The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) arrested the former head of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection Yurii Shchygol for two months. He can also make a deposit of 25 million hryvnias.
Prosecutors argued for the size of the bail by the fact that Shchygolʼs income in recent years amounted to 4.5 million hryvnias. In addition, €82 000 and $72 000 in cash were found during the search of the ex-head of the State Intelligence Service. During the search of Shchygol, they found a crypto-wallet with $1.5 million in the account, as informed the prosecutor of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAP) Ihor Tkach.
According to the prosecutor, Shchygol also has 1 201 285 units of the Tether USDT cryptocurrency, equivalent to $1 201 928, and 6.9 bitcoins ($265 000).
- On the morning of November 20, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dismissed Shchygol from the position of head of the State Special Service. His deputy in charge of digital development, digital transformations and digitalization Viktor Zhora also lost his position.
- On the same day, SAP and NABU informed Shchygol and his deputy that they were suspected of embezzling over 62 million hryvnias of state funds. In total, six people are involved in the scheme. We are talking about the purchase of software for State Special Communications in 2021-2022. Prosecutors claim that the programs were purchased at inflated prices, and the difference was transferred to the accounts of controlled companies abroad to be legalized and divided among themselves. Shchygol himself is confident that he will be able to prove his innocence and emphasizes that the purchases were legal.