From a Moldovan prison to Ukraine’s Presidential Office: what’s behind Dmytro Torner’s \"success\"?

From a Moldovan prison to Ukraine’s Presidential Office: what’s behind Dmytro Torner’s "success"?

Recently, journalists from “Skhemy” published photographic evidence that an associate of the oligarch Dmytro Firtash, citizen of Moldova and Russia Dmytro Torner, visited the Office of the President of Ukraine.

Shortly before this visit, he was removed from international search, and the criminal case on the use of fake passports was closed in Ukraine, writes “Ukraina Kryminalnaya”.

The “Skhemy” investigation also states that Dmytro Torner tried to run for the Verkhovna Rada in 2019. At that time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine stated that this candidate, number 44 on the list from “OPZZh,” was actually a Moldovan citizen named Dmytro Nekrasov and allegedly “hiding from international justice.” Law enforcement opened a criminal case and asked the CEC to remove him from the election.

According to Ukrainian investigation data, he escaped from a place of detention in Moldova, came to Ukraine, and obtained several Ukrainian passports under different surnames: five internal and four foreign, allegedly based on fake documents. Using these passports, according to law enforcement, he illegally crossed the Ukrainian border. State Migration Service checks found that the documents were invalid.

In Ukraine, in 2019, cases were opened against Torner on two charges regarding the alleged use of fake documents and illegal border crossing. Later, another charge was added concerning possible fraud. As journalists discovered, the man was suspected in two of these episodes and, according to the court’s decision, had to be in custody during the investigation, but he left Ukraine.

After almost a year, in August 2020, the General Prosecutor’s Office closed the case against Firtash’s associate. In response to a “Skhemy” inquiry, the General Prosecutor’s Office only noted that the decision to close the case was "lawful and justified" and referred to a court ruling that recognized this.

The Office of the President did not respond to the journalists’ request to report whom Torner-Nekrasov met on Bankova Street and regarding what issues. An investigation conducted by RISE Moldova journalists reveals the details of the life of this swindler and thief, who now calmly visits the Office of the President of Ukraine.

By the age of 41, Dmytro Nekrasov had accomplished much: escaped from a Moldovan prison, changed his last name four times, married three times, been wanted in several countries, and even died once officially (on paper). He currently lives under the name Dmytro Torner.

Under his new identity, he ran for the Ukrainian Rada, headed one of Moldova’s sports federations, and met with people from the circles of the presidents of three countries—Moldova, Ukraine, and the USA. How he achieved this is revealed in investigations by RISE Moldova and the Ukrainian project “Skhemy”.

A $3 million project and “money from Europe”

October 7, 2021. On the sofa in the RISE editorial office sits the secretary of the Moldovan Biathlon Federation. The man talks for several hours enthusiastically about a future project to reconstruct a sports track for biathlon in Chișinău. According to him, the Moldovan Biathlon Federation hopes to lease a "14-hectare piece" in the Rîșcani district of Chișinău, near the “Dynamo” shooting range, for 49 years. And for the implementation of the project, Moldova native Dmytro Torner is ready to spend $3 million.

“We asked Torner to become the president [of the Biathlon Federation] so that he could see what needed to be done. Let people know him. Where he gets the money from doesn’t matter to me…,” says Peter Bria and explains that “the money is from investors, from Europe.”

The secretary of the Biathlon Federation, Petru Bria: “I am the author of the project [the biathlon track in Rîșcani], but I don’t know where the funding [$3 million] will come from. I know that our main financiers are currently from Austria.”

Journalist RISE: —Is it Torner?

Bria: —Yes, and Torner, and there will be someone else, I don’t know, they live in Austria. Torner finances us, he even bought a car for $35,000 for the athletes, of course not in lei.

“Firtash’s man” Dmytro Nekrasov (also Torner) and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Photo: The Washington Post

If you google, the first search results for the name Dmytro Torner bring up news about a person who tried to stop the extradition of the Ukrainian entrepreneur Dmytro Firtash from Austria to the US. The FBI is demanding the extradition of the latter in a case of corruption involving Indian officials. To allegedly influence US authorities, according to The Washington Post, Torner met in 2019 in Paris with Rudy Giuliani, then President Trump’s personal lawyer, and “Firtash’s man” Dmytro Torner and Trump’s lawyer even took a commemorative photo.

Convicted Nekrasov and fugitive Bozhyi

Seventeen years ago, the philanthropist from Austria, Dmytro Torner, from whom the sports federation expects millions of dollars today, was known to Moldovan justice under the name Dmytro Nekrasov.

In March 2003 and February 2004, Nekrasov was sentenced to 11 years in prison for large-scale embezzlement and fraud.

In short, according to the decision of the Botanical sector court in Chișinău, Nekrasov and his accomplices, as well as alone, committed two types of thefts:

1. The first “scheme”: Nekrasov asks a stranger (or a recent acquaintance) on the street for a mobile phone to “make a call” and disappears with the property.

2. The second type of “scheme”: Nekrasov rents furnished apartments in various districts of Chișinău. He either independently or with accomplices “cleans them out” and then sells to various people through newspaper ads: furniture, appliances, dishes, bed linens, and carpets.

November 11, 2004. Convicted Dmytro Nekrasov, serving his sentence in open-type colony No. 9 (Prunkul), goes to the ZAGS in Botanica, registers marriage with Moldovan citizen Lyudmila Bozhyi, and on the same day changes his surname “Nekrasov” to “Bozhyi.” He would not return to prison, having left Moldova.

Fugitive Nekrasov-Bozhyi was declared wanted for “prison escape” by the Moldovan investigation.

Six years later, the criminal case against Nekrasov was closed, and he was removed from the wanted list. The reason was the death of the suspect.

