So, who are honorary consuls, and isn’t it time to reconsider their role? This topic was jointly investigated by the StateWatch think-tank and the Czech investigative media investigace.cz, using Belarus as a case study.
An honorary consul is a private individual appointed by a foreign government to perform consular duties in a specific region on a part-time and voluntary basis. They facilitate economic, cultural and other relations, often while maintaining their main profession or business. They are not career diplomats, do not receive a salary for their work, and have limited consular powers compared to an official consulate. According to diplomat and former Slovak Foreign Minister Rastislav Kačer, in some countries, the title of honorary consul can even be “bought”. “Formally, an honorary consul has almost no privileges, but in practice the police often treat them as diplomats. Most people do not distinguish an honorary consul from an actual diplomatic representative,” he explains.
Meet Denis Ivanovich Karpovich, the honorary consul of the Republic of Belarus in the picturesque, but russified Czech city of Karlovy Vary, who also holds Russian and, presumably, Czech citizenship. In 2020, he was approved for this position by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a term of nine years. In addition, he also chairs the Czech-Belarusian Chamber of Commerce.
According to the data received by the investigators, Karpovich’s phone number is registered under his passport at the Russian Embassy in the Czech Republic. Before him, this number was owned by three departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus; that is, the phone number was governmental. Apparently, Karpovich could have had connections with the state structures of both Belarus and the Russian Federation.
In the Czech Republic, Denis visits industrial exhibitions, opens legal aid centres and even supervises the elections of the President of Belarus.
Thus, Denis Karpovich is the founder and CEO of the Czech Global European Solutions s.r.o. The company states on its website that it “works in the broad areas of the automotive industry, real estate management and investment activities through three main structures: K&K, ANBAEL and INASIA SOLUTIONS”. The Czech register lists real estate as the company’s main activity. 50% of the company is owned by a Belarusian citizen and, apparently, Karpovich’s business partner, Aliaksandr Klopau. Karpovich and Klopau are also mentioned in the merged offshore materials. Their companies were registered at the same address of mass company registrations in the Seychelles, a few months after the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the imposition of the first sanctions against Russia.
The three companies mentioned, surprisingly, also belong to Karpovich and his entourage. He, in particular, is the CEO of the Czech K&K Trade Group s.r.o., in which the aforementioned Klopau previously had a stake.
The financial statements of Global European Solutions s.r.o. show that the company has radically changed the scale of its activities in recent years. In 2021, it was a practically “empty” micro-company with almost no assets and turnover. By the end of 2024, assets had increased by more than 80 times (from 291 thousand to over 24 million Czech korunas), and equity had also grown significantly.
K&K calls itself a global distributor and official supplier of components, materials and equipment of various brands for the automotive market. The company’s geography includes the Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, and South Korea, but for some reason is silent about the existence of an eponymous Russian company.
Czech Global European Solutions s.r.o. is listed as the founder of the Russian company of the same name, LLC K&K Rus. Since 24th February 2022, this Russian company has imported products worth over $1.7 million. The products were mainly supplied from the Czech Republic, South Korea, Turkey and the PRC, but also originated from Germany, Britain, etc. Almost 80% of the goods were sanctioned electronic switching devices (HS code 8536901000, 8536699008), which could well end up at enterprises related to the Russian military-industrial complex, since the sanctioned JSC KAMAZ, OJSC UAZ, and LLC UK Group Gaz are listed among the clients of K&K Rus.
There is also the Korean company K&K Korea Co, Ltd., headed by Denis Karpovich. Through this company, products of the German company WAGO Group with a total value of over $430,000 were delivered to Russia. The Korean company sent connecting cables and contact elements to the Moscow-based K&K Rus, which, in turn, claims to be the official distributor of the WAGO manufacturer in the Russian Federation. K&K Rus also lists two more companies among its partners — the Czech branch of Maurice Ward & Co and the Belarusian LLC Inbelka. Neither WAGO Group nor Maurice Ward & Co responded to journalists’ requests.
K&K Trade Group s.r.o. is also the exclusive supplier of components for the joint Uzbek-South Korean company JV UzKoje for the state-owned UzAuto Motors project, which is engaged in the production of cars under the Chevrolet brand. The Korean company ERAE CS Ltd. has owned 93% of the company since 2022. It also supplies products to Russian-sanctioned enterprises, in particular, the luxury car brand that Putin himself drives, LLC Aurus.
Family company Anbael
Anastasia also owns the company AGENCY PLUS s.r.o., which is engaged in trade. Her parents, Olga and Sergey Ryazantsev, were also present in the management of both companies at different times.
Singapore’s Inasia Solutions
Klopav’s wife has shared photos from Singapore several times on her personal page on social networks, where both Klopav and Karpovich were also spotted.
The current Czech diplomatic register lists only two Belarusians: the head of mission, Stefania Zmitrakovich, and Denis Karpovich. Zmitrakovich’s predecessor, Mikalai Dukšta, was recognised by the Czech intelligence service in September 2025 as an agent of the Belarusian KGB*, and he was forced to leave the country.
* KGB (the State Security Committee) is one of the current special services of Belarus, designed to ensure national security, conduct counterintelligence, and foreign intelligence.
However, when asked by investigative journalists, the Karlovy Vary municipality replied that it knew nothing about the consulate or the honorary consul himself. “We have not contacted him once in the last ten years,” said a city spokesman. The Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Czech Trade Promotion Agency also claim that they know nothing about honorary consul Karpovich. Even within the Belarusian community in the Czech Republic, Karpovich is an unknown figure. Karpovich himself refused to answer questions.
The Czech Foreign Ministry did not comment on the possible abolition of the honorary consul position after a series of investigations into their not entirely transparent activities.