The National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office have announced the completion of the investigation into the case of the former Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and five other individuals suspected of large-scale corruption abuses that resulted in losses to the state exceeding 1 billion UAH.
This is reported by Finway
Scheme of Illegal Alienation of Kyiv Land
According to investigators, one of the capital’s developers organized a scheme for the illegal acquisition of a land plot in Kyiv for the construction of a residential complex. To implement this scheme, the developer approached the leadership of the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development, which, in collusion with the state secretary, the minister’s advisor, and the director of a state enterprise, created favorable conditions for transferring the land to a company under their control. Subsequently, the enterprise entered into contracts with a pre-selected construction company, bypassing competition.
According to the terms of the agreements, the developer was to transfer to the state a portion of the apartments equivalent to the value of the allocated land plot. However, to minimize this number, the value of the land and the buildings located on it was undervalued by almost five times compared to the market price.
Billion-Dollar Losses and Illegal Benefits
As a result of the undervaluation, the state could have lost housing worth over 1 billion UAH. The implementation of the scheme was hindered by the seizure of the land plot, imposed at the request of NABU and SAP. Additionally, according to the investigation, the developer provided the former Deputy Prime Minister and other participants in the scheme with discounts on apartments in already constructed residential complexes. The size of this discount ranged from 1,000 to 8,000 UAH per square meter, while the minimum market price reached 30,000 UAH per square meter.
“For the successful implementation of the scheme, the developer ‘rewarded’ the minister and the individuals he designated with significant discounts on apartments in already built residential complexes. With this, the price per square meter ranged from 1,000 UAH to 8,000 UAH, while the minimum market price for such apartments was about 30,000 UAH per square meter. Thus, the minister received illegal benefits in the form of discounts totaling over 14.5 million UAH,” the statement said.
Most of the apartments obtained as a result of this scheme have been seized. The name of the main figure is not officially disclosed; however, according to preliminary information, it concerns Oleksiy Chernyshov.