Corruption Scandal at ESBU: Parliament Calls for Audit of Legality of Open Criminal Cases

The Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine (ESBU), which was established as a law enforcement agency to investigate financial crimes, has once again found itself at the center of a high-profile corruption scandal. This time, law enforcement officers exposed two ESBU employees at once for accepting bribes. According to the investigation, one of them was effectively trading criminal proceedings, offering to avoid prosecution in exchange for money. This scandal once again raises the question of the need not only for a reboot of the agency but also for an audit of the criminal proceedings investigated by the ESBU, writes UNN.

Detention of ESBU Detectives

The exposure of ESBU employees for corruption was reported by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Ruslan Kravchenko. According to him, these are two separate criminal proceedings.

In the first case, law enforcement officers detained a senior detective of the ESBU territorial office in the Kyiv region. According to the investigation, he demanded 15,000 dollars from a man who had previously appeared in a case regarding the manufacture and sale of counterfeit money.

The detective threatened him with repeated criminal prosecution and offered to "resolve the issue" for a monetary reward.

To organize meetings, the official even used official summonses for investigative actions. After receiving the first part of the bribe in the amount of 10,000 dollars, no procedural actions were taken against the applicant. The detective was caught red-handed while receiving the next tranche of funds. 

The actions of the senior ESBU detective have been qualified as receiving an unlawful benefit by an official holding a responsible position, on a large scale, under Part 3 of Art. 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The second episode concerns an analyst from the ESBU central office who previously worked in the tax authorities. According to the investigation, he promised a representative of an enterprise to facilitate the issuance of a fuel storage license through his connections in the tax service for 2,000 dollars. Law enforcement officers also caught him red-handed while receiving the funds.

The ESBU analyst is charged with receiving an unlawful benefit for himself for influencing a decision-making process by a person authorized to perform state functions under Part 3 of Art. 369-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

A system that is supposed to protect the state's economy cannot be a place for those who try to use their position for personal enrichment

ESBU Reboot and Audit

Particular attention is drawn to the fact of trading criminal proceedings, where an ESBU employee used the very existence of a criminal case as a tool of pressure and a source of illegal income.

Against this background, the head of the Economic Security Bureau, Oleksandr Tsyvinskyi, announced a reboot of the ESBU territorial office in the Kyiv region. He justifies corruption in the agency by insufficiently strict internal control due to legislative gaps.

In parallel, we are strengthening internal control. During the transformation of the ESBU, we identified a problem in the legislation that effectively limits the capabilities of our internal control unit to fully detect and document corruption within the Bureau

At the same time, he states that relevant changes to the legislation will soon be introduced. "We will not only react to corruption but also work proactively. We are building a model in which corruption risks are identified and stopped before they become criminal proceedings," Tsyvinskyi noted.

However, for now, this is only a reaction to specific ESBU employees being caught "red-handed." In reality, rebooting one specific department is not enough for the entire system to be cleansed.

Volodymyr Vatras, Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Organization and Activity of the Bar and Legal Aid Bodies of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy, emphasizes that despite the principle of the presumption of innocence, the very fact of such suspicions arising against ESBU employees is an extremely alarming signal.

It is outrageous that a newly created law enforcement agency, on which there were very high hopes and which was created to prevent corruption in the economic units of the SBU and the National Police, already has such negative characteristics as accusations of committing corrupt acts. Clearly, it is not normal if ESBU employees commit a crime, and it is not normal when they are exposed, especially for corrupt acts

In his opinion, after such exposures, the prosecutor's office should check the activities of the ESBU much more thoroughly.

The MP pointed out the need for a revision of the cases investigated by the detectives of the Economic Security Bureau.

What comes next is an audit of criminal proceedings, a check on the legality of their opening—this is all within the powers of the prosecutor's office. Therefore, I think they need to take a more careful approach to the activities of the ESBU

If individual employees used criminal proceedings as a tool for extortion, society must receive an answer to the question of how widespread such a practice might have been and whether individual businesses became victims of such pressure. According to the MP, the head of the ESBU must demonstrate real results in the fight against internal corruption.

We expect effective work from the newly appointed head of the Economic Security Bureau, including work related to internal security within the ESBU itself. He must definitely make a series of personnel decisions regarding the heads of those units where facts of corruption occur

It is obvious that against the background of a series of exposures of ESBU employees for corruption, trust in this law enforcement agency can only be restored through a large-scale audit of open criminal proceedings, a check on the legality of detectives' actions, and a rigorous cleansing of the Bureau from corrupt practices. After all, a law enforcement agency called upon to fight economic crimes cannot itself become a source of such crimes.