"He could have been killed". Zlata Ognevich stunned with information about the organizer of the largest scam in Ukrainian show business

Famous Ukrainian singer Zlata Ognevich has revealed shocking details about the founder of the Star Label concert agency, Taras Donenko, who cheated the artist and her colleagues, including Ruslana, Taras Chubai, and the band Sky, out of a tidy sum. In total, according to the stars, the fraudster managed to earn about UAH 10 million from them. The swindler, who pulled off the largest fraudulent scheme in Ukrainian show business, is currently on the international wanted list.

The artists hope that they will be able to return the money they gave Taras to organize concerts, after which he disappeared without a trace. However, Ognevich believes that the swindler is no longer alive. The singer shared her unexpected discoveries during the morning Weekend Show on M1.

Ognevich and other affected performers managed to find out that Donenko was dealing with cryptocurrency, which he bought with millions stolen from stars. Zlata suggests that Taras's "fellow" criminals could have killed him.

"In total, Taras Donenko caused losses of UAH 10 million. And now I have information that he was laundering cryptocurrency through these concerts. And that he may no longer be alive. He could have been killed by these "friends"-criminals. Now we have a lot of different information, some of which I cannot disclose because the investigation is ongoing. He has already been put on the international wanted list," Ognevich revealed.

The singer emphasized that everything in her industry is based on people's trust, because even fans, when buying a ticket to a concert of a particular artist, show their trust and hope to get a quality show for the money they spend. It so happened that because of Donenko, the stars could lose the trust of their fans, as most of their performances had to be either canceled or postponed.

"To spit in the face of the entire Ukrainian show business like that... The main thing is people's trust. That is, when people buy tickets for my concert or a concert of another artist, they have to trust us: they bought this ticket and are sure that the concert will take place. For me, this is a huge pain. Thank God I found that money. At least the questions in my team are closed," the singer said.

As a reminder, at the end of December 2023, Ognevich reported that she had become a victim of a scam by the organizer of her concert tour. Donenko fled with money that was supposed to be donated to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, then disappeared from the radar and stopped contacting her.

Over time, the list of victims of the fraudster began to grow. It included the band Sky, among others. In an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA, the band's frontman Oleh Sobchuk said that Donenko had been planning his scam for more than a year, as he had gained the artists' trust in advance. Thus, the band performed about 100 shows with the "concert organizer," so they did not raise any suspicions in the future.

"At some point, he took money from the ticket operators for the concerts he had planned in advance and disappeared. From us alone – it's about 3 million 600 thousand hryvnias... As far as we know, according to the contracts with ticket operators, he could do this and had done it before, arguing that the money was needed to pay for the rent of the halls, lights, and sound. In this case, he took the money but did not pay for the technical costs. And he ran away. And here we have a situation where we have a sold-out tour, sold-out shows in most cities, but we haven't paid for anything. And we have no money. And we can't cancel the concerts and refund people because we don't have the money," Sobchuk said.

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