Gareth Sheridan’s partner in his publicly-quoted US business Nutriband was involved in a major controversy in 2019 over the privatisation of Air Moldova and possible links to Russian oligarchs.
When Mr Sheridan (35) announced his intention earlier this week to put his name forward for election as president, he was replaced as Nutriband’s chief executive by the company’s chairman and co-founder, Serguei Melnik (50), a lawyer from Moldova resident in the United States.
Mr Melnik was a 25 per cent shareholder in a Romanian company called Civil Aviation Group that took over Air Moldova in 2018 when it was privatised.
A year later the Moldovan national anti-corruption centre announced it had seized assets of both the airline and the Romanian company as part of an investigation into money laundering.
READ MORE
The seizure was connected to “large-scale money laundering at the privatisation of Air Moldova”, the agency said at the time.
“We are talking about a series of fictitious transactions that led to the privatisation of the airline,” it said.
[ Who is presidential hopeful Gareth Sheridan? Opens in new window ]
The chairman of an ad-hoc parliamentary committee in Moldova, Igor Munteanu, said part of the payment for the airline was transacted in cash and that money due to be paid to creditors had not been paid.
There is no suggestion Mr Sheridan was involved in any way in the Air Moldova deal.
In 2021 an Air Moldova Airbus A319 aircraft was prevented from leaving Dublin Airport after a successful application for its seizure was made in the High Court.
The High Court ruled in favour of a Romanian aircraft leasing firm that had been the beneficiary of a €4.2 million arbitration award to it against Air Moldova.
The court was told Moldova’s criminal assets recovery agency had seized Air Moldova assets in 2019 as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity, including money laundering.
In the wake of the privatisation of the Moldovan airline there were media reports that Russian oligarchs associated with the ownership of the airport in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, might be linked to the purchase.
News reports highlighted the fact that a business associate of Mr Melnik’s, Vitalie Botgros, had formerly worked for a Russian conglomerate, Transmasholding, which had links to the Moldovan airport.
Mr Botgros, also a lawyer from Moldova, is currently the largest shareholder in Nutriband, owning 39 per cent of its shares as against Mr Sheridan’s 17.6 per cent. He worked for the now sanctioned Transmashholding between 2005 and 2006 and was chairman of Nutriband between 2016 and 2020.
Mr Sheridan, an entrepreneur from Dublin, is to hold a press conference in Dublin on Thursday morning to answer questions about his bid for the presidency. He has been contacted for comment as has Mr Melnik.
A spokesman for Mr Sheridan had not provided comment at the time of going to print. Efforts to contact Mr Melnik were unsuccessful ahead of publication.
