Tuesday, January 24, 2006
From Russia, WithOUT Love
Russia, U.S. Halt Activities of Adoption Firm Suspected of Human Trafficking
MosNews http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/01/24/yunona.shtml
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s office together with the U.S. law enforcement bodies have stopped the activities of an international firm suspected of trading in children.
The firm Yunona was established in Napa County, California, by Russian and U.S. citizens. Russia’s deputy prosecutor general, Sergei Fridinsky, quoted by Interfax news agency, said the organization formally rendered legal services but was actually “engaged in a real children trade”.
According to the information, provided by the Russian prosecutors, Yunona gathered confidential information on children in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Guatemala and Vietnam and then sold the information to adoption agencies, due to a loophole in the law. The firm received $10,000 to $20,000 for obtaining confidential information for each child.
However, several U.S. citizens who had paid money to Yunona were unable to adopt children because they could not find them in the country where the organization said.
In December, a U.S. citizen, Nicole Peragine, who was promised a child from Guatemala by Yunona but had never seen the child, was found to have been defrauded of $13,500, First Coast News reported. On Jan. 7, the list of those who say they were bilked by Yunona USA turned out to be “long and diverse, with several families claiming they were never able to adopt a child and lost more than $10,000 in the effort,” Napa Valley Register reported.
Records have shown local authorities first received serious allegations against the company as early as April 2003, but no formal investigation had been launched until November 2005.
Yunona used a loophole in California law that allows it to connect foreign orphans with would-be adoptive parents without obtaining a license as an adoption agency. Other states have more restrictive laws. Jerdev said in an October interview with American Radioworks and quoted by Napa Valley Register that some of the money the company received from the childless families was used to bribe foreign judges and officials explaining it was part of doing business in the international adoption world.
Jerdev also said he wasn’t breaking American law, which forbids bribing foreign officials, because it was Yunona’s foreign coordinators who do the bribing. “We don’t pay,” he said. “The coordinators must do this. And they pay. They have to pay a lot of people. Bribes. The money always finds a way to go around.”
Yunona USA operates under many different names and Web sites, including Yunona Orphan Relief Fund, Adorable Adoption, Yunona.org, adoptwithlove.com and yunonaadoptiongroup.com. At least 18 adoption Web sites have Internet links with Yunona or are Yunona sites, so the company is hard to miss for would-be adoptive parents searching online for a way to adopt a child.
In particular, Yunona sold information on several dozen Russian children, the Russian Prosecutor General’s office reported. For instance, Yunona was related to the adoption of Alexei Geiko who was later killed in the United States.
Geiko was adopted at the end of 2003 by Dino and Irma Pavlis living near Chicago. On Dec. 18, 2003, the boy was taken to hospital unconscious and died a day later. Irma Pavlis admitted that she had beaten the child. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Yunona’s office in California was closed, criminal proceedings have been instigated and information on the firm’s operation for several years have been seized. The firm’s office in Krasnodar territory, Russia, have been searched too. Russian prosecutors have instigated proceedings.
Yunona USA obtained a business license in 2000. According to information found by MosNews, Yunona was founded in 1994 as a charity foundation aimed at helping orphan and handicapped children, indigent families, families of killed or handicapped Russian soldiers. Yunona’s president, Ivan Jerdev, is a Russian citizen living in the United States. Jerdev, former vice president Nick Sims and former officer Alex Nikolenko have been charged with knowingly misleading clients and drawing up faulty contracts. Prosecutors suspect Jerdev fled the country to his native Russia, AP reported. Sims says he resigned in November and was not involved in fraud.
Yunona named charity donations as one of its main sources of income. Those means were directed to urgent operations and rehabilitation programs, improvement of living and education conditions in children’s homes, supplies of provisions, school books and medication to boarding schools. The organization also worked on programs to establish a network of small enterprises in Russia to provide graduates of boarding schools with homes and work. Yunona planned to create military schools for orphans in Russia and the United States, organize a football championship among children’s homes alumni in Krasnodar territory, and to create the first Russian orphan child theater to stage performances in English.
Leader of Napa adoption agency may be under arrest
By DAVID RYAN, Register Staff Writer
UPDATE: Thursday, January 26, 2006 1:11 AM PST
Russian authorities have apparently detained Ivan Jerdev, the owner of Napa-based adoption firm Yunona USA, and will likely charge him with fraud and illegal disclosure of confidential information, Russian
news agencies reported Wednesday.
