“Iron Motors” – a cover for a fraudster: Vladimir Filippov continues to cheat customers with cars from the U.S.
The story of fraud, which will be discussed below, is generally familiar: another victim was “deceived” on the promise to purchase and deliver to Ukraine a car from the United States.
The key figure in this fraud is a resident of Odessa Vladimir Sergeevich Filippov, although he denies that he is the organizer of the scheme. Nevertheless, we will not believe this statement, and here is why.
So, the story is as follows. Citizen Victoria K. decided to buy a car from the USA.
How it ended – you can read at this link. And the essence boils down to the fact that she turned to the PE “Southern Way”, with which she concluded the relevant contract, under which the firm undertook to buy at auction in the U.S. and deliver a car to Ukraine. Then the story with payment for services began. There were several payments, in total Victoria spent 15,000 dollars, but never saw the car. As Mr. Filippov explained, she sent the money to the account of the manager of the company “Southern Way” named Maxim, who is currently fired from his job. Maxim himself claims that he quit his job because he was “taken away by TCC”, but this is not so important, although it is also doubtful. As for the money that Victoria transferred to Maxim’s account, the firm has nothing to do with it, and Victoria, if she wants to take back her car, has to pay for everything again.
Also, Mrs. Victoria claims that Vladimir Filippov left the private enterprise “Southern Way” with debts, and now works under the signboard of “Iron Motors” in Moldova.
Filippov’s position, as mentioned above, is as follows: “I did not sign anything with you and I have not been living in Ukraine for several years”. Despite such statements by Filippov, we are dealing with a classic fraud. First of all, there is a contract with Victoria K. and the private enterprise “Southern Way” and it was signed by Filippov.
However, at the time of its conclusion, the client – and she is not the only one who fell into the hook of Vladimir Filippov (more on this later) – should have been alerted to the fact that the funds under the contract are transferred not to the account of the PE “Southern Way”, but to the account of its head Vladimir Sergeevich Filippov. Although it did not, it is difficult to impute anything to a person who has no legal knowledge – she signed the documents in a company registered according to all the rules, and Vladimir Filippov is really its head and owner.
So Filippov’s statement that he did not sign anything is a lie. As well as the fact that he did not receive any money. Below is a photo of one of the payment documents, there were several of them:
So Mr. Filippov is clearly lying. At the moment, this story is almost over – the victimized client has gone to court with a demand to recover from Mr. Filippov the money he bilked from her, and the story is waiting to continue.
But the fact that Vladimir Filippov is a fraudster, and the scheme that Victoria was caught on is not an exception, is confirmed by checking the court registers. Vladimir Filippov and the PE “Southern Way” are approached by at least three more people with similar claims. The “Opendatabot” registry indicates even more court cases – 34, and it also reports that four enforcement proceedings on court decisions to recover the funds that were defrauded by the same scheme have been registered in relation to the PE “Southern Way”.
That is, there are already positive decisions in favor of the victims. However, it is unlikely that the funds will be recovered from the private enterprise “Southern Way” – they went not to its account, but to the account of Filippov personally, besides, the private enterprise “Southern Way” has neither property nor funds – the authorized capital is one thousand hryvnias, and it did not show any profit. So the satisfaction of the victims here is only moral.
Whether there will be something to recover from Filippov himself is also a question. Since, judging by the public data, he is clearly not a simple man. Here’s what the registers tell us about his person. Vladimir Sergeevich Filippov is the founder and owner of the already mentioned PE “Southern Way” and LLC “Iron Motors”, which adopted a fraudulent scheme to lure money from people who want to buy a car from the United States. However, two other organizations seem much more interesting in this list: the Center Association and the regional branch of Center-Odessa, whose owner is Filippov.
Because this Association “Center” is nothing else than the international association of officers of special units to combat organized crime “Center”. And Center-Odessa is its subdivision.
The Association “Center” is not just an ordinary “GeOshka”, i.e. a public organization where former retirees drink tea or vodka and remember “the battles where they fought together”. The Center Association is a powerful business structure that is the founder of 14 other organizations, among which there are quite commercial ones.
What is interesting in this context is that most of them are based in the temporarily occupied territories. This may indicate both that Mr. Filippov and his colleagues in the struggle either suffered from the occupants, who took away their business, or that they are cooperating with them. There is no data on this, so the question is open. But it also shows that, firstly, Vladimir Sergeevich Filippov is a former officer of a special unit to combat organized crime. And secondly, he has powerful connections among those who fought and headed this crime. Moreover – in the East, where this crime is so intertwined with the authorities, the fighters against it and the Russian special services that it is almost impossible to distinguish between them.
So far, this is all we have learned about the owner of the private enterprise “Southern Way” Vladimir Filippov, who is engaged in banal fraud, swindling money from those who want to buy a car in the States. It seems that the PE “Southern Way” is already a worked-out structure, debts will hang on it and it will be liquidated. At the moment all the schemes have been transferred to Iron Motors LLC, which is registered at the same address as the PE “Southern Way” – 65088, Ukraine, Odessa region, Odessa city, Lustdorfskaya Doroga, 90g, office, 239, although in its advertising it positions itself as a firm from Moldova. Apparently, Vladimir Filippov is also located there. By the way, on the Iron Motors website one cannot find any registration data about its affiliation. But who is interested in this when there is an opportunity to get something “for free”? They are interested later, when the money is hopelessly lost.
It looks like Filippov decided to sit in a neighboring country until he calms down at home. The scheme by which Vladimir Filippov operates in Iron Motors in Moldova is the same as before – why reinvent the wheel? And, as evidenced by criminal practice, with which Mr. Filippov is well acquainted, a criminal rarely changes a successful scheme of his activity.
Whether his colleagues in the association of former officers-fighters against organized crime are aware of what Vladimir Filippov is doing is also an open question. But judging by the fact that Vladimir Filippov has been in this fraudulent business for a long time, and not a single criminal case has been brought against him – he is obviously covered not by former law enforcement officers, but by the current ones. Let’s see what will happen in Moldova.