Photograph Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Every day Beast/Getty
An deserted charity for schoolchildren within the Dominican Republic. A mothballed housing improvement in small-town Quebec. A litany of firms that appear to exist in identify solely. An elaborate infiltration of Mar-a-Lago. A protracted record of lawsuits, counter-lawsuits, restraining orders, and felony expenses.
And now, a mysterious taking pictures linked to one of the vital notorious figures in Montreal’s organized crime world.
On the center of all of it is Valeriy Tarasenko, who first gained notoriety over his hyperlinks to Inna Yashchyshyn, the faux heiress who waltzed into Donald Trump’s Florida property final yr and posed in a photograph with the previous U.S. president in Mar-a-Lago. After information of the safety breach made headlines around the globe, Tarasenko turned in opposition to Yashchyshyn, his former enterprise accomplice and alleged ex-lover, accusing her of being a “con artist” and spy who labored for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yashchyshyn, in flip, accused Tarasenko of being the abusive, manipulative mastermind behind the weird plot.
Now, Tarasenko appears to have fallen right into a bewildering scandal of his personal. Final Friday, the Russian-born entrepreneur was shot within the parking zone of a luxurious resort within the sleepy Quebec city of Estérel, an hour north of Montreal. He survived, however suffered vital accidents. Tarasenko’s lawyer says his consumer is aware of the person who was initially charged with the taking pictures, a infamous determine in Montreal’s underworld.
Two sources who spoke to The Every day Beast say Tarasenko’s enterprise actions have lengthy been a recipe for catastrophe. In accordance with a number ofjudgements within the Quebec courtroom system, Tarasenko and his ex-wife, Anna Kovalenko, who remained his enterprise accomplice after their obvious break up, took cash from a wide range of sources—cash that by no means appeared to go to the enterprise and charitable functions for which they had been meant.
Simply what was Valeriy Tarasenko as much as?
Tarasenko arrived in Montreal along with his solely daughter in early 2007. Kovalenko, his ex-wife on the time, had arrived a yr earlier and enrolled at Concordia College to review political science. Their resettlement was financed solely by Kovalenko’s stepparents, Olga and Yury Manakhov.
A retired Soviet Navy captain, Yury Manakhov had gone on to discovered a Moscow-based fishing firm and, in keeping with courtroom filings, “made a fortune.” That wealth helped him enter the bureaucratic quick lane when he started the method of immigrating to Canada round 2007.
Within the years that adopted, Manakhov despatched his stepdaughter greater than $1 million. That purchased her a apartment in Montreal, one other in Florida, a home within the Dominican Republic, a luxurious automotive, and an array of different bills and items.
Round that point, Kovalenko remarried Tarasenko whereas her relationship along with her stepfather soured. In courtroom filings, Manakhov declared the newly rejoined couple “lazy.”
Whereas Manakhov largely reduce off his stepdaughter and son-in-law, the help didn’t finish solely. In 2010, he bought six empty tons in Estérel, for round $25,000, and transferred them to Kovalenko.
From their arrival in Canada, Kovalenko and Tarasenko started registering companies, though they by no means appeared to hold on a lot enterprise. In 2007, they based Bastion-M, a holding firm registered to their apartment in downtown Montreal. In 2010, they registered one other company: the United Hearts of Mercy.
Whereas the United Hearts of Mercy marketed itself as a “a registered charitable group,” it was by no means registered as a charity in Canada, and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt standing wasn’t granted in america till 2015.
The group claimed to have completed charitable work in Haiti, Ukraine, and all the continent of Africa—at one level claiming that it was gathering funds to assist rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, after a devastating hearth in 2019—however there's little publicly out there proof of such expansive work. A Fb web page for the charity reveals volunteers, carrying United Hearts of Mercy T-shirts, posing with schoolchildren within the Dominican Republic (the place Kovalenko owned a house) and handing out takeout containers to street-involved folks in Miami.
