The National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office opened the materials of the case concerning the suspected embezzlement of over 9.2 billion hryvnias from PrivatBank CB PJSC. According to the investigation, the former final beneficiary of the bank and five other members of the organized group were involved in the criminal scheme. About this reported in NABU.
The message did not specify the name of the key person involved, however information “UP” refers to Ihor Kolomoiskyi.
Investigators established that in the period from January to March 2015, the then owner of a controlling stake in PrivatBank, who at that time held the position of the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration, organized a scheme to withdraw funds from the bank. The goal was to finance the controlled offshore structure and increase one’s own share in the capital of the financial institution. For this, PrivatBank was forced to make payments in the amount of over 9.2 billion hryvnias in favor of this company, as if in the framework of the buyback of bonds at an inflated cost.
A further part of these funds — more than 446 million hryvnias — was transferred to the accounts of three related firms, registered as transactions for the purchase and sale of securities, and then to two more accounts of other companies. In the end, the funds ended up in the personal account of the beneficiary, who disposed of them at his own discretion: contributed as a contribution to the authorized capital of the bank to meet the requirements of the National Bank of Ukraine.
Among the suspects is the former final beneficiary of PrivatBank, who, according to the investigation, is the organizer of the scheme; ex-chairman of the bank’s board; the former deputy head of the department — the director of the interbank dealing department, who simultaneously acted as a trustee of a foreign company related to the bank; ex-deputy chairman of the board — director of the treasury; former head of the treasury’s interbank operations support department; as well as the former deputy head of the department for servicing non-resident accounts.
Their actions are classified under articles 191 (appropriation or embezzlement of property), 209 (legalization of proceeds of crime) and 366 (official forgery) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. This episode is the fourth in a large-scale case regarding the embezzlement of funds from PrivatBank. In October 2023, NABU and SAP admitted that sufficient evidence had been collected for the three previous episodes to bring an indictment, and opened the investigation materials. On September 6 last year, the indictment was submitted to the court.
It will be recalled that in February 2021, investigators informed former bank officials about suspicion of embezzlement of over 136 million hryvnias through an insurance scheme. In March of the same year, the case was supplemented with a new episode — the embezzlement of almost 315 million US dollars (about 8.2 billion hryvnias) through a scheme with letters of credit. In September 2022, another episode was added to the case — the illegal withdrawal of 85.2 million hryvnias.
