Fashion verdict

Influential Belarusian businessman Alexander Zaitsev has receded from the public view, but he is still very much in business. He has progressed from an assistant to Viktor Lukashenko to a prominent businessman, amassing a range of notable “achievements and titles” along the way. These include “arms dealer”, “gold miner”, “owner of soccer clubs”, and, ultimately, the “titled knight of the papal order”.

Western regulators duly appreciated the ambitions of Lukashenko’s “money bag”. In June 2021, he fell under EU sanctions. The US authorities also imposed individual sanctions against him after Russia attacked Ukraine.

However, Buro has learned that Alexander Zaitsev is still operating his business, albeit covertly. He is registering new companies with trusted individuals to circumvent potential issues with sanctions legislation. Today we will reveal the new and lucrative business venture of Lukashenko’s “money bag”, which supplies not only Belarusians but also Russians with luxury goods, thus circumventing sanctions.

RUZEKSPEDITSIYA BOUTIQUE

Karl Marx Street is one of Minsk’s most aesthetically pleasing thoroughfares, situated in the city’s heart and retaining its pre-war character. The area is renowned for its fashionable restaurants, expensive cars, and stylish customers. The high level of social activity in the area has led to it being nicknamed “Minsk Patriki”. At the intersection of Karl Marx and Kamsamolskaya Streets, you will find Outlet Park, a boutique offering brand-name clothing from Europe. Another outlet is situated on Peramozhtsau Avenue, near the upscale Drazdy Estate.

Outlet Park Boutique. Source: outletpark.by

Outlet Park is the first European-style outlet in Belarus, offering discounts of between 30 and 70% on original products from the world’s leading brands. Here, Belarusians can buy clothes, shoes and accessories at rock-bottom prices from more than 50 world-famous brands, including Armani, Gucci, Moschino, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Diesel, Guess, Trussardi, Bikkembergs, Philipp Plein, Michael Kors, Baldinini, Hugo Boss, Paul&Shark, Max Mara, Dolce&Gabbana, Valentino and Givenchy.

The Outlet Park brand is owned by the Belarus-based company Trendhall. The company’s director is Yana Levaneuskaya.

Yana Levaneuskaya. Source: Yana Levaneuskaya’s Instagram account

She has an impressive track record, even though she is only 34 years old. In 2016, she was employed by the logistics companies Gaz Venture and Transpetrolbaltik, which are associated with Alexander Zaitsev and his partner in the Bremino Group, tobacco tycoon Aliaksei Aleksin. In 2020, Levaneuskaya became an executive assistant at Belkaztrans. This is an asset of another businessman, Nikolay Vorobey, the third co-owner of Bremino Group, who has close ties with the Belarusian authorities.

Levaneuskaya often accompanied her patrons on trips. Thanks to the CyberPartisans hacker group, we discovered that between 2019 and 2021, she flew 64 times on private business jets Embraer Legacy 650, tail number OE-ITA and Gulfstream G450, tail number OE-ITE, which were frequently flying the Minsk – Kyiv – Vienna route at that time.

At the time, Nikolay Vorobey himself, his family and business partners actively used these executive class flights. We located Yana Levaneuskaya on flights shared with Nikolai Vorobey, the family of his daughter Katsiaryna Smushkovich, and Vorobey’s senior managers Lidziya Ushakova and Ala Pinchuk.

The current Trendhall boss also crossed paths with Dzmitry Aleksin in the skies. In our previous investigation, “Marriage Fraud”, we looked at how Levaneuskaya flew to Basel, Switzerland, with the family of Aleksin’s eldest son, Viktor Lukashenko, an agent of Lukashenko’s security service, and the second secretary of the Foreign Ministry.

Among her fellow travellers was Taras Kozak, then a member of the Ukrainian parliament. Ukrainian investigative journalists describe Kozak as close to Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, better known as “Putin’s crony”. Medvedchuk called Vorobey a friend.

But why do we associate Yana Levaneuskaya and the Belarusian outlet stores with Alexander Zaitsev?

This is confirmed by data from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs of the Republic of Belarus. On 1 November 2023, the logistics company Ruzekspeditsiya, controlled by Alexander Zaitsev, became the beneficiary of Trendhall.

A year ago, the former nominal owner, Yauhen Krakhotsin, retired. The position of honorary owner was taken over by the painter and restorer Aleh Arlou. Ruzekspeditsiya is now headed by Uladzimir Mikhailiuk, the former first deputy head of the Belarusian Railway Company.

At the beginning of August, the US Treasury Department added Ruzekspeditsiya to the new package of US sanctions, including as one of Alexander Zaitsev’s assets.

NOT BY GUCCI ALONE

Outlet Park announces new arrivals in its Telegram channel. We have selectively compared several items from the Minsk outlet with the original prices on the manufacturers’ websites. While most of the premium and mid-range products are discounted, the luxury items at the Belarusian boutique are either at the manufacturer’s official price or with a significant markup. These items aren’t included in the sales.