In 2011, Manakhov drew up a mortgage settlement along with his stepdaughter, formally requesting she repay $370,000. She ignored it. The litigation could be tied up in courtroom for years, with Manakhov shifting to grab his stepdaughters’ varied properties and Kovalenko going to courtroom to stop these strikes. Manakhov instructed the courtroom that his stepdaughter dedicated acts of “theft, signature forgery, financial institution fraud, car hearth and threats.” The courtroom would in the end facet with Manakhov, ordering the seizure and sale of two of Kovalenko’s condos and the plot of land in Estérel.
Inna Yashchyshyn and Valeriy Tarasenko.
Photograph Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Every day Beast/Getty/Instagram
In accordance with courtroom filings, it was round this time that Kovalenko divorced Tarasenko as soon as extra—although sources who spoke to The Every day Beast stated the pair continued to “work” collectively via these years.
One of many earliest administrators of the United Hearts of Mercy, a fellow Russian émigré who resigned from the group after roughly a yr on the board, filed swimsuit in opposition to Kovalenko in 2015. The previous director alleged that he lent Kovalenko practically $350,000, in money, that was by no means repaid.
That cash, Kovalenko stated, could be used to construct a housing improvement on the property she had been gifted by her stepfather, in Estérel. That improvement, as of final yr, had nonetheless not damaged floor.
In accordance with the IRS, the charity took in not more than $50,000 per yr between 2015 and 2020.
For all their years in Canada, it wasn’t clear what enterprise Tarasenko and Kovalenko had been truly concerned in.
The sources acquainted with the couple stated that regardless of their troubled enterprise dealings, the pair at all times appeared to have cash. Courtroom data present Kovalenko took out $75,000 in loans from one buddy, an quantity she was not requested to repay.
There was, nonetheless, one enterprise ambition that appeared to get off the bottom: an elaborate plan to kickstart a music profession for his or her daughter, Sofiya, underneath the stage identify “Sofiya Rothschild.” To advertise her, the couple registered the corporate Rothschild Media Label in Florida in 2018.
And who did they identify as director of the corporate? None aside from Inna Yashchyshyn, the faux heiress who snuck into Mar-a-Lago.
Yashchyshyn’s function within the Rothschild Media Label was meant to assist Sofiya turn into a pop star by infiltrating excessive society and creating buzz for Sofiya’s music profession. Extremely, the plan labored: Earlier than lengthy, Yashchyshyn was pictured on the golf course with Donald Trump as “Anna Rothschild.”
Whereas Yashchyshyn’s hobnobbing might have initially been successful, her presence later raised alarms in Trump’s entourage. The infiltration of Mar-a-Lago was so seamless that Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, instructed the Publish-Gazettehe would elevate the alarming lack of safety throughout his briefings with the intelligence group.
As Yashchyshyn’s infiltration made headlines, and drew scrutiny of investigators in two nations on their enterprise relationship with Tarasenko, the pair had a public falling out.
Pictures of seemingly cast passports, with Yashchyshyn’s pseudonym, had been revealed. The OCCRP reported that the FBI was proof suggesting the United Hearts of Mercy—to which Yashcyshyn had been appointed a director—was a entrance for cash laundering. Tarasenko accused Yashchyshyn of being a spy, with out offering any proof. The faux heiress, in flip, claimed she was the sufferer of a jealousy-driven “smearing” marketing campaign by Tarasenko, alleging he was a stalker and abuser who had “compelled” her into his enterprise schemes.
When she was contacted by the New York Publish, Yashchyshyn bristled at the concept she was working for Russia. Yashchyshyn was born in Ukraine. Her brother, the Publish reported, was referred to as as much as defend their nation after Russia’s unprovoked invasion earlier this yr.
“What boils my blood most is folks even considering I’m Russian or a Russian agent,” she instructed the Publish. “Russian folks don’t exist to me since they invaded my nation and killed my household and took houses.”
Within the fallout, cost processor Stripe kicked the United Hearts of Mercy off their platform for routing donations via stolen Hong Kong bank cards, per the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Venture (OCCRP) and the Pittsburgh Publish-Gazette. She seems in most of the charity’s pictures.
The Estérel Resort, the place Valeriy Tarasenko was shot within the parking zone.
Photograph Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Every day Beast/Estérel Resort
The FBI has carried out a number of interviews concerning Yashchyshyn and the United Hearts of Mercy, whereas the Sûreté du Québec—the provincial police drive—confirmed to the OCCRP and Publish-Gazette that they're investigating the charity.
Within the meantime, Sofiya’s music profession hasn’t precisely taken off. Whereas she has racked up tens of hundreds of Instagram followers—posing in entrance of luxurious automobiles, boarding personal jets, and with Chris Brown, whereas by no means displaying her face—solely one among her singles has surpassed 100,000 listens on Spotify. In a single poorly edited interview, Sofiya boasts, “I've my very own report label, Rothschild Media Label.” The one different artist on the Rothschild label is Kualify, a hip-hop artist from Montreal.
The precise nature of Yashchyshyn’s relationship with the household is unclear. In accordance with reporting from the OCCRP and the Publish-Gazette, Yashchyshyn was initially employed by Tarasenko as a nanny, earlier than turning into a enterprise affiliate. In a messy authorized dispute that performed out in a Miami courtroom, Yashchyshyn would declare that she and Tarasenko had been lovers. Tarasenko denies it.
Final yr, Yashchyshyn filed to acquire a restraining order in opposition to Tarasenko, alleging he had threatened her and held her hostage. Tarasenko filed to acquire his personal restraining order in return, alleging that Yashchyshyn had abused his daughter.
Florida-based lawyer Steven Veinger instructed The Every day Beast that each Tarasenko and Kovalenko employed him final spring to litigate the case—they needed to inform the courtroom that Yashchyshyn was a fraudster, a rip-off artist, and probably tied to organized crime. The case was in the end settled final yr.
Whereas Yashchyshyn and Sofiya had been based mostly in Miami, one supply instructed The Every day Beast that Kovalenko was nonetheless in Montreal, “involved with some younger man,” who had been a part of a “gang.”
On Oct. 6, a person in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a big white cranium and the quantity 81 rang Yury Manakhov’s doorbell.
A video of the change, recorded by the Manakhovs’ dwelling safety system and obtained by La Press, captures the change.
“My identify is Richard,” the person tells Manakhov, who was celebrating his 76th birthday that afternoon. “I’d identical to to talk to you for a minute—by the way in which, comfortable birthday. I wish to speak to you about Anna.” Met with confusion, he provides: “Anna, your stepdaughter.”
“Who're you?” Manakhov asks.
“Actually, I’m an excellent buddy of hers,” he provides. The entire change lasts lower than two minutes, with the thriller man insisting that “I’m making an attempt to make all the costs drop.”
Whereas it’s not fairly clear what he’s referring to, La Presse revealed that the person within the cranium T-shirt was, actually, Richard Goodridge—an notorious affiliate of a number of Montreal road gangs, together with the Hell’s Angels motorbike membership. The 81 on his T-shirt corresponds to the gang’s initials: H and A.
Only a day after he arrived on Manakhov’s doorstep, Tarasenko was shot. Police arrested Goodridge the next day—solely to launch him shortly thereafter. “The evaluation of his model [of events] didn't permit us to make accusations for the second,” a spokesperson for the provincial police instructed The Every day Beast.
Tarasenko knew Goodridge, in keeping with Veinger, his lawyer, and was probably on the Estérel resort to satisfy him that night time. “He indicated he acknowledged the person,” Veinger says. “He appears like he was arrange.”
When Tarasenko arrived on the resort, a black automotive pulled up with three males inside—one opened hearth and struck Tarasenko a number of occasions. “This was deliberate, this wasn’t a random factor,” Veigner says.
In accordance with information station TVA, Tarasenko had been threatened previously. A notice scrawled in crimson throughout his SUV warned: “CLOSE MOUTH OR I KILL SOFIYA + ANA [sic].”
The Sûreté du Québec instructed The Every day Beast that whereas Goodridge has been launched from custody, they've referred the report of his interrogation to prosecutors and are persevering with to analyze the taking pictures.
Tarasenko, in the meantime, is within the technique of fleeing Quebec—however not, his lawyer stresses, as a result of he's making an attempt to evade justice.
“He doesn’t really feel protected there,” Veigner says.
However, the lawyer provides, if the cops name: “He’s keen to cooperate.”