The Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court left unchanged the preventive measure against the former head of the State Special Communications Service Yury Shchyhol. He is suspected of laundering 62 million hryvnias of state funds.
This was reported by the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office.
HACC left in force the decision of the first instance, which chose the ex-head of the State Special Communications Service to be detained with the alternative of paying 25 million hryvnias as bail. It was already brought in, so Shchyhol left the pre-trial detention center with an electronic bracelet.
The anti-corruption center writes that the defense insisted that Shchyhol apparently does not own significant wealth and has nothing but a plot of land. The house in Spain, for example, was left to the wife after the divorce. MP from "Servant of the People" Oleksandr Fedienko also came to the meeting, and he gave a positive description of Shchygol and said that he is ready to take him as a bailiff.
- On November 20, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dismissed Shchyhol from the position of head of the State Special Service. