It turned out that the son of Albert Lenckaus, the recently arrested deputy of the former Klaipėda mafia boss Sigitas Gaidjurgis, bought one of the largest meat processing companies – Agrovet from Kretingalė.
The transaction was financed and brokered by famous businessmen. And only an arrest warrant prevented these actors from quickly selling the already bought company and legalizing the money.
After the arrests, they began to follow
A. Lenckus and his two sons Dovydas and Tautvydas began to be tracked back in 2020, when Spanish officials stopped a Mercedes truck carrying metal cans of tomatoes near Malaga.
After checking the cans, it turned out that more than 200 kilograms of hashish had been mixed in with the tomatoes.
The Lithuanians Arūnas Kurmis and Remigijus Stankus who were transporting the drugs were arrested.
On the same day, a search was conducted in the house of another Lithuanian, Norbert Bajarūnas, located in the city of Fuenchirola. A huge hemp plantation and equipment for growing it – lighting lamps, fans, filters, transformers – were discovered here.
While investigating the activities of this group, suspicions arose that it is led by A. Lenckus and his sons. Then the officers started secretly following them as well.
The boss blamed the murder
A. Lenckus was considered the accountant and right-hand man of S. Gaidjurgis a dozen years ago. However, the mafia boss of the port city, who was famous for his paranoid manner, began to think that A. Lenckus was going to take his place in the group, so he decided to get rid of him.
Maybe this “accountant” would have become another victim of S. Gaidjurgis, but the boss’s bodyguard, who was supposed to kill him, warned A. Lenckų about the danger.
Without waiting for anything, he ran from Lithuania.
S. Gaidjurgis, who was later arrested and accused of murdering more than 20 people, felt sorry for him.
During interrogations, he said that A. Lenckus himself ordered the murders.
Based on the testimony of the mafia boss, A. Lenck was accused of organizing the murder of Klaipėda businessman Anatolijus Mamaev.
This crime failed only because the hired killer’s gun jammed.
However, the wanted A. Lenckus presented himself to the prosecutor’s office in 2007. The man denied having committed the crime and also told how he saw with his own eyes how S. Gaidjurgis shot a local businessman on the coast of Latvia, and then ordered A. Lenckis to drag the corpse away and bury it.
The authorities then believed this version, dismissed the suspicions, and based on A. Lenckaus’ story about the shot in Latvia, accused S. Gaidjurgius of another murder episode.
An impressive operation
Later, A. Lenckus retreated into the shadows and lived permanently abroad.
Only after the Spanish police discovered a Lithuanian cannabis plantation in 2020 and found that it was led by A. Lenckus, did the officials seriously deal with this mafia veteran again.
Secret surveillance revealed that the drugs seized by the Spaniards were only so-called flowers.
Criminalists found out that the man from Klaipėda had created a huge empire of illegal business.
It is suspected that A. Lenckus, together with his sons, could lead not only a widespread network of drug production and trade, but also established illegal cigarette factories, and smuggled goods were transported by trucks, ships and even airplanes.
After collecting enough information about the activities of A. Lenckaus and his henchmen in August, the officials of several countries even started the international operation “Dorada”.
The members of the family that ran the illegal business were arrested in different countries: the father – in Belgium, the son Dovydas – in Spain, and the other son Tautvydas was handcuffed in Lithuania.
Svajūnas Janavičius, Marius Kričena, Laurynas Norvainis and several other Lithuanians belonging to the group also ended up behind bars.
Immediately after the arrest of the leaders, more than 200 officers carried out searches in various parts of Europe.
Two illegal state-of-the-art cigarette factories have been busted in Belgium. They found 4.5 million packs of already produced famous Marlboro, Winston, Richmond cigarette packs and 32 tons of tobacco ready for production.
Another 10 million packs of ready-to-sell cigarettes were found elsewhere in Belgium.
A lot of drugs and cash were found in Spain, France and Lithuania.
Could not find buyers
It turned out that the group used the money received from the drug trade and smuggled cigarettes to buy real estate and also targeted large industrial facilities. One of them is the most modern meat processing plant “Agrovet” in Kretingale, Klaipėda district.
