanded to cover Lazarenko's various crimes, and he was eventually convicted of extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud in 2004, and sentenced to 9 years in federal prison on 25 August 2006.
On 18 October 2006, an appeal stemming from Lazarenko's conviction (but not the appeal of the conviction) was heard by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which included former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sitting by designation. United States v. Lazarenko, 476 F.3d 644, 644–5 (9th Cir. 2007), appeal dismissed, petitions for rehearing and rehearing en banc denied. Lazarenko was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California. Former Ukraine prime minister's conviction upheld, by Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times, 11 April 2009. – Retrieved on 18 June 2009. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer cut Lazarenko's sentence from 108 to 97 months in prison on 19 November 2009. The court took into account that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had dismissed approximately half the counts he was convicted of, leaving convictions only for acts committed 17 years previously.
In November 2009, Interior Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko stated that if Lazarenko returned to Ukraine he would be detained, as he was on the international wanted list. Lazarenko to be detained if he returns to Ukraine, says interior minister, Interfax-Ukraine (12 November 2009)
Lazarenko was imprisoned at FCI Terminal Island until 1 November 2012. Following the end of his sentence, he applied for residency in the United States, citing the 2011 arrest of Yulia Tymoshenko, who was coincidentally a close ally of Lazarenko as prime minister. PRESS: Lazarenko could be deported from U.S., Interfax-Ukraine (4 November 2013) According to Lazarenko's defense lawyer Viktor Chevhuz, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services were to deal with this application by the end of 2013. Chevhuz claimed that this could lead to the demand to Lazarenko to leave the country within 72 hours with the right to fly anywhere, or, "A deportation to a country from which he arrived - Greece, because there is no extradition treaty with Ukraine". Chevhuz further expected Lazarenko to not return to Ukraine "as the criminal cases against him, which had been previously dropped, may be reopened".
Immediately after his 1 November 2012 release, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine stated that as soon as Lazarenko would return to Ukraine he would be arrested for his involvement in around 50 criminal cases. In 2012, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Pshonka announced the involvement of Lazarenko, alongside Tymoshenko, in the murder of Yevhen Shcherban and Alexander Momot in 1996, and the assassination of banker Vadym Hetman.
Lazarenko formerly owned a $6.75 million mansion in Marin County, California, Picasso piece worth $30,000 missing from Lazarenko mansion after Novato teen party. which was purchased with money from the Ukrainian budget. In 2013, US authorities confiscated the mansion, in connection with his 2004 money laundering conviction. Authorities have also sanctioned the seizure of a Pablo Picasso lithograph he is rumoured to possess.
As of July 2016, he was living with his wife and children in California, with his application for asylum still pending. Lazarenko was mentioned in the Panama Papers and the Suisse secrets.
Lazarenko is currently married to Oksana Tsykova, an attorney in Daniel Horowitz's Law Practice in the California East San Francisco Bay Area,lawyersinlafayette.com/home.html with whom he has 3 children.Archived at Ghostarchive and the
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In 2008, according to the results of collective investigative journalism, the book "The Phenomenon of Lazarenko. Villain or Genius?" edited by Vadym Klymentyev was published. It was dedicated to the analysis of the politicians' life course. phenomenon of Lazarenko: Villain or Genius? Collective investigative journalism, edited by Vadim Klymentyev
According to the results of investigations of journalist Borys Filatov two documentaries, that revealed the essence of the charges against Mr. Lazarenko in the U.S., were filmed.
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