Law enforcement officers exposed a scheme to embezzle budget funds for the purchase of electronic warfare equipment
Law enforcement agencies have exposed the activities of an organized group that has established a scheme to embezzle budget funds allocated for defense needs. According to investigation materials, the perpetrators simulated the purchase of electronic warfare equipment for the needs of units performing combat missions. The total amount of damage caused to the state is UAH 5.6 million.
The group included the director of a utility company, a lawyer, the head of a private company, and an individual entrepreneur. The participants in the scheme organized an artificial need for purchases, using fictitious requests on behalf of military units holding defenses in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia directions.
Based on these fake requests, the Seversko-Donetsk City Military Administration directed funding to the relevant municipal enterprise.
«According to official documents, 40 electronic warfare stations were received by military units. But the fact is that they never reached the military units, since they were purchased only on paper,” – noted in the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police of Ukraine.
During 2024, the defendants concluded two fictitious contracts for the supply of electronic warfare equipment, which were not actually manufactured and were not transferred to the customer. To legalize the criminal actions, fake acceptance and transfer certificates and invoices were drawn up. Subsequently, budget funds were transferred to the accounts of controlled enterprises, converted into cash and distributed among the group members.
“Currently, suspicions have been announced to four defendants”, — emphasized representatives of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office in the field of defense of the Eastern region.
As part of the criminal proceedings, law enforcement officers conducted ten searches in Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Dnipro and Zaporizhia, during which mobile phones and financial and business documentation of controlled entities were seized. The actions of the suspects have been classified as embezzlement of property on a particularly large scale, committed by an organized group under martial law.
Investigative actions are ongoing, and the issue of choosing a preventive measure in the form of detention for the detainees is currently being resolved. If found guilty, the group members face long imprisonment with confiscation of property.
