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The former vice president of the state-owned company Energoatom is also in custody....
Authorities in Kiev have arrested Ukraine's First Deputy Energy Minister, Yuriy Sheyko, along with the former acting vice president of state nuclear company Energoatom, as part of a widening anti-corruption investigation that has rocked one of the country's strategic sectors.
According to the Kiev Prosecutor's Office and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the arrests are related to suspicions of major financial abuses and contract favoritism within Energoatom, the company that manages the country's nuclear power and provides a large part of the national electricity production. Investigators suspect rigged tender schemes and unjustified agreements with intermediary companies, which may have caused millions of euros in losses to the state budget.
In connection with this scandal, Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko and Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk resigned at the request of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky's request came after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) reported a large-scale money laundering scheme in the energy and defense sectors. Both ministers denied the charges against them.
Oleksandr Abakumov, the head of the relevant investigative team, stated that during the investigation, thousands of hours of audio recordings were made, which provide evidence against a high-ranking criminal group operating in the energy and defense sectors. So far, five suspects have been arrested, out of seven people suspected of belonging to the criminal group.
How did the corrupt system work?
According to the investigation, members of the criminal group demanded bribes amounting to 10 to 15 percent of the contract values from contractors of the energy company "Energoatom", which is the largest energy supplier in Ukraine.
“ A system was effectively created in which a strategic company with a turnover of over 200 billion hryvnia (about 4 billion euros) was not managed by top management, the supervisory board or the state as the owner, but by an outsider who, without authorization, had taken on the role of a dummy manager ,” NABU stated in a press release.
The special role of "Carlson"
According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), a person with the nickname "Karlson" controlled the so-called "laundry", through which money obtained through criminal activities was laundered into the legal financial and economic network.
MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak of the parliamentary group "Holos" (Voice) says that the "Carlson" who appears in the NABU wiretaps is businessman Timur Mindikh. According to Ukrainian media, NABU also raided Mindikh's house on November 10.
Mindikh is considered a close associate and confidant of President Volodymyr Zelensky. He is, among other things, a co-owner of the television company “Kvartal-95”, of which Zelensky was also a co-founder. According to a source of “Ukrainska Pravda”, Mindikh left Ukraine just a few hours before the raids. /Pamphlet
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