How rich Estonians fell victim to Chechens in Bulgaria - Vol 4
29.06.2010, 13:15Below is part 4 of the article on how rich Estonians who invested in the real estate of the Black Sea seaside resort in Varna, Bulgaria, fell victim to a scam of the local Chechen criminal gang and lost millions.
Horre Saluste and Kristjan Metsur who together with Chechens founded Družba-3 in Bulgaria say that they started to speculate with real estate in the hope to earn big profits, but actually made a massive loss.
Interview with Horre Saluste and Kristjan Metsur.
Q: How did you discover the real estate business in Bulgaria?
Horre Saluste: „We had surplus funds. We invested it and lost it.“
Kristjan Metsur: „There were many new contacts and in the course of the discussion with different businessmen we came to the idea that Bulgaria was a nice place and we should go there to see whether we can do something.“
Saluste: „Real estate speculation was our idea. The principle was very simple: buy cheap and sell at a high price.“
Q: How much money do you have tied up in these investments?
Saluste: „A few million kroons for several lots near the town of Varna near the Black Sea.“
Q: You still have these lots that you have purchased?
Metsur: „It’s not possible to sell anything there“.
Saluste: „There is no market of buyers. Foreigners have gone away. Essentially, they created a bigger real estate bubble that in Estonia.“
Metsur: „We will inherit it to our children, as say some people who have also invested there.“
Q: Do you have business partners in Bulgaria?
Metsur: „Yes, of course.“
Q: How did you find them?
Metsur: „In the course of meeting different people and this is how the contacts developed.“
Saluste: „Land deals. My neighbour in Kadriorg had large-scale real estate investments there. He practically lured as there. It seemed like a good investment. If I recall then we did it in a grand manner - we withdrew a lot of cash from the bank, flew there with over 100,000 euros in pockets, paid money and got the title to the land.“
Q: Who selected the lots?
Metsur: „Let’s say that local real estate businessmen and some of them became land co-owners together with us. But their objective was somewhat dubious. They controlled prices so well that we could not understand whether they realistically invested any money there or not. In principle, they used our money to become co-owners.“
Q: Why did you not evade them? Do they control the whole region?
Metsur: „Well, the whole sales information is under their control. It was difficult to get directly to sellers in good locations.“
Saluste: „We did not know the market. The question was whether to trust or not. Many Estonian businessmen have lost their money when they do business in an unknown place alone. Therefore we saw this as the only option.“
Q: But someone mediated you the local contact in Varna?
Saluste: „No, we already had this contact from Estonia“.
Metsur: „He had been doing business there for years.“
Q: Who was that person?
Metsur: „I will not name him“.
Q: Was he Ahmed Ozdoyev?
Saluste: „Yes“.
Q: The people who were your partners in Bulgaria are well known in Varna as mobsters. Does this come you as a surprise or did you check their background?
Metsur: „It is not very surprising. We have heard something like that ourselves.“
Q: So you simply stumbled on wrong people.
Saluste: „Well, a wolf does not touch a neighbour… Probably something like that. Our relations were actually very good. There was no problem with lack of trust.“
Q: Are they attempting to scam you out of your money?
Saluste: „Why? There simply is no money any more.“
Q: Umalt Osmaev, member of the local Chechen gang who is also your partner in the local company Družba-3 did the land deals himself for you, didn’t he?
Saluste: „Well, basically yes“.
Metsur: „I think that there is no point for them to scam us. They simply earned skyhigh brokerage fees from every land deed. If they even are crooks, they are attempting to become regular businessmen. They did not extort us for our money, we communicated entirely normally. But we were not the only businessmen. I will not name any names, but there are some known and some unknown Tallinn businessmen who invested there through the same people in the same way.“
Saluste: „Very solid and honest people.“
Metsur: „We had examples and there was no reason to fear that we could start running errands for mafia or become mafia debtors or victims of extortion.“
Q: You just mentioned that you were suspecting that the local partners themselves invested nothing in these transactions.
Metsur: „This suspicion arose only after the transactions.“
Q: Are these people somehow frightening also?
Metsur: „No, we still communicate with them very nicely. We can talk about anything.“
Saluste: „They are neighbours“.
Q: So you have no fear that they could fool you out of your money.
Metsur: „They took an exceptionally large brokerage fee, and we don’t even know how big it was, but that was what they did… So, in this way they fooled us, but…“
Q: Did they become co-shareholders by their own will?
Metsur: „We could have been the only shareholders, but we wanted to expand this circle and wanted them to be our business partners and help us to sell the lands later. Let’s say that it was partly our wish that they became business partners.“
Saluste: „We saw that they had so much influence and many contacts. Regionally, it is always better to do business with people like that than with people who don’t know anything about nothing and have no influence.“
Q: But what about their criminal past?
Metsur: „We did not know that. We did not go anywhere to police and could not have understood local Bulgarian newspapers even if they had written about it. If we had known it, we would not have been buyers.“
Q: You have also other partners, a fashion businessman Uno Kaseväli and advertising businessman Peeter Pullerits. How did they find you?
Saluste: „We dragged them in in good faith, like we were dragged in ourselves. But they did their decisions themselves.“
Q: What will you do now? Wait for better times?
Metsur: „Yes.“
Saluste: „Why sell it for 100,000 to 200,000 if you have invested 5 million in it.“
Q: So you invested 5 million in total?
Saluste: „The amount paid for this land could total 5 million. But there are Estonians who have lost notably larger amounts there.“
Q: In the same area in Varna?
Metsur: „They are also going about Tallinn and curse.“
Saluste: „Ahmed has mentioned a lot of names to us.“
Q: And he was the person who had contacts there and who invited Estonians to invest there?
Saluste: „He was our so-called local salesman there. Ahmed operated in Estonia and brought businessmen over.“
Q: But were you not alarmed by the background of Ahmed Ozdoyev? He has also been convicted in Estonia and in the second half of 1990s was claimed to have been the leader of the Ingushian mafia.
Saluste: „But perhaps it was more secure. Then no-one will hit any more“.
Metsur: “These are not 1990ies any more where issues were resolved by men in jumpsuits with knives or guns in BMWs. They are moving in real business transactions and it is no longer that when you arrive with the money, they hit you in the head, rob your money and throw you in a trench.”
Q: And what happened with this money then?
Metsur: „This is not our business any more. Why probe him that hey, where are you going to place it? After all, we were not sauna buddies sitting behind a beer and a shashlyk, asking them what they planned to do with the money. We were their good business partners and were able to do things quickly.“
Q: Can you say that your local partners were looking for simple-minded gold-diggers who were willing to give their money to these guys whom they had not background checked?
Metsur: “We did not give them the money. We went to a notary and gave the money to sellers.”
Q: They simply handled your business?
Metsur: “Yes, they drew up papers and… Of course, they are not going to help us to sell the land and we must ourselves start looking for buyers. Selling is not yet reasonable.”
Saluste: „It’s probably a good time to buy land because it is very cheap there now.“
Metsur: „Yes, if the Estonian businessmen have faith, it would be a good time to buy. Some people who need money urgently are now selling lands there at a very reasonable price.“
Q: And do you recommend to use the same contacts there?
Metsur (laughing): „Everyone should choose his or her own contacts. We are not going to recommend anyone.“