Buro believes that such exorbitant prices raise questions about the positioning of these boutiques as outlets, given that not only are some products sold without the promised discounts but also above the official price set by the manufacturer. Besides, the question remains: Who in Belarus targets such expensive things?

ON WHOSE STREET DOES THE SUN SHINE?

Despite the EU’s wide-ranging sanctions, which have already blocked entire sectors of the Belarusian economy, light industrial goods in our country are still not under the Western ban. But the situation is different in Russia. In March 2022, just three weeks after Russia attacked Ukraine, the EU decided to ban luxury goods destined for the aggressor. Clothing, footwear and accessories with a value of over 300 euros were also on the list. This was done to prevent wealthy Russians from enjoying the “good life”.

Some of the world’s brands voluntarily left the Russian market after the start of the war. To prevent the Russian elite from experiencing an acute shortage of luxury goods, the government of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree legalising parallel imports in the spring of 2022. This means that foreign brands that have left the Russian market can now be imported into Russia without them having authorised and agreed to this. Against this background, services for buying, selling and exchanging second-hand goods in the premium and luxury segments, services for ordering goods of popular brands from abroad and, of course, businessmen such as Alexander Zaitsev and Yana Levaneuskaya have become more active.

Buro found that Zaitsev’s Trendhall was attempting to establish wholesale shipments of branded clothing and accessories to Russia, taking advantage of a loophole in the sanctions legislation. We found the company’s offer on the Outlet Park channel of the Russian platform Dzen.ru.

Posing as a prospective buyer from Russia, a Buro journalist called the number provided in the article. Yana Levaneuskaya answered the phone. According to the outlet manager, the company’s purchasing policy is to source current and previous collections from European manufacturers, factories and authorised distributors of brands, with a maximum age of one year. Trendhall’s warehouses currently contain approximately 10,000 branded units.

Levaneuskaya has stated that it is challenging to operate in the luxury market in Belarus due to a lack of interest and a narrow profit margin. In response, Trendhall is planning to exit this business segment and focus on the middle class.

Levaneuskaya also had some tempting offers and promises of the best prices:

In addition, Yana Levaneuskaya offered to buy up the luxury stock that was not selling in the Minsk boutiques:

When asked if “our company in Russia” would have problems with the sale of the sanctioned goods, Levaneuskaya replied:

Is that really the case? We have reached out to the global brands that are mentioned in the Trendhall documents and are waiting to hear back.

PECULIARITIES OF NATIONAL CERTIFICATION

We asked Yana Levaneuskaya if we could see the documents that prove the products are genuine, of good quality and safe to use. She said no, even though she is legally required to let us see them.

So why did Trendhall refuse to give the buyer the certificates and declarations of conformity for the products? What is the company hiding?

Despite Yana Levaneuskaya’s refusal to present these documents to the “Russian buyer”, they were ultimately obtained by Buro’s editorial staff. Our analysis of over a hundred certificates and declarations of conformity issued to Trendhall between December 2023 and September 2024 revealed an unusual pattern: all test reports were issued by laboratories based in Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Under the relevant legislation, Belarusian firms are entitled to obtain the aforementioned documents in any country within the EAEU Customs Union. However, Trendhall might consider outsourcing to foreign laboratories due to economic considerations. Regardless of the cost of an item, the testing regulations require chemical and biological tests, rendering the samples unusable. This results in substantial losses for the company.

The majority of the bodies that register Trendhall’s certificates and declarations of conformity are Kyrgyz organisations.

This may be because Belarusian certification bodies follow the protocol, so it is easier to negotiate with local officials in Kyrgyzstan:

For example, in 2023, officials in Kyrgyzstan were caught issuing false phytosanitary certificates to businessmen for bribes, according to the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security.

In this way, the resourceful Trendhall was able to save a lot of money by obtaining test reports from neighbouring countries. Hundreds of items appear in certificates and declarations of conformity that could have been saved from merciless destruction by the laboratories and bureaucracy of the Customs Union. After all, some of the items sold in the Outlet Park cost thousands of euros each.

Buro contacted Yana Levaneuskaya again, now undisguised, and asked why Kyrgyzstan was chosen for the registration of compliance documents, but did not get a clear answer from the outlet director:

We also asked how Trendhall is doing in terms of finding wholesale buyers for European brands in Russia. Levaneuskaya initially tried to deny that she had made an offer, but when we referred to the ad on Dzen.ru, she changed her rhetoric:

When our journalist asked Levaneuskaya whether Trendhall sells to Russian clients in retail, she quickly excused herself:

On its website, Outlet Park offers delivery services of branded goods to customers in Belarus and throughout the Russian Federation via the Russian courier delivery service CDEC.

Screenshot of the Outlet Park service for the delivery of branded goods to the Russian Federation. Source: outletpark.by