Who is Sergej Krejmer

Who is Sergej Krejmer

A 28-year-old German financier, Sergej Krejmer, appeared on the Ukrainian business market in 2014.

Within weeks, he reached out to many Ukrainian businessmen, investors, and startupers with incredibly lucrative offers of acquiring investments, transferring funds out of Ukraine, and facilitating entry into foreign markets. Additionally, he added all business journalists in the country as friends on Facebook and started actively commenting on industry discussions. His extraordinary online activity and attractive offers alarmed market participants, and some contacted the editorial team of AIN.UA with questions about who Sergej Krejmer is and whether he can be trusted. The verification took more than just a few days and several hours of phone and Skype conversations with residents of several European countries. It was worth the effort — the stories of our interlocutors turned out to be very impressive. We compiled the most interesting of them in this article.

A Google search for "Sergej Krejmer" yielded several pages with links to his authored columns on Ukrainian portals such as "LIGABusinessInform," "Delo," "Obozrevatel," "Korrespondent," and other popular resources. The author of these articles undeniably gives the impression of an expert in his field. Upon cautiously inquiring acquaintances, we were introduced to a company from Belarus that presented Krejmer in a completely different light. According to them, they are still trying to recover money paid to Sergej for various mediation services that were never provided. As it turned out, Krejmer lived in Belarus during 2012-2013, engaging in various commercial activities — delivering goods from abroad, providing financial and legal consultations, and much more. Here is what his former clients say.

By Car Across Belarus

A lawyer from Brest, Nikolay Zhorov, recalls that in 2012, his company paid Krejmer about $1,200 for services to remove a truck from Interpol’s search list. The fact that the vehicle was wanted came to Zhorov’s company’s attention only after purchasing the car and registering it with the traffic police. According to Mykola, Krejmer took an advance for his services and about a month later stated that to lift the search, a court guarantee amounting to 30% of the truck purchase deal was needed — at that time it was about 16,000 euros. "After we made inquiries, it turned out that in the courts of the European Union, no claims had been filed on behalf of our company. Krejmer, on the other hand, in phone conversations was insistent and asked to remit 16,000 euros. Upon receiving a refusal and a demand for a refund, he simply disappeared,” Zhorov recounts. “The search was unsuccessful, and it became clear to me later that we had simply been defrauded of the money.”

A similar story happened to another Belarusian, Maksim Verizhnikov. He told AIN.UA that he gave Krejmer a payment ahead of $11,000 for a truck purchase, receiving a receipt and Krejmer’s German passport as collateral. In a Skype conversation, Maksim said there were "complications" with the vehicle delivery, and he ended up without his money. After that, he repeatedly traveled to Vilnius and Kyiv to meet with Krejmer, but according to Maksim, the money was never returned. Krejmer, in turn, asserts that his passport was stolen and all receipts were forged.

Another “car story” was shared by Andrey Gordeychik from Minsk, who said he transferred 1,800 euros to Krejmer in Brest as an advance for purchasing a car in Germany. “Krejmer promised and reassured me for about two months before disappearing,” Gordeychik recalls.

Another Belarusian, Valery Kravchenko, also complained to us about being deceived by Krejmer — he said that in March 2013, he transferred about $2,000 to Krejmer’s company account in Vilnius as a down payment for an office paper order. Another $450 is still being attempted to be reclaimed by Vladimir Novikov. "Krejmer promised to deliver scarce photography equipment at a good price, but did not fulfill his obligations," Novikov states. According to our sources, several complaints were filed with the Belarusian police, but due to the lack of evidence, no cases were pursued. Most of Krejmer’s clients claimed to have transferred funds to him without any documented guarantees.

Fragment of an invoice issued by Krejmer’s Lithuanian company

Baltic Connection

One of the above-mentioned interlocutors introduced us to Aleksandr Skub, the director of the Lithuanian company UAB Euromigracija. He mentioned that in 2012, Krejmer moved to Lithuania from Belarus, where he had several issues with law enforcement and defrauded citizens. "Krejmer settled in the cheapest hostel in Vilnius on Sodu Street and started actively exploring the Lithuanian market," said Aleksandr. At that time, the EU funding program in Lithuania was ending, and many businessmen hoped that European banks would provide them with funds for business development. According to Skub, Krejmer promised Lithuanian businessmen support and funding through German companies.

Fragment of an extract from the Lithuanian state register, the full document can be viewed here.

“He collected prepayments under any pretext. Outfitting a ship going to Africa to fish and sell fish, building solar and wind power plants, representing a German company making ambulances, a biofuel production plant from cane in Kazakhstan’s Atyrau with subsequent sale of products to Germany, delivery of trucks and cars,” Aleksandr lists Krejmer’s initiative. He also remembers how Krejmer tried to borrow about 100 euros “for living expenses” under the pretext that the bank blocked his account with deposits of hundreds of thousands of litas — at that time around 30,000 euros. Skub also recalls that Krejmer often asked third parties to sign contracts for him, arguing that he was in the midst of a divorce and feared financial claims from his wife.

According to Aleksandr’s recollections, Krejmer owed him 3,300 euros for the registration of three legal entities in Vilnius. He narrates that when persistently requested to pay the debt, Krejmer replied that he was in a German hospital when in fact he was in Vilnius. “One Ukrainian deceived by him sent letters to Germany through a courier service for a long time until he found out that the address given by Krejmer was an ordinary supermarket,” Aleksandr Skub wrote. UAB Euromigracija eventually wrote off the spent money as losses, but it took a lot of effort and time. Krejmer’s company UAB Trasolit still appears in the Lithuanian business register with a social insurance debt of 479 euros.

