Rise of an Oligarch: The Way It Is: Book One

by Carlito Sofer

  Amazingly, I was able to progress with my law degree remotely, although officially it wasn’t a long distance course. I achieved this with a little help from one of my friends.

  On the first day at university, I was wandering the faculty’s corridors, looking for the lecture hall for the first class on Fundamentals of Law. Soon I lost my way among the hundreds of students rushing in all directions. I spotted a man walking along with the course’s book in his hand. He stood out among the throng of students because he seemed to be gliding along, completely unflustered and oblivious to the chaos around him.

  I approached him, smiled and asked, “Hey, I see that this is your first day too, isn’t it? My name is Shaarim, Moshe Shaarim. Nice to meet you. Do you know where the lecture hall is?”

  He returned the smile.

  “I have no idea. But hey; let’s look for it together. I’m David. David Zabbana.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, offering my hand.

  “Privet, drug. Kak dela?”

  I was stunned.

  “I said, ‘hi friend, how are you?’”

  “I...I know. I just wouldn’t have guessed you spoke Russian.”

  “I know many things,” David said without a hint of cockiness. “My mother is Russian.”

  It was fraternal love at first sight.

  David and I soon started to hang out together. We went to parties, hunted girls and experimented with illegal substances. These experiences can get people really close. We became good friends, so when I returned to Kiev, David agreed to help take care of my academic obligations in Israel. He signed my name in lectures’ attendance sheets and kept me informed of academic duties. He rewrote some of his papers and handed them in as mine. Once, he even received a higher mark on a rewritten paper in Family Law, one of the most complicated subjects, as it was “short and to the point” as indicated by the professor. All I needed to do is come once a year to sit the exams. David couldn’t do that for me.

  I figured that one day I would be able to repay him for his kindness and willingness to help me without asking for anything in return.

  ***

  Having my academic affairs taken care of in Israel, I could focus on doing business in Kiev. After six months of ‘training’ in the construction corporation, and thanks to my basic understanding of legal principles and civil engineering, and even bigger thanks to my boss-brother, I was promoted to the position of deputy head of the housing department.

  I was allocated a small office with a desk, a phone and a small cupboard. It didn’t have any windows, but at least it had a door. I bought myself two suits, one blue and one black, and a sleek, James Bond briefcase with a brushed-aluminium finish. Every morning I walked from my apartment to work in the large, long office building. I’d become a Ukrainian bureaucrat.

  But I was a nice bureaucrat. I genuinely tried to give clients a good feeling and some hope, even though it was impossible to help everyone as our resources were limited. Nice attitude and service with a smile, though, didn’t get in the way of making money.

  I had ‘no smoking’ and ‘I don’t take bribes’ signs on the desk in my small office. When people came to see me with an interesting request, I put down the no smoking sign and suggested to the person to have a smoke. The hint was well understood. If I bent the ‘no smoking’ rule, then the ‘I don’t take bribes’ rule was flexible as well.

  I discovered that some people were actually interested in construction services, whether for building a dacha or renovating their apartment. Our company was poorly budgeted, so delays in our official construction schedule were pretty frequent and the builders’ salary arrears were stretched to a few months. So, why not let them earn a bit for themselves and for me?

  Sasha explained to me the secrets of the operation. “Not all the budgeted materials are necessary to be used in construction. There are many ways to write them off and sell them or use them privately.”

  “But what about official papers?” I asked, knowing the probable answer already.

  “The paperwork sometimes gets logged in the wrong file, and unfortunately, we dispose of old papers fairly regularly. It’s an unfortunate scenario that has led to many invoices perishing before they were scrutinised properly. We really should update our filing system!” Sasha added, trying to suppress a smile, “But don’t worry, if the potatoes get hot, I’ve a seasoned arsonist as a friend who will burn our archives.”

  Since I had to be present at the office, I paid an old school friend, Seva, to work for me at the sites. I used the corporation’s construction materials that we didn’t actually use and paid the skilled and experienced corporation’s workers to get the job done, using the corporation’s equipment, under Seva’s supervision. And I paid everyone from the bribes that I collected as the corporation’s employee.

  Everyone was happy. The customers got the construction completed without waiting years in queues. The workers got paid on time without any arrears. And I was making some money.

  Nobody was hurt because we embezzled corporation resources. If anything, I helped the corporation deliver a high-quality service on schedule to satisfied customers. I should’ve received an employee of the month award. At least this was how I looked at it.

  ***

  I decided it was time to celebrate and show my appreciation. I organised a party for forty people at a posh restaurant, inviting Sasha, Sergei, Seva, and some of my colleagues and old friends from school. Vodka flowed like water; there were live musicians, singers and half-naked dancers to entertain the guests as they sat through the finest dishes served in Kiev that evening. The entire event cost me less than two hundred dollars, including a generous gratuity to the restaurant’s owner. It was unbelievable. I realised then that with not too much money I could buy half the country.