This factory was established ten years ago by businessman Aurelijus Gudžiūnas. In 2004, the company was nominated as the best Lithuanian exporter.
However, the 9 million euro loan taken from SEB banka got in the way. Although the factory was substantially modernized with this money, it did not withstand the 2008 crisis and huge bank interest.
After the bankruptcy announced in 2019, the factory was preserved and started to be sold through tenders. But for a long time no one wanted to buy the company, valued at more than 20 million euros, which owned 16 plots of land in Kretingale, premises for a pig slaughterhouse, a meat processing workshop and another 20 barrels.
There were no buyers, even when the price of the property for sale in the competition was constantly reduced and finally fell to 3.6 million euros.
He offered to buy it to a friend
After the price dropped significantly, Ovidijus Bartkus, the owner and manager of the Kretingos grūdai company, also showed interest in the factory. Several specialists sent to the premises assessed the condition of Agrovet’s facilities.
However, O. Bartkus himself did not intend to buy the bankrupt factory, but offered it to A. Lenckus.
The police officers found out that the businessman O. Bartkis and the smuggler A. Lencki have a friendly relationship by secretly listening to the conversations of Andrei Kazakov, nicknamed Chili, who has the title of legalized thief.
In 2018, when the seriously injured A. Kazakov was admitted to the hospital after an assassination attempt in Klaipėda, police officers installed listening devices in his ward.
O. Bartkus was one of the first to visit the criminal authority.
The two men discussed various versions of who might have ordered the murder. The Russian mentioned A. Lenckų among the suspects, but O. Bartkus tried to stop him. Therefore, it was not a surprise to the officials that O. Bartkus offered to buy the Agrovet factory specifically to A. Lenck.
The footprints are in Switzerland
Soon, A. Lenckaus’ son Tautvydas company “Lendat” sent the bankruptcy administrator an offer to buy the factory for 2.8 million euros.
This offer was made to Agrovet’s creditors. Some of them objected to such a proposal, saying that the factory valued at more than 20 million euros would be sold too cheaply.
This was especially opposed by the State Tax Inspectorate, which called the planned transaction non-transparent. However, the word of the largest creditor – SEB banka – was decisive. Although Agrovet owed the bank almost 10 million euros, the bankers agreed to sell the company for a much lower price.
In January, the first 600,000 euros were transferred to a deposit account controlled by the bankruptcy administrator. Other money had to wait a long time. Only in June was the final settlement made.
However, the remaining funds were not transferred by T. Lenckaus’ company “Lendat”, but by the Swiss company “Swiss Wealth Management”. Although Jonathan Curei was officially stated to be the shareholder and manager of this company, he actually became so only shortly before the Agrovet purchase transaction.
Before that, the company was managed by Lithuanians, among them Audrius Ringaila and his friend Ieva Trinkūnaitė. This girl is the daughter of the famous businessman and politician Valdas Trinkūnas.
Became the sole shareholder
Neither T. Lenckus nor his father ever stopped by to see their new purchase. Immediately after the factory was bought, the purchased assets were transferred to the company “Baltic Meat Industry”, which was established immediately before the transaction.
This company was established in January by T. Lenckus, and the premises for its operation were provided by “Kretingos grūdai” led by O. Bartkaus. Thus, T. Lenckus became the sole shareholder of the company “Baltic Meat Industry”, which manages the “Agrovet” factory. It is said that after this transaction T. Lenckus intended to resell the newly established company together with the Agrovet factory to an Israeli company.
This would have killed two birds with one stone – almost a million euros were earned and money was legalized.
Ideas failed
The deal was thwarted by the international police operation Dorada. As soon as T. Lenckus was arrested together with his brother and father, Lithuanian law offices were flooded by their relatives.
True, they were more interested not in how to help their relatives behind bars, but how to save a profitable deal.
Perhaps because of this, the shares of “Baltic Meat Industry”, which manages the factory, were transferred to the already mentioned Swiss company “Swiss Wealth Management”, which was previously managed by the daughter of V. Trinkūnas.
However, such ideas were stopped by the General Prosecutor’s Office, which seized the factory and all its real estate.