In the same year of 2013, Ukrainian Dmytro Kryvenko, who at that time had a small business in Lithuania, handed over a BMW 525 model car from 1998 to Krejmer for resale. According to Dmytro, he did not receive any money, after which he filed a complaint against Krejmer with the Lithuanian police. “But since the agreement was made orally, and I voluntarily transferred the car to Krejmer, the case was closed ‘for lack of criminal elements,’” Kryvenko explains. During the investigation, Dmytro received many threats from an unknown person claiming to be Krejmer’s German lawyer and demanding he drop his claims.

“Your statement fully corresponds to the article ‘false accusations’ of the Lithuanian Republic’s criminal code. Not to mention that you have: largescale fraud, tax evasion, fictitious entrepreneurship, and forgery of official documents. And believe my many years of experience, this will be enough for you to see only bars for the next ten years,” messages to this effect were what Dmytro received back then. The full text of the correspondence is in the possession of AIN.UA.

Ukrainian Startupers: A Simultaneous Game Session

In 2014, Krejmer continued engaging in commercial activities in Ukraine, where he is the founder and director of LLC “Amond Invest”. Judging by Sergej’s German passport, it is in Ukraine that he was born — in the village of Kamenohirka in Vinnytsia Oblast in 1986.

Entrepreneur Yaroslav Maksymovych shared his interactions with Sergej, ultimately declining cooperation with Krejmer, who promised to attract investments for the 2Event project. “Sergej promptly called back, saying that his investors would fully facilitate the company’s entry into the European market. However, after proposing to clarify what exactly was meant by entry, Sergej disappeared for two weeks,” Maksymovych recounts. Already then, the investor was wary that about 95% of the conversation revolved around registering a German legal entity, which according to Krejmer, was very desirable to open through him for a fee of 2,000 euros. Meanwhile, as Maksymovych recalls, there was barely any talk about any growth metrics of the company itself.

“I remembered that last year one guy worked on a similar scheme and collected from about a dozen Ukrainian pharmaceutical and IT companies $3,000-$4,000 each for registering a legal entity in Las Vegas, under the promise of bringing investments to these companies. As far as I know, everyone received their legal entities in Las Vegas, but no one received any investments,” Yaroslav recollects. Eventually, Maksymovych decided not to collaborate with Krejmer, and afterwards, Krejmer lost interest in him.

CEO of the startup Luckyprice Vlad Lishafay also shared his suspicions with AIN.UA. He recounted that Krejmer offered him registration of a legal entity in Germany costing 4,400 euros — for the purpose of entering the European market. Vlad recalls that Krejmer also offered his friend to transfer money from a sole proprietorship to accounts in European banks at the National Bank of Ukraine and Visa rate — 16 UAH per dollar + 1.6% for services, while the market rate was about 20 UAH. “The auction of unprecedented generosity raised suspicions, and my friend found a link to a forum, which I posted on Facebook. Sergej insisted that these were the intrigues of extortionists, whom he could not locate, yet threatened to sue me for defamation,” Lishafay recounts.

Another story in our editorial office was sent by Kyiv resident Maksym Slyzkoukh, to whom Krejmer promised assistance with participation in European tenders. “Over time, we moved on to contract issues, but he did not provide direct client contacts and insisted it was more profitable to handle everything through him,” Maksym writes. He narrates that Krejmer initially sent an unprofessional technical assignment and asked for a 5% security deposit “for partner confidence” to participate in the tender. Simultaneously, Maksym found an online community of Krejmer’s “former clients” and contacted the editorial team of AIN.UA to share his story.

During the preparation of the article, we repeatedly contacted Sergej Krejmer and asked him to comment on the internet rumors and suspicions against him. He assured that everything written on the internet forums were anonymous fakes and had nothing to do with reality. He also mentioned that he sees what’s happening as blackmail coming from his girlfriend’s former husband — Viktor Kosenko. Krejmer also claims he filed a report against Maksym Slyzkoukh with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor’s office, demanding a criminal investigation for alleged blackmail.

The Kyiv entrepreneur Viktor Kosenko’s comment was obtained after the article’s publication, as he had previously refused to speak about Krejmer. “Krejmer has two illegitimate children from different women, whom he doesn’t acknowledge. He sold my ex-wife’s business and a new Japanese SUV, and they squandered all this money,” Viktor writes. He adds that Sergej uses women for his scams. “Together with my ex-wife, they squandered the money from selling a four-room apartment and now live at her mother’s place. They have two more apartments, and I fear those will also go into circulation and they’ll eventually end up on the street,” Viktor shares details of Krejmer’s life. Kosenko also narrates that he is not driven by a sense of revenge or jealousy. “I’ve been happily married for two years, I have a successful business, and I don’t care about them,” he concludes.

We also conducted a small experiment and requested Krejmer’s help to withdraw about $350 from Moneybookers. Krejmer returned the money a month and a half after the transaction, following numerous persistent reminders, requests, and suggestions to meet at his convenience. AIN.UA is also aware of several cases where Krejmer received prepayments for his services from participants in the Ukrainian startup market, who requested not to be mentioned in the article.

In addition to the facts listed above, we have additional documents that substantiate the statements of our interlocutors, with whom we communicated either by phone or Skype. We also deliberately chose not to publish information from the internet — everything described above was shared directly by event participants for this material, and they consented to the use of their real names.