  As the evening wound down, and guests started to say their goodbyes, those who could still walk continued on to one of Kiev’s exclusive night clubs. The clubs were exclusively aimed at the rich, so if you weren’t dressed well and smelled of money, the bouncers wouldn’t let you in. The flashy atmosphere inside the club contrasted massively with the gloomy reality outside. Everything was shiny. The lighting was bright and colourful, everyone was smiling, drinking, snorting and dancing. Beautiful women, who were on par with top Western models, were throwing themselves at the men, who by their very presence were likely to be extremely wealthy. I agreed to foot the bill for those of us that were left, and the party carried on through the night.

  I don’t remember how the evening ended, but I woke up with a luscious girl in my bed. I gave her some money for a taxi and she disappeared. What could be better than that?

  I later found five used condoms lying around my apartment. I was sorry that I didn’t remember the night before, and in particular what I’d snorted or dropped to make me into such a sex machine. That was the scenario that I preferred to imagine instead of the possibility that I had wasted one condom after another trying to pull them on to my flaccid penis, unable to erect properly because of excessive drinking. Then the thought hit me that all the condoms might not be mine, and that maybe I’d staged an orgy at my apartment! Oh god, I hoped not - especially with my brother in the same room!

  Having some money made it really easy with the ladies. Because of Ukraine’s poor economic conditions, exposing girls to the good life attracted them in droves.

  A few months after I’d settled down in Kiev, and once the money started rolling in, I splashed out on a BMW. Any night I was bored I could just cruise into town and collect girls: sometimes a single chick and sometimes a group of birds together and take them for a spin. I would park up somewhere nice, open a bottle or two of champagne, and before I took them back, a shag or an orgy was almost guaranteed. They say power is an aphrodisiac, and it’s true.

  Two years before I’d been sleeping on the beach in Tel Aviv, and now I was splashing money, driving a cool car and shagging gorgeous women. I’d tasted the good life and its taste was exhilaratingly sweet.


  ***

  Life was good, but it can always be better. Newly independent Ukraine had the potential to become an emerging economy because of its diverse industrial capacity, fertile soil and strategic location between Russia and Western Europe. I was certain that Ukraine would soon attract western investments once the country stabilised. If we could build up a portfolio of properties and land, once the big investors started snooping around Kiev, we would be in a prime position to cash in. It would take a lot of time, money and clever manipulation of corporation resources, but with me and Sasha at the helm, it was a plan worth pursuing.

  In business, timing and luck are huge factors in deciding whether a venture is successful or not. As if to prove that point, shortly after Sasha and I had decided to expand our business, I received a call from my old childhood friend Yuri. The call would push our expansion plans into overdrive.

  The day after I took the call from Yuri, there was a BBQ at Sasha’s dacha. When the opportunity arose, I took Sasha to a garden arbour and told him what Yuri had relayed to me.

  “You remember my old friend Yuri?”

  “Malinovsky?”

  “Yes. Well I had a conversation with him yesterday that might benefit our business.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “Well, you know I missed him by a few weeks in Tel Aviv? That was because he moved to the Czech Republic to work for his uncle’s real estate business.”

  Sasha shifted in his seat, leaning forward and steepling his fingers.

  “He told me that after the Czechs broke from Soviet influence, his uncle’s company did pretty much what we’re planning on doing now. They made huge amounts of cash and a lot of contacts.”

  “Very interesting news, little brother. And he wants to share knowledge with us?” Sasha asked, his interest rising.

  “Better than that. He has gone back to Israel now and started his own business connecting wealthy businessmen and developers with properties in the old Eastern Bloc. He has the investors if we have the properties.”

  Sasha smiled. I knew he would be pleased with my news and he didn’t disappoint.

  “Well then; if that’s true, and Yuri’s people want to invest in Ukraine, then we should start collecting every available plot we can lay our hands on. It’s time to make some serious money, little brother.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  ***

  With a new venture in its infancy, and the potential of making large sums of money, I wanted some familiar faces around me. One of the first things I did over the following days was to re-establish my connection with Gigo, my Georgian business partner from the Institute of Higher Education in Kiev. His brain wasn’t his strongest attribute, but he was strong, fearless and loyal and that was what we needed.

  We started small, but after a few months we targeted a block of land in Kiev’s centre. We sent Gigo and his friends to convince the owners to sell us their privately-owned lots or pass to us the usage rights where that was the legal status. When Gigo returned he had all the papers signed, granting us legal rights over the whole block.

  “It looks like everything went smoothly, old friend.” I congratulated Gigo.

  “It was easy. Your proposal was generous enough for everyone, except one fool who didn’t like the opening offer.”

  “And you talked him around?” I asked, knowing that Gigo’s debating skills weren’t his trademark.

  “Of course! I told him I wasn’t going to burn his apartment, and I wasn’t going to hurt him or his wife. I said I would take their two children when they returned from school. I would tie their son to a tree in the forest and rape the daughter so the son could watch. And then I would shoot her in the legs and leave them both to die in forest, but not before I cut off the thumbs of the son.”

  “I can see how that might help him reconsider his options,” I mused aloud.

  “That’s not all,” continued Gigo. “I let him picture the charming scene in his head for a few seconds, then I whispered in his ear that I’m worse than Stalin - my guru and compatriot. After that, he agreed to sign the papers,” Gigo finished, with a victorious smile, showing his gold teeth.

