Journalists Reported New Details about Sheiman’s Business

Gray schemes of the accomplice of the Lukashenka regime.

A recent investigation, called Pandora's Dossier, focused on Siarhei Sheiman, the son of Viktar Sheiman, the right-hand man and longtime associate of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, a former dictator's business manager who is involved in gold mining in Zimbabwe.

Siarhei Sheiman is known not only for his connections with Africa but also for his business in Russia. According to the KonturFokus database, he owns a stake in the Togliatti company together with retired FSB Major General Anatoly Tkachuk, Radio Liberty reports.

In the Russian Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE), a person named Sergei Viktorovich Sheiman has been featured as a co-founder of the Togliatti enterprise Tep Holding since 2009.

It is a small company with a registered capital of 40 thousand Russian rubles ($ 557). Moreover, since 2021, this firm has had a new director - Sergey Grigorievich Smirnov, who (according to rusprofile.ru) is the director of a variety of enterprises in Togliatti, from active to abolished, and their activities range from phosphoric acid production to architectural landscaping, from power sports to transportation and restaurant catering. In all, he has been listed as a director of 19 companies over the past 10 years.

The very same Tep-Holding LLC declares a lease as its main activity. The second after Sheiman in the list of its founders is Anatoly Nikolaevich Tkachuk, who became a co-founder on the same day as Sheiman (the company had existed for three years at that time).

Tkachuk is a former major general of the FSB. Until 1998, he served in the state security agencies in operational and leadership positions and was closely associated with nuclear and other modern types of weapons.

After that, he was actively involved in business, was the head of the Office for the coordination of the activities of commercial structures of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), and then - vice-president of the International Congress of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

After the Chernobyl disaster, he headed the counterintelligence group of the KGB of the USSR in the contaminated areas, about which he wrote several books, for example, "The Dangerous Legacy of Prometheus" and "Cure for the Apocalypse" - these are spy novels. In general, the scale of his political and business activities is not at all compatible with the micro-enterprise in Togliatti. The main assets of the retired security officer are Rustitan, Rusminresursy, Tsentrstroy.

It was Tkachuk's connections in African countries that could have helped the son of Lukashenka's ally, Siarhei Sheiman, set up a business in Zimbabwe, which is mentioned in the recent investigation by Pandora's Dossier.

The media more than once wrote that the retired general had connections in South Africa, as well as that Anatoly Tkachuk and Viktar Sheiman visited Africa together. The first time was in Ghana. It was the visit of the Russian-Belarusian delegation, during which Sheiman was the attorney of the President of Belarus for special affairs, and Anatoly Tkachuk represented the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. The trip to Ghana took place just six months after Tkachuk and Viktar Sheiman's son Siarhei entered the list of co-founders of the Togliatti Tep-Holding.

In 2018, Viktar Sheiman flew to Zimbabwe and presented President Emmerson Mnangagwa with a birthday present - a sword engraved with the motto Pasi neMhandu ("Death to traitors"), as reported in the Zimbabwean Herald.

In Belarus, the official media also wrote about the development of cooperation with Zimbabwe. At the same time, the Zimbabwean edition of The Manica Post reported that the Belarusian company was going to mine gold in river beds in the Manica province.

The mine where the tragic death of ten Zimbabwean miners occurred is located in this province. According to the Zimbabwean edition of Mining Index, about 10 miners were killed, and only the bodies of two were raised to the surface.

The report says about "negligence, which entailed the strangulation of miners who were buried alive by Belarusian and Chinese companies in the mines of Premier Estate in the Mutare district."

The scheme, with the help of which Siarhei Sheiman organized a business related to gold mining in Zimbabwe, allows through a deal concluded at the state level to enrich those involved in this business close to the leadership of Belarus. Belarusian investigative journalist Aliaksandr Yarashevich tells about this:

- The story that we managed to shed light on is about economic cooperation between Belarus and Zimbabwe. Belarusian officials negotiated the supply of equipment to Zimbabwe but asked for permission to mine gold in return because they were not sure that they would be paid on time.

They received such permits, and, in March 2018, Viktar Sheiman flew to Zimbabwe and signed an agreement on the creation of a joint venture for gold mining. But it turned out that the beneficiaries of this business were the son of Viktar Sheiman, Siarhei Sheiman, and another influential Belarusian businessman, Aliaksandr Zingman.

Just several months before the creation of the joint venture, they opened an offshore company Midlands Goldfields Foundation in Seychelles, and the interests of this company were represented in Zimbabwe by another British firm with the same name Midlands Goldfields Limited.

And this company received 70 percent in a joint Belarusian-Zimbabwean venture called Zim Goldfields. At the same time, the state of Zimbabwe received only 30 percent of this enterprise.

Then Zim Goldfields received several special grants from the Zimbabwean government and began work to find gold. These works were most active in the bed of the Mutasa River, where the Belarusian company was allocated a plot of 10 thousand hectares. They hired Chinese contractors to carry out the work.

We are talking about loose gold, it is easy to wash it up, so even the locals mine it illegally - well, they survive as best they can. In November 2020, an incident occurred with gold miners. The Chinese company covered up the developed quarries and asked everyone to leave this place, but some of the people did not leave the quarry and died.

- That is, we can say that the Belarusian company was involved in these deaths?

- The fact is that, two months before this incident, the British company Midlands Goldfields Limited and the Seychelles company Midlands Goldfields Founadaiton ceased to exist. Therefore, we do not fully understand how Zim Goldfields was involved in this incident at all. Our source said that control over the enterprise has not changed, but we have no documentary evidence of this.

- You managed to document the ties of this company with close associates of Lukashenka; in open sources, you could only find news about the death of miners and also a mention of the payment of taxes by a Belarusian company in the Mutas area, is that right?

- Yes, earlier nothing was said in open sources about who is behind this company. We have found out that we are talking about a conflict of interest. On the instructions of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, Viktar Sheiman is going to conclude an agreement on the creation of a joint venture in Zimbabwe; however, not only the Belarusian state but also his son will benefit from this deal.

- Is the money taken from the state budget returned to Belarus as a result of these schemes?

- It's hard to talk about any damage. We were trying to figure out how much gold was mined in Africa. We asked these questions to Zim Goldfileds, Aliaksandr Zingman, and Siarhei Sheiman, we contacted the Zimbabwean corporation ZMDC, we contacted Belgeopoisk, which was working there.

Nobody says how much they earned and whether they earned money at all. But we can definitely say that there is a conflict of interests: the deal was concluded not only in favor of the Belarusian state but also in favor of specific people.

- Is it true that there are a lot of security officials among the owners and intermediaries of the Belarusian gold mining business?

- This is more likely not about Zim Goldfields but Belgeopoisk, its contractor. Previously, this company was partly owned by the Presidential Administration, however, it passed into private hands this year.

It belongs to another company called Global Custom Management, and there are many people there who have connections in law enforcement agencies, - says investigative journalist Aliaksandr Yarashevich.