NABU and SAPO reported that they had exposed a group that was bribing law enforcement officers to cover up fraudulent call centers

NABU and SAPO stated that as part of Operation “Carthage”, they exposed a criminal group that was bribing law enforcement officials so that they would not interfere with the work of fraudulent call centers and other illegal businesses.

This is stated in the NABU report.

The persons involved in the case include current high-ranking officials of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the National Police, the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office (PGO), and representatives of the criminal community. NABU has not yet disclosed other details.

This announcement came after NABU stated that a high-ranking SBU official had threatened the Bureauʼs detectives with a weapon during an investigation. His name was not specified, but Babelʼs sources claimed that it was the First Deputy Head of the SBUʼs Department for the Protection of National Statehood, Major General Serhiy Duka.

The Anti-Corruption Center (ACC) linked Duka to searches of NABU employees last year. ACC claimed that it was Duka who oversaw the forceful part of the SBUʼs operations against the bureauʼs detectives, in particular Ruslan Maghamedrasulov.

A Babel correspondent visited the scene of the events and found out that NABU officers came to a house in a gated cottage town in the north of Kyiv to search it.

SBU officers arrived at the scene and are talking to NABU officers. The State Bureau of Investigation is also working there. There is no armed confrontation. Searches have not yet begun, but are expected soon.

Meanwhile, Ukrainska Pravda, citing sources, wrote that NABU officers came with earplugs to another SBU official — the head of the Main Department of Internal Security, Colonel Anton Kravchuk. There is no official confirmation of this information yet.

Operation “Carthage”

On September 4, NABU and SAPO reported on the "Carthage" operation. According to the investigation, its participants were covering fraudulent call centers for money. The participants invested the funds received from the operation in real estate and other property worth more than UAH 20 million, and they could have kept another 10 million hryvnias in the accounts of their relatives.

In the records published by NABU, the leader of the criminal group is called "Chancellor" — the case materials indicate that this is Serhiy Kropyva. He is also suspected of laundering money in the amount of UAH 89.9 million.

In addition, the investigatorsʼ records include "The Boss" — the former head of the State Tax Service. From December 2024 to June 2025, Ruslan Kravchenko was the head of the State Tax Service.

Two of the defendants in the case have already been sent to custody for two months — Kropyva with a bail of UAH 120 million, and his accomplice and cohabitant Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko — with a bail of UAH 20 million. According to the investigation, the woman could have been involved in transferring funds through an individual entrepreneur for legalization.

On September 15 of this year, Zelensky fired Kravchenko after the then Prosecutor General signed a complaint of suspicion against the head NABU Serhiy Kryvonos and a person close to the head of SAPO Oleksandr Klymenko.

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