NABU is checking those who posted multi-million bails for those involved in the “Midas” case

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) is investigating the origin of funds deposited as collateral for defendants in the case of large-scale corruption at “Energoatom”.

This was stated by the NABU head Semen Kryvonos at a meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission (TIC) of the Verkhovna Rada on December 10.

According to him, on this occasion, from November 12 to 28, NABU sent a number of requests to the State Financial Monitoring Service. They have already received several responses, but the legality of the origin of the funds has not yet been investigated.

Kryvonos emphasized that funds obtained through criminal means cannot be used to pay bail.

"Theoretically, if it is established that these funds are indeed illegal and of dubious origin, then it can be requested that they cannot be used as collateral," the head of NABU added.

Among the payers are both individuals and companies, in particular the furniture company "Vangar" with a capital of UAH 1 000, which was created only in May of this year.

According to Kryvonos, the State Financial Monitoring Service has not yet been able to provide information on the origin of the funds. The head of the service, Philip Pronin, says that all NABU requests are being processed.

"For all [NABU requests], we provided generalized materials, made the first knee, the second knee, and are now working on the third knee. We are also in regular contact with the Bureau," Pronin said.

When asked how it was possible to miss the deposit of UAH 25 and 12 million from the furniture company, Pronin replied that the service does not see suspicious transactions and checks the origin of the funds after the fact.

He added that the State Financial Monitoring Service does not have direct access to all banking transactions.

“We only receive what comes from banking institutions in the form of messages,” Pronin noted.

According to him, after receiving information from NABU, the service contacted the bank, which has up to five working days to respond. The head of the financial service emphasized that it is banks that have the right and obligation to block suspicious transactions.

In the “Midas” case, suspicions have already been raised against eight suspects — five of them were sent to custody. However, later, bail of a total of UAH 37 million was posted for the two suspected “back office employees” — Lesya Ustymenko and Lyudmila Zorina, and UAH 95 million for Ihor Fursenko (“Rioshyk”).

Bail of over UAH 51.6 million was paid for another person involved in the case, former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov.

The “Midas” Case

On November 10 and 11, NABU released four parts of the wiretap audio recordings and announced a large-scale "Midas" operation to expose corruption in the energy sector.

According to the bureau, “Energoatom” counterparties were forced to pay kickbacks in order to avoid blocking payments for services and products supplied or losing their supplier status. This practice was called "barrier".

According to NABU, members of the organization systematically received 10-15% as a bribe from “Energoatom” counterparties. Using this scheme, they legalized approximately $100 million through an office owned by the family of former MP and current senator of the Russian Federation Andriy Derkach.

Five people were detained in this case, and seven were declared suspects. Their names were later announced by the SAPO prosecutor at court hearings:

• businessman Tymur Mindich, who appeared in NABU recordings as "Carlson" and is considered the organizer of the scheme;
• former advisor to the Minister of Energy Ihor Myronyuk (“Rocket”);
• Executive Director for Physical Protection and Security of JSC NNEGC “Energoatom” Dmytro Basov (“Tenor”);
• four "employees" of the back office for money laundering: Oleksandr Zukerman ("Sugarman"), Ihor Fursenko ("Rioshyk"), Lesya Ustymenko and Lyudmila Zorina.

Sanctions were imposed against Mindich and Zukerman.

The NABU recordings also show the Minister of Energy, who at the time was Herman Halushchenko. He was searched as part of the case.

The SAPO prosecutor claimed that one of the defendants in the case interviewed Svitlana Hrynchuk, who later replaced Halushchenko as Minister of Energy.

Hrynchuk and Halushchenko were dismissed from their posts as heads of the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Justice, and Zelensky removed both ministers from the National Security and Defense Council.

NABU also claims that the participants in the scheme transferred money to former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, who was suspected of illegal enrichment and sent to custody for two months. The next day, journalists from Schemes, citing sources reported that a bail of over UAH 51.6 million was paid for him.

On December 1, the Supreme Court of Ukraine remanded in custody in absentia Tymur Mindich, who is considered one of the organizers of a corruption scheme in the energy sector.

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