Rudolf Meroni remarries and immediately changes the management of many companies
Large Latvian companies controlled by the former custodian of seized assets Rudolf Meroni, whose "true beneficiary rights" have been seized, have seen several management changes, including changes in the company's supervisory boards, at the beginning of this year.
Only general meetings of shareholders can change company supervisory boards, which makes it plausible that the assets seized in the Lembergs criminal proceedings have again been "used" through votes at these general meetings.
As is already common knowledge, the seized assets - shares in various foreign companies, bearer shares, true beneficiary rights, etc., which are in fact ownership rights in several large Latvian companies - should have been deposited with the Provision State Agency by Meroni since August 17, 2020, when the Riga Regional Court adopted a decision to remove Meroni from being the "custodian of the seized assets". Therefore, it was not up to Meroni to change anything in the management of the large Latvian companies, but up to the Provision State Agency - if it had the will to change anything.
Vendija Pikše-Kučma, public relations specialist at the Provision State Agency, confirmed to Neatkarīgā that the recent changes in the management of Latvian companies were not coordinated with the Provision State Agency.
This is yet another glaring fact confirming that the Latvian state is showing rather suspicious impotence in dealing with the issue of managing assets worth several hundred million.
The new Mrs Meroni officially appears
The information on the change of management of the companies, which can be found in the Firmas.lv database, also shows that Rudolf Meroni has finally married his long-time favorite Lidiia Khytrychenko, who now appears in the Companies Register as Mrs Lidiia Meroni.
Lidiia Khytrychenko was first appointed as an executive in large Latvian companies in 2016. First on the Supervisory Board of JSC Ventbunkers, then in other strategic positions.
Today, however, Lidiia Meroni is already a member of the supervisory boards of 14 Latvian companies with a combined turnover of more than €60 million in 2020, while JSC Latvijas naftas tranzīts, where she has been the Supervisory Board member since 2018, has no turnover, but controls assets of well over €100 million.
Last year, Mykhailo Khytrychenko, who even had a Latvian personal identification number, also appeared on the board of JSC Ventspils tirdzniecības osta, which suggests that Meroni started employing Ukrainians before the start of the current war. There is no doubt that they will try to write off the brazen squandering of the seized property on the Ukrainian war, just as the Latvian political ruling elite will try to trace all its other recent failures and misfortunes back to this war.
New broom cleans bigger rooms...
Ukrainian Lidiia Meroni is also a board member of SIA MS Konsultanti, where her path indirectly crosses with Meroni's ex-wife Lyubov. Lyubov Meroni, also from Ukraine, was a member of the Board of SIA MS Konsultanti from 2006 to 2013, a fact that is far from trivial. First of all, millions were transferred to JSC Ventbunkers through this company, which in 2012 was the subject of outrage not only in the press but also in court by millionaire Olafs Berķis.
But in the Lembergs trial, Lyubov Meroni's name was mentioned quite a lot, when the company controlled by R. Meroni transferred dividends to L. Meroni-controlled company which, according to the prosecution's version, belonged to Aivars Lembergs.
It is noteworthy that Rudolf entrusted his former wife Lyubov with the management of only three intermediary companies in Latvia, including the aforementioned SIA MS Konsultanti, through which the millions of JSC Ventbunkers were once counted. By contrast, his new wife Lidiia is included in the management of all the main companies of the Meroni conglomerate - 14 companies in total.
The wedding of Meroni to his first wife, Lyubov, is described, for example, here.
No, no - he is not some chauffeur's son!
So, according to Firmas.lv, the Supervisory Board of JSC Ventbunkers was changed on February 22 this year.
However, more significant changes have taken place in the Board of Ventbunkers, when the brothers Jānis and Alvis Hāze, who had previously been particularly loyal to Meroni, always ready to sign all sorts of unpleasant papers, were removed from it in two steps in January this year.
They have been replaced by Ivars Landmanis, the eternal oppositionist of the Ventspils municipality, who has not even been elected as a deputy, as well as Manfred Holdener from Switzerland. As can be found on the Internet, this Manfred is a helicopter pilot who offers his services in Crete, and much has been written in the Latvian media about Meroni's weakness for helicopters and Cretan mansions.
In other words, Manfred is not some "chauffeur's son", he is the pilot of the owner!
Another change of favorites
According to Firmas.lv, Lidiia Meroni became a member of the Supervisory Board of JSC Kālija Parks on February 24 this year. Before that, she had been in this position for some time under her previous name - Khytrychenko.
Similarly, she was changed on the Supervisory Board of JSC Ventspils tirdzniecības osta on February 22 this year.
Meanwhile, Alvis Hāze, Meroni's previously trusted handler, was ousted from the boards of some 20 companies, including JSC Ventbunkers, JSC Latvijas naftas tranzīts, JSC Baltijas ekspresis, etc., at the beginning of this year and the end of last year. His brother, Jānis Hāze, has been expelled from the management of about 10 companies while retaining positions in some others.
Similarly, in 2015, Edgars Ciniņš and his wife Eva Ciniņa were thrown out of all the companies, which, however, caused such problems for Meroni and his benefactors in the Latvian ruling elite, as both of them had kept a substantial pile of papers on the subject of how Meroni "kept" the seized assets and how some prosecutors of the Latvian Prosecutor General's Office helped him with it.
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