The Security Service systematically exposes officials who act to the detriment of the state interests of Ukraine and, under the guise of high positions, engage in corruption schemes.
Thus, secret service employees documented a former official who previously headed the Main Department of the State Geocadastre in one of the regions of central Ukraine. According to the case file, after his release, he organized an illegal mechanism for the appropriation of state forest lands in Zhytomyr region.
The perpetrator illegally removed almost 2,000 hectares of land for a total amount of over UAH 70 million from communal property. This actually makes up a third of the lands of the Barashiv Territorial Community.
To implement the “scheme”, the organizer involved four state registrars and land managers, the head of a local agricultural enterprise and his former driver.
Perpetrators illegally transferred hectares of forest land to controlled commercial structures of the private agricultural sector.
For this purpose, inaccurate information was entered into state databases and property registers.
During the investigation, documents with evidence of illegal activity were found in the administrative premises of the regional State Geocadastral Department and in the offices of a private company of one of the defendants.
On the basis of the collected evidence, the organizer of the arrangement and six of his accomplices were notified of suspicion under Part 3 of Art. 27 and Part 4 of Art. 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (fraud committed on a particularly large scale by an organized group).
An investigation is ongoing to establish all the circumstances of the crime. Perpetrators face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.
In addition, on the initiative of the SBU, the assets of the agricultural enterprise, which appears in the “scheme”, were seized. Motions are being prepared to seize the property of other participants in the crime.
Complex measures were carried out by SBU employees in Zhytomyr region together with the National Police under the procedural guidance of the regional prosecutor’s office.