BES conducts searches at suppliers of products for the Ministry of Defense

Detectives of the Territorial Department of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) in Kyiv region are conducting searches in the offices of companies that supply food to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. These actions are part of a criminal investigation into tax evasion. This was reported by the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine, UNN reports.

Details

Searches are carried out on the basis of a court order to identify and seize documents and draft accounting records that may be important for the investigation. The operations are conducted in a manner that does not interfere with the legitimate activities of the companies.

The investigation began after an analysis of tax invoices revealed that in 2022-2023, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine was supplied with food worth UAH 14.5 billion including VAT. It turned out that the companies' officials documented non-commodity transactions with fictitious companies, which led to an artificial overstatement of the value of goods and the formation of an illegal VAT tax credit. This allowed for large-scale tax evasion.

According to the BES's analytical materials, the damage caused to the budget amounts to a significant amount. The Asset Recovery and Management Agency identified assets worth almost a billion hryvnias.

The pre-trial investigation is ongoing under the procedural supervision of prosecutors of the Kyiv Regional Prosecutor's Office.