13 officials received suspicions for a 10-million scheme of forest embezzlement
Kyiv • UNN
Prosecutors uncovered a large-scale timber embezzlement scheme organized by employees of SE "Forests of Ukraine" and SE "LIAC". The receipt of over UAH 10 million in illegal benefits was documented, as well as over 10,000 unauthorized changes in the EOD accounting system.
Law enforcement officers uncovered a large-scale timber embezzlement scheme amounting to UAH 10 million; 13 employees of SE "Forests of Ukraine" and SE "LIAC" received suspicions, the Prosecutor General's Office reported on Wednesday, writes UNN.
Details
"Prosecutors of the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor's Office of the Prosecutor General's Office, together with the cyber police department of the National Police of Ukraine and the SBI, uncovered a large-scale timber embezzlement scheme," the report says.
The investigation established that officials of two state enterprises - "Forests of Ukraine" and "LIAC" - implemented a criminal scheme. "An employee of SE "LIAC", being the developer of the EOD system, organized a criminal scheme that allowed for the repeated use of tags by deleting them, changing the amount of timber residues at the enterprise, information about the volumes of timber allocated for felling and actually harvested, changing information in the issued TTN-forest regarding the volume, type, characteristics of timber that has already been sold, the carrier and other data entered into the system. The cost of such a "service" was from UAH 5,000 to UAH 30,000," the prosecutor's office said.
Employees of SE "Forests of Ukraine", in turn, actively used these "services". "It was most popular among employees of SE "Forests of Ukraine" in Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions. Currently, it has been documented that he received more than UAH 10 million from various officials of SE "Forests of Ukraine"," the report says.
"From 2021 to September 2024, more than 10,000 unauthorized changes were made to the EOD accounting system," the prosecutor's office reported.
Today, according to the prosecutor's office, 8 employees of SE "LIAC" and 5 employees of SE "Forests of Ukraine" received suspicions:
- creation and participation in a criminal organization, including using official position (Parts 1, 2, 3 of Article 255 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine);
- unauthorized change of information processed in an automated system, committed by a person who has access to it, committed as part of a criminal organization (Parts 3, 4 of Article 27, Part 4 of Article 28, Part 3 of Article 362 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine);
- in providing and receiving undue benefit by an employee of an enterprise who is not an official for committing actions using the position held at the enterprise (Parts 1, 3 of Article 354 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
"The organizer and 3 members of the criminal organization have been detained. The involvement of more than 80 employees of SE "Forests of Ukraine" and 20 employees of SE "LIAC" in committing crimes is being checked," the prosecutor's office noted.
"Thanks to the work of prosecutors, the shadow turnover has been reduced and official harvesting and sale of timber on exchanges has increased to more than 70% of the planned," the prosecutor's office reported.
Addition
On July 21, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko reported that law enforcement officers had exposed the illegal enrichment of the general director of the state enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" Yuriy Bolokhovets. According to the investigation, in 2021, he acquired assets worth UAH 10.4 million, which exceed his legal income.
Also, the director of the procurement department and the executive director of the state specialized economic enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" were notified of suspicion of abuse of office.