SAPO and NABU announced the completion of investigative actions in the case of the former head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy
NABU and SAP completed the investigation of the case of a criminal group headed by a former People’s Deputy of Ukraine, head of the agrarian committee of the Verkhovna Rada. Its participants are accused of illegally taking over 2.5 thousand hectares of state land in Sumy Oblast and trying to appropriate another 3.3 thousand hectares. About this reported NABU press office.
According to the investigation, in 2017, the owner of several agricultural companies, who later became a deputy of the IX convocation and headed the agricultural committee. Later, in collusion with the then head of the State Geocadastre and his “curators”, he organized a large-scale scheme for the transfer of state lands to a private agricultural holding.
For this, the documents confirming the right of state-owned enterprises to use land were destroyed, and the regional State Geocadastre drew up an act on the alleged arbitrary occupation of plots. In order to complicate the transfer of these lands to third parties, the plots were listed for auction, but the bidding never took place. In the future, the land was transferred to private ownership to pre-determined persons, using the procedure of obtaining plots free of charge.
As a result of these actions, in 2017–2021, the criminal group took possession of 1,250 land plots with a total area of 2,499 hectares, the market value of which exceeded UAH 280 million. In addition, the perpetrators tried to appropriate another 3,244 hectares worth about UAH 195 million. However, these plans were thwarted by NABU detectives and SAP prosecutors, who conducted searches and seized the said sites.