MosNews http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/01/24/yunona.shtml
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s office together with the U.S. law enforcement bodies have stopped the activities of an international firm suspected of trading in children.
The firm Yunona was established in Napa County, California, by Russian and U.S. citizens. Russia’s deputy prosecutor general, Sergei Fridinsky, quoted by Interfax news agency, said the organization formally rendered legal services but was actually “engaged in a real children trade”.
According to the information, provided by the Russian prosecutors, Yunona gathered confidential information on children in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Guatemala and Vietnam and then sold the information to adoption agencies, due to a loophole in the law. The firm received $10,000 to $20,000 for obtaining confidential information for each child.
However, several U.S. citizens who had paid money to Yunona were unable to adopt children because they could not find them in the country where the organization said.
In December, a U.S. citizen, Nicole Peragine, who was promised a child from Guatemala by Yunona but had never seen the child, was found to have been defrauded of $13,500, First Coast News reported. On Jan. 7, the list of those who say they were bilked by Yunona USA turned out to be “long and diverse, with several families claiming they were never able to adopt a child and lost more than $10,000 in the effort,” Napa Valley Register reported.
Records have shown local authorities first received serious allegations against the company as early as April 2003, but no formal investigation had been launched until November 2005.
Yunona used a loophole in California law that allows it to connect foreign orphans with would-be adoptive parents without obtaining a license as an adoption agency. Other states have more restrictive laws. Jerdev said in an October interview with American Radioworks and quoted by Napa Valley Register that some of the money the company received from the childless families was used to bribe foreign judges and officials explaining it was part of doing business in the international adoption world.
Jerdev also said he wasn’t breaking American law, which forbids bribing foreign officials, because it was Yunona’s foreign coordinators who do the bribing. “We don’t pay,” he said. “The coordinators must do this. And they pay. They have to pay a lot of people. Bribes. The money always finds a way to go around.”
Yunona USA operates under many different names and Web sites, including Yunona Orphan Relief Fund, Adorable Adoption, Yunona.org, adoptwithlove.com and yunonaadoptiongroup.com. At least 18 adoption Web sites have Internet links with Yunona or are Yunona sites, so the company is hard to miss for would-be adoptive parents searching online for a way to adopt a child.
In particular, Yunona sold information on several dozen Russian children, the Russian Prosecutor General’s office reported. For instance, Yunona was related to the adoption of Alexei Geiko who was later killed in the United States.
Geiko was adopted at the end of 2003 by Dino and Irma Pavlis living near Chicago. On Dec. 18, 2003, the boy was taken to hospital unconscious and died a day later. Irma Pavlis admitted that she had beaten the child. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Yunona’s office in California was closed, criminal proceedings have been instigated and information on the firm’s operation for several years have been seized. The firm’s office in Krasnodar territory, Russia, have been searched too. Russian prosecutors have instigated proceedings.
Yunona USA obtained a business license in 2000. According to information found by MosNews, Yunona was founded in 1994 as a charity foundation aimed at helping orphan and handicapped children, indigent families, families of killed or handicapped Russian soldiers. Yunona’s president, Ivan Jerdev, is a Russian citizen living in the United States. Jerdev, former vice president Nick Sims and former officer Alex Nikolenko have been charged with knowingly misleading clients and drawing up faulty contracts. Prosecutors suspect Jerdev fled the country to his native Russia, AP reported. Sims says he resigned in November and was not involved in fraud.
Yunona named charity donations as one of its main sources of income. Those means were directed to urgent operations and rehabilitation programs, improvement of living and education conditions in children’s homes, supplies of provisions, school books and medication to boarding schools. The organization also worked on programs to establish a network of small enterprises in Russia to provide graduates of boarding schools with homes and work. Yunona planned to create military schools for orphans in Russia and the United States, organize a football championship among children’s homes alumni in Krasnodar territory, and to create the first Russian orphan child theater to stage performances in English.
Leader of Napa adoption agency may be under arrest
By DAVID RYAN, Register Staff Writer
UPDATE: Thursday, January 26, 2006 1:11 AM PST
Russian authorities have apparently detained Ivan Jerdev, the owner of Napa-based adoption firm Yunona USA, and will likely charge him with fraud and illegal disclosure of confidential information, Russian
news agencies reported Wednesday.
# posted by Senior Mom @ 4:35 PM 
