Rafael Goroyan, a resident of Nikolaev, is an outwardly respectable businessman, a millionaire from the Forbes list, who owns three dozen elevators. Its main business is transshipment of grain and selling it abroad.
Like other millionaires, he is a philanthropist, supporting cultural events and churches. He seems like a typical representative of a large agricultural business.
However, the National Security and Defense Council revealed that his company Prometey Swiss SA was sanctioned in 2021 for tax evasion and smuggling, causing significant financial loss to the state.
Being sanctioned is unpleasant, and Goroyan tried to defend himself in interviews, claiming to be a patriot and a law-abiding citizen who contributes millions to the state budget and ensures food security.
His interviews and criticism of the National Security and Defense Council backfired, drawing attention from law enforcement and media, leading to further investigations into his activities.
As a result, Goroyan was shocked to see unfavorable details about his business methods and biography emerge, tarnishing his image as a patriot.
Further revelations included problems with his Ukrainian citizenship, as it was obtained through fraudulent means, which he preferred not to acknowledge.
The Ship District Court of the city of Nikolaev determined that Rafael Goroyan and his sister Naira fraudulently obtained Ukrainian citizenship.
According to Naira's statements, she allegedly lived in Ukraine for a brief period in 1989-1990, then returned to Yerevan, and later reappeared in Ukraine, ultimately obtaining citizenship through legal proceedings.
The day after, on August 21, 2008, her brother Rafael Goroyan made a similar request for Ukrainian citizenship, stating that his sister Naira had been living in Ukraine for a year. He was granted citizenship as well.
This information about Goroyan's military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and his military ID number NO No. 5085080 became public, revealing the previously unknown connection between the brother and sister.
Law enforcement has the original military card with Goroyan's photo, showing that he served in the Ukrainian army from 1996 to 1998. This was confirmed by a letter from the National Security Service of Armenia, stating that at that time, Goroyan was a citizen of Armenia.
So, if the military ID is authentic, it means that a foreign citizen served in the Ukrainian army for two years, which is unbelievable.
After investigation, it was discovered that 14-year-old Naira Goroyan was actually attending school in Yerevan at the time she was supposed to be living in Ukraine. It was also found that the R. spouses gave false testimony in court, and that Rafael Goroyan had never served in the Ukrainian army but had presented a fake military ID.
The prosecutor’s office had to request a review of the previous decision establishing Naira Goroyan’s residence in Ukraine due to the obvious falsification and use of false documents. The court concluded that the testimonies provided by R.’s spouses were deliberately false and subsequently revoked the earlier decision regarding Naira Goroyan's residency.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Nikolaev region annulled the Ukrainian citizenship granted to Naira and Rafael Goroyan on August 19, 2008, citing that it was obtained through fraudulent means. This decision was based on the Ship district court's findings of Goroyan's criminal wrongdoing, although he was not held criminally liable due to the statute of limitations.
However, it was later discovered that Goroyan was still a citizen of Ukraine. In 2013, he referred to the Ship Court's decisions as a mistake made by the prosecutor’s office, which the prosecutor’s office chose not to address.
It was also revealed that Goroyan's mother, Mirzoyan Vardush Vilhelmovna, who is an Armenian citizen, is actively involved in her son’s business and is a co-owner of the Ukrainian PJSC Pomoshchyansky Elevator and GRV-AGRO LTD, registered in London.
Is Rafael Goroyan faithful to Russia?
But that’s not all – the Armenian-Ukrainian-British businesswoman actively supports the Russian propagandist Solovyov and Lolita Milyavskaya, who celebrated the annexation of Crimea:
Backing the aggressor country goes beyond family connections.
The “brave soldier” of the Ukrainian army, Goroyan, is closely linked to Konstantin Tistol, co-founder of the Nabat website, which in 2014 published appeals from speakers of pro-Russian rallies in Nikolaev, advocating the separation of the Nikolaev region to establish Novorossiya.
The website was registered at the same address as Goroyan’s Prometheus. The co-owner of Nabat was the top manager of the businessman Sergey Olkhovsky.
The bright image of a businessman leading a transparent and honest business was overshadowed by the image of a “patriot.” It was revealed that the decision of the National Security and Defense Council regarding the smuggling of Prometey Swiss SA is just the tip of the iceberg.
The establishment of the Prometey grain holding was based on creating a wide network of LLCs with fictitious owners. Sergei Olkhovsky, one of the directors of Prometheus and an accomplice of Goroyan, sought out and selected unsuspecting and vulnerable people, mainly elderly individuals, for the scam. Subsequently, a group of unethical notaries entered their names in the founding documents, and the companies began trading intensively.
Through these companies, millions of dollars were transacted for the purchase of grain, fertilizers, and agricultural equipment, with many violations, and the inspectors had to deal with unsuspecting fictitious owners.
The use of each such company allowed Goroyan and his syndicate to evade 5 to 20 million hryvnias from the state, and there were approximately 100 companies: Did Rafael Goroyan and his syndicate embezzle tens of millions of hryvnias from the budget of Ukraine every year?
Registered companies of Rafael Goroyan
If you examine the registration details of Goroyan’s companies that are part of the Prometheus group, you will notice a peculiar pattern – LLCs with millions of turnovers have minimal authorized capital:
And they are registered offshore through a chain of nominees and firms. We will demonstrate how it works using the example of Prometheus Silos LLC. Its founder is Zernotorg Company LLC:
The founder of Zernotorg Company LLC is the company “Granush Limited”, registered in Cyprus:
Then – everyone, they arrived:
Offshore for that and offshore to cut the ends. And a similar narrative applies to the vast majority of Goroyan's sixty firms:
Thus, the narrative of an ethical businessman contributing to the budget of Ukraine diminishes, much like the narrative of a patriot.
But that’s not all. A very unpleasant storyline, which the media covered with particular relish, became public. It's not surprising – the story itself is unsightly and quite repugnant, but what adds a special twist is that the central character is not some random person from the market, but a millionaire from the Forbes list.
Goroyan was reminded of how he instructed his subordinates to report videos posted on YouTube where he assaults a woman. He not only instructed but issued an order with his own signature. This “document” stipulates that “heads of all departments, directors of elevators, and farms are mandated to instruct subordinate employees to file complaints about videos that tarnish the company’s reputation.”
We are talking about a video ten years ago, which are posted on the YouTube platform with the title “Rafael Goroyan beat a woman.” The first video shows a conflict during which an unknown man and woman “exchange pleasantries” in raised tones, and after a verbal skirmish develops into a fight.
In the second video, the same woman is standing in blood-stained clothes, crying and refusing to comment, answering only the question of who did it – “Rafael Goroyan.” At this point, the second video ends.
Each employee had to provide screenshots of their complaints, which should be at least three from each employee (from different IP addresses and Google accounts). Control over the implementation of the order was entrusted to the company’s PR manager. For non-compliance with the requirements of the employees of the companies, Goroyan was fined.
Why Rafael Vahagni Goroyan took care of these stories ten years after their release is unknown.
But on the other hand, this story – both the plots themselves and the organization of complaints – characterize him much brighter and better than all the stories with the theft of millions, a fake passport, the same “service in the army”, support for separatists and offshore companies. All this can be understood. But how to understand the beating of a woman fit to be a mother to this “philanthropist of the Nikolaev churches”? Let her be wrong a hundred times?