From the response of the National Prison Administration: “A copy of his [Dmytro Nekrasov] death certificate was attached to the duplicate file of the search case, issued on November 12, 2009, confirming that citizen Nekrasov died on November 9, 2009.”

According to RISE information obtained from Moldovan law enforcement, the death certificate was brought from Ukraine by Oleg Nekrasov, the brother of Dmytro Nekrasov-Torner. Based on the document, the criminal prosecution was terminated.

Two and a half years later, the Moldovan investigation discovered that the death certificate was fake, and therefore Moldova revived the criminal investigation and again declared the fugitive wanted.

The journalist who called Oleg Nekrasov tried to discuss the story of the fake death certificate of his brother Dmytro. Upon hearing the question, the man hung up, and he did not respond to repeated calls and messages.

Change of surnames, elections to the Rada, and Firtash

While in Moldova, Nekrasov-Bozhyi was both “dying” and “resurrecting,” in Ukraine, he also managed to change his surname several times.

The Moldovan fugitive Nekrasov, according to Ukrainian law enforcement, took on the names Dmytro Malchenko, Dmytro Grozny, and finally, Dmytro Torner.

Letter from the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and SBU to the Central Election Commission of Ukraine asking to remove Dmytro Nekrasov-Torner from the election campaign as he is hiding from international justice. Screen from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine website

Under the identity of Torner, the con artist even managed to run for the Ukrainian parliament—the Verkhovna Rada in 2019, ranked 44th on the list of the “Opposition Platform – For Life”. The faction currently consists of 44 parliamentary mandates.

What connects Nekrasov-Torner with Ukraine? It’s still unknown. However, Torner was spotted by “Skhemy” journalists in Vienna, near Dmytro Firtash. They captured them together in the summer of 2019 when the Ukrainian oligarch was awaiting judgment in an Austrian court concerning his extradition to the US, where the FBI suspects him of corruption.

Dmytro Torner and Ukrainian “gas oligarch” Dmitro Firtash in Vienna. Photo: “Skhemy”

Incidentally, a few days before the elections to the Verkhovna Rada, at the insistence of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine removed Nekrasov-Torner from the election race.

From the press release of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, July 19, 2019: “During the pre-trial investigation, it was established that the person currently presenting himself as Dmytro Hryhorovych Torner, born 1980, since 2007, using forged documents, received five passports of a Ukrainian citizen under different surnames and with different biographical data, as well as four passports of a Ukrainian citizen for traveling abroad, with which he illegally crossed the state border. Thus, Dmytro Nekrasov, with a criminal past, changed his true surname to avoid criminal liability and to create a positive image in Ukraine as an honest and law-abiding person.”

In October 2019, Nekrasov-Torner was declared internationally wanted by Ukraine. But already in February 2021, Torner was captured in Kyiv entering the building of the administration of President Volodymyr Zelensky. The purpose of the visit remains unknown to this day.

Kyiv, February 2021. Torner, surrounded by security, exits the gates of President Zelensky’s administration.

Torner and Dodon’s people

As journalists found out, Torner-Nekrasov also met with people from the inner circle of President Igor Dodon in Moldova. Between 2020 and 2021, he flew to Chișinău several times on a private jet.

Such a business jet Torner-Nekrasov flew to Chișinău. Photo: Jetphotos

Sources from Moldovan law enforcement agencies report that at Chișinău International Airport, Nekrasov-Torner was met in May 2021 by different escorts: his brother Oleg (who once brought the death certificate to Moldova) and also Ion Gazea, an officer of the State Protection Service. Sources close to Dodon’s circle name him as one of the trusted persons of the former President of Moldova and as a bodyguard provided by the state security service to the leader of the PSRM.

To clarify the circumstances of the meeting with Torner, the journalist called Gazea, but the man refused to talk. Also, by the time this article was released, the press service of the Party of Socialists, headed by the former president of the country, did not answer questions about Dodon’s relationship with Torner.

Without criminal cases

The criminal case against Nekrasov in Moldova was closed in the first half of 2018 by the Chișinău court (Center sector) due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. His international search was also closed. Additionally, Moldovan prosecutors stopped his criminal prosecution for escaping from the place of detention, reclassifying Article 317 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova on escape to Article 319, which provides for evasion from serving a prison sentence.

The criminal case against Torner-Nekrasov in Ukraine is closed because the investigation did not prove fraud and did not find elements of crime in Torner’s actions in episodes of possible use of fake passports.

According to the response from the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, the decision to close the case was lawful and substantiated. More details cannot be disclosed.

New marriage and Mrs. Universe

A few months after Moldova terminated the search, Dmytro Nekrasov came to Chișinău. And he got married again. This time to his Ukrainian wife Olga. Before that, he divorced her in Ukraine.

RISE and “Skhemy” journalists tried to contact Torner and wrote to him in messaging apps on an Austrian number, and they also sent requests through a Ukrainian lawyer and wife Olga. But they have not yet received answers to questions about the circumstances of his changes of surname, his relationships with Firtash, and his meetings with people from the circles of presidents of several countries.

In a conversation with “Skhemy” journalists, his Ukrainian lawyer Andriy Tsygankov explained that “the change of the corresponding surnames occurred solely due to the formalization of marital relations.”

By the way, after the Chișinău marriage, the newlyweds changed his surname from “Nekrasov” to “Torner” in Moldovan jurisdiction, taking the surname of his Ukrainian wife, known as a TV presenter and holder of the title “Mrs. Universe.”

According to sources in the Public Services Agency of Moldova, Nekrasov indicated in the marriage application with Olga Torner that he was single. He wrote in the statement that this was his first marriage. That is, he concealed information about his prior marriage in Chișinău, on November 11, 2004—the day when it became known about his escape from serving a prison sentence in Prunkul. The day he became Dmitriy Bozhyi.

Семен Головецкий