Where did the FBI informant in the Kolomoiskyi case, Vadym Shulman, disappear to?

Where did the FBI informant in the Kolomoiskyi case, Vadym Shulman, disappear to?

The name of Vadym Shulman, after emerging in the context of a dispute with Ihor Kolomoiskyi in 2019, virtually disappeared from informational reports after some time. Likewise, reports about his search through the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Interpol have vanished.

Vadym Shulman himself made several statements and gave some interviews regarding his appeal to the FBI and the Delaware court, where his joint ventures with Kolomoiskyi and Boholyubov are located, around which the dispute arose. In response, Vadym Shulman received a suspicion of money laundering and other property obtained through criminal means (Part 3, Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and was declared wanted in July 2019.

He unequivocally linked this with the election victory in Ukraine of Ihor Kolomoiskyi’s protégé and Prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk’s attempts to at any cost "include me in some open criminal proceeding and begin persecution." All this happened against the background of the U.S. election scandal triggered by the so-called Derkach tapes and Shulman’s lawsuit against Kolomoiskyi, in which he accused the latter of laundering $500 million and stealing his personal $30 million, which Kolomoiskyi invested in the Warren Steel Holdings LLC plant in Ohio, which later went bankrupt.

In general, according to Shulman, he filed a series of lawsuits against Kolomoiskyi—in Miami, New York, Delaware, Ohio, Alabama. In addition, in January 2018, Shulman filed a lawsuit in London against Kolomoiskyi and his partner Hennadiy Boholyubov, accusing them of stealing over $500 million. As a result of all these lawsuits, along with the nationalized "PrivatBank" lawsuit, Ihor Kolomoiskyi was forced to flee to Israel and hide there until the change of power in Ukraine. Whether Vadym Shulman was right or wrong in linking the change of power in Ukraine with his criminal prosecution remains an open question. However, in the course of the investigation conducted by Prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk, all those who had in some way at some time "crossed" Ihor Kolomoiskyi became involved.

What happened next is unknown. There is no information on this matter, but shortly thereafter, Vadym Shulman’s name was removed from both the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine’s and Interpol’s search databases. This happened long before Ihor Kolomoiskyi himself went to a Ukrainian prison, where he remains to this day. It is unlikely that these two events are related, but how Vadym Shulman managed to resolve the issue is unknown. The fact that Vadym Shulman was removed from Interpol’s search was officially announced by NABU, confirming that it was done at their request.

According to the court registers, criminal case №42019000000000673, under which Vadym Shulman is suspected under Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, has not been closed, and is in fact at an active stage. But what status Vadym Shulman holds in this criminal case is unknown.

In addition to this criminal case, the initiation of which against him Vadym Shulman blames Ihor Kolomoiskyi, there are records of two other criminal proceedings. The first, numbered 42016000000003389, was mentioned by Vadym Shulman himself in an interview with Ekonomichna Pravda in May 2020. In the same interview, he talked about conflicts with Boholyubov and Kolomoiskyi. Regarding the criminal case, although it is not closed, it seems to have fallen apart—the last court hearing took place in May 2020.

Another criminal case concerning Vadym Shulman is known from a report by the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, on whose website a summons was posted in the name of Vadym Shulman, indicating that he is involved in criminal case №12013220540000400, initiated under articles 255 ("Creating, directing a criminal organization, as well as participating in it"), 191 ("Misappropriation, embezzlement of property"), and 209 ("Money laundering and other property obtained through criminal means") of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The summons is dated February 15, 2019, and the criminal proceedings were opened back in 2013.

The name Vadym Shulman also surfaced in the context of the death of his former partner and Kryvyi Rih authority Leonid Vulf. The latter allegedly shot himself in February 2020 in a Kyiv apartment. As repeatedly stated by Vulf himself, he was once a business partner of entrepreneur Vadym Shulman, but they later fell out. Due to Shulman’s benevolence, Vulf even spent some time in an Israeli prison, from where he gave interviews sharing details about his former partner.

Vulf mentioned Shulman in the context of connections with Vadym Rabinovych, directly accusing Vadym Shulman of involvement "in committing a series of serious crimes committed by him in Ukraine, Israel, and other countries. Shulman entered into completely unprofitable contracts for the plants and effectively robbed the country. Products were sold abroad, and revenue settled abroad. Shulman widely practiced money laundering in particularly large amounts. In addition, Shulman is involved in a series of serious criminal offenses."

How this interview affected the further fate of Leonid Vulf and whether his suicide was indeed a suicide remains a debatable question. The publication crime-ua wrote on this subject: "Our colleagues overlook that Leonid Vulf, like the aforementioned Volodymyr Shulman, were significant figures in the Ukrainian (and not only) criminal world at the end of the 1990s - early 2000s. These respectable ’dons’ together with one of the leaders of the ’Russian mafia’ Semen Mohylevych and now pro-Russian politician Vadym Rabinovych were mentioned in the context of arms smuggling in the ’hot spots’ of West Africa. Directly for arms trading, another prominent participant of this cartel, Leonid Minin, served a long term (in Italy). Leonid Vulf spent several years in an Israeli prison, being under investigation for suspected involvement in organizing a series of contract killings. Vadym Shulman, as mentioned above, recently became an informant for the FBI on the Kolomoiskyi case. After the ’Ze!team’ came to power, the Prosecutor General’s Office initiated a criminal prosecution against Shulman allegedly for money laundering. Therefore, the alleged suicide of Vulf in the context of his old affairs and connections raises many questions."

However, all this is speculation. Which in the context of Vadym Shulman’s persona are inevitable but remain officially unconfirmed, thus leaving them as such. In this context, the phrase "Vadym Shulman, as mentioned above, recently became an informant for the FBI on the Kolomoiskyi case" draws attention. Apparently, it corresponds to reality because a business partner of such notorious individuals as Hennadiy Boholyubov and Ihor Kolomoiskyi would inevitably encounter problems in the U.S. due to the investigation regarding the latter. But they did not arise.

The story about the abrupt loss of interest by the Ukrainian law enforcement system in Vadym Shulman after a short burst of activity in 2019-2020 also remains unexplained. Why did they drop claims against him and remove him from search? Moreover, this happened long before Ihor Kolomoiskyi was imprisoned in Ukraine. Incidentally, there is a version that Kolomoiskyi is simply hiding from American justice there, but even in that case, he should be vitally interested in disavowing Vadym Shulman’s testimonies in the U.S.

Vadym Shulman himself has also disappeared from the informational space. The courts have quieted down—both in London and in the U.S. The court case against Kolomoiskyi and Boholyubov, initiated on Shulman’s lawsuit, was closed back in 2021. The London court also refused to consider the case regarding them. Vadym Shulman remains silent. What all this means is unknown. But it is unlikely that the parties have reached a consensus and reconciled, deciding to forgive each other all past offenses.