  “Well done, Gigo,” I answered with a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “I’m glad that he agreed and you didn’t need to execute your threat.”

  I didn’t ask Gigo whether he was serious or not about his intimidation. Something about his excitement implied that he would’ve preferred that the seller had tested his seriousness before agreeing. I was afraid to know the answer. I was also happy that Gigo was on my side.

  With the block of land legally ours, I called Yuri with the good news. Within days, Yuri had several offers from foreign investors, and we sold it to a company that planned to construct the first shopping mall in Ukraine.

  ***

  Fuelled with the spirit of entrepreneurship I always kept an open mind to business opportunities. This is what capitalism is all about.

  When I was studying at Tel Aviv University I befriended a Colombian guy, Juan. He told me that his uncle in Colombia was a drug baron who produced top quality cocaine. I never believed him, since all his stories were distorted by heavy drug consumption. His connection with reality was questionable.

  When visiting Israel to sit my end of year exams at law school, I was smoking weed with Juan. We were both lying on the beds opposite each other in Juan’s room at the dorms unable to move as we were stoned senseless.

  Juan was crushed on his bed, joint in his hand, looking at the ceiling. Too stoned, I heard his hoarse voice as if from a distance, “Misha, hombre, mi tio, Carlos, está buscando maneras de enviar sus productos a Europa.”

  “Juan, speak Hebrew. I don’t speak fucking Spanish. You’re smoking too much strong shit.”

  “Sorry, man. Man, my uncle, Carlos, is looking for ways to ship his produce to Europe. The US o’fucking A, the main target market for my uncle, declared another war against the Colombian drug cartels. Fuckers, man. They do this shit all the time. They ain’t leaving the people in peace to smoke weed, man. This is making business difficult. So Carlos is looking for new business venues across the big Atlantic pond. You keep saying you do some business in Europe, man, so maybe you should have a word with Carlos. Man.”

  I moved slowly from lying to sitting on the bed.

  “First, pass me the joint.”

  After taking a long puff, I said drowsily, “Second, sure, put me in contact with Carlos. I might have a solution for him.”

  Two weeks later, I met Carlos in London. Surprisingly enough he was indeed flesh and blood. He was a professional drug dealer, an expert on every intoxicating substance. After hanging out with him for two days, during which we were higher than the Empire State Building, I reached the enlightenment that Colombians had a similar mentality to that of Russians. They live every day as if there is no tomorrow. Probably because for many, there wouldn’t be.

  Then, it was down to business. We sat in two Chesterfields, deep-buttoned leather couches in a private English gentlemen’s club. We smoked Cuban cigars and sipped twenty-one year old El Dorado rum. Carlos wore a white linen shirt, Panama hat and white silk scarf. He couldn’t have looked more Latin even if he tried.

  “Come on my young gringo friend,” Carlos said. “You told me that you had a programa for bringing my produce to Europa. Let’s hear it.”

  I laid out my plan, “Ukraine is a large country, bordering Russia to its east, and to its west countries that share borders with Western Europe, such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. The port of Odessa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast is the largest Ukrainian seaport. Thousands of ships dock at the port every year, including ships from South America. Cocaine can be hidden within cargoes, inside anything from industrial furnaces to excavated pineapples. The custom inspectors at the port, like every official across Ukraine, are notoriously open to bribes to get cargoes through. Once the drugs are inside Ukraine, the shipments can then be transported to its western borders. The bor
der custom officials can be paid to look the other way and from there the drugs can be trafficked into Western Europe.”

  Carlos listened intently, the fingers of one hand lightly pressed against those of the other hand, forming a church steeple cross.

  “I have the connections with the customs personnel at the seaport and the western border. I can arrange for the officials in Romania to skip checking our trucks. From Romania all Western Europe is open. I can organise for transporting the cargo from the ship to anywhere in Western Europe. All you need to do, Carlos, is to put the cargo on a ship going from Colombia to Odessa. I’ll take care of the rest. This is so fucking easy.”

  “Si, si,” Carlos said, nodding. “Your programa could work. We can try one small shipment of coca to test it. If it goes well, this could be the beginning of a muy bello friendship.”

  Carlos seemed impressed with my plan. Within three weeks we received the first cocaine shipment. Most of it was transported to the western border and into Romania. The plan was executed seamlessly.

  My old friend Constantin Sabo, the customs inspector who took my cash when I made Aliyah to Israel, was happy to be paid and to close his eyes when the drugs were transported into Romania. He was downright surprised to see me after three years. He was delighted to receive the Pushkin book, which he once allowed me to pass through the border, as a personal gift. His happiness wasn’t because of the book’s beautiful verses, but rather because of the ten hundred dollar bills hidden inside.

  We sold a small amount of coke locally in Kiev to selected clients as a favour. The market in Kiev for expensive drugs was immature since users lacked money to buy cocaine and heroin. However, my growing wealthy business circle and some relatively affluent business owners were appreciated receiving high-quality Colombian coke. It wasn’t mixed with soda, baking powder or rat poison. It was pure, good shit. I made money and friends.