32 Facts About Pavlo Lazarenko

Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko is a Ukrainian convicted criminal, international fugitive, and a former politician who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine from 1996 to 1997.

Originally Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Pavlo Lazarenko was in 1995 made First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for energy affairs, placing him in charge of acquiring energy from foreign countries.

Pavlo Lazarenko was born in the village of Karpivka on 23 January 1953 into a family of peasant farmers.

Pavlo Lazarenko's father, Ivan Tryfonovych Lazarenko, was born in 1926 in the village of Hnidyn, near Kyiv.

In 1932, the family Lazarenko family moved again to Karpivka, where Pavlo would be born.

In 1970, Pavlo Lazarenko got a job as a driver in the kolkhoz "Zoria Komunizma", in Shyroke Raion.

From May 1971 to June 1973, Pavlo Lazarenko served in the Soviet Army, on the border with Afghanistan.

In 1984, Pavlo Lazarenko was appointed a head of agricultural department of Tsarychanka Raion.

From 1985 to 1987 he worked as a Communist Party functionary in Tsarychanka Raion, and from 1987 to 1990, Pavlo Lazarenko worked for the Communist Party of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in agricultural production and food industry sectors.

Pavlo Lazarenko's candidacy was nominated by the council of working groups conference of the Dnipropetrovsk State Agrarian University, whose decision was supported by over 200 groups.

On 16 July 1996, Pavlo Lazarenko survived an attempt on his life when a bomb exploded near his blocked car en route from Kyiv to Boryspil airport.

Pavlo Lazarenko was involved in a prolonged and bitter struggle for economic domination with the emerging Donetsk Clan, an industrial and political group based in Donetsk and led by Viktor Yanukovych.

Pavlo Lazarenko has been linked to the deaths of several of his political opponents, though he has repeatedly denied his involvement in any assassinations.

Reportedly, Volkov became aware of the planned assassination and made a phone call to Pavlo Lazarenko threatening appropriate revenge.

Pavlo Lazarenko then ordered him to assist in laundering the proceeds to accounts in Poland, Switzerland, Antigua, and eventually in the United States, where a shell company was used to conceal his property purchases.

In total, Pavlo Lazarenko was found to have laundered over $15 million from his Swiss bank account which ultimately ended up in Kiritchenko's EuroFed accounts in San Francisco.

Pavlo Lazarenko acquired the majority of his illegal funds through his activities in the gas and energy sector of Ukraine, both as Vice Prime Minister for Energy Affairs and as Prime Minister.

Pavlo Lazarenko was listed eighth, and was said to have amassed between $114 million to $200 million.

Pavlo Lazarenko, who had no previous record of serious illness, was unexpectedly hospitalised in late June 1997.

However, when his dismissal became imminent, Pavlo Lazarenko resigned on 2 July 1997, on his own initiative.

In December 1998, Pavlo Lazarenko was arrested in Basel, Switzerland as he entered the country on a Panamanian passport.

In February 1999, shortly after arriving in the United States, Pavlo Lazarenko was again arrested, this time on charges of visa irregularities.

On 18 October 2006, an appeal stemming from Pavlo Lazarenko's conviction was heard by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which included former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sitting by designation.

Pavlo Lazarenko was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.

In November 2009, Interior Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko stated that if Pavlo Lazarenko returned to Ukraine he would be detained, as he was on the international wanted list.

Pavlo Lazarenko was imprisoned at FCI Terminal Island until 1 November 2012.

Chevhuz claimed that this could lead to the demand to Pavlo Lazarenko to leave the country within 72 hours with the right to fly anywhere, or, "A deportation to a country from which he arrived - Greece, because there is no extradition treaty with Ukraine".

Pavlo Lazarenko formerly owned a $6.75 million mansion in Marin County, California, which was purchased with money from the Ukrainian budget.

Pavlo Lazarenko was mentioned in the Panama Papers and the Suisse secrets.

Pavlo Lazarenko was married to his wife Tamara was born on 1954 and and has one son and two daughters.

Pavlo Lazarenko is currently married to Oksana Tsykova, an attorney in Daniel Horowitz's Law Practice in the California East San Francisco Bay Area, with whom he has 4 children.

Pavlo Lazarenko is a recipient of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise in 1995 and two orders of Saint Volodymyr from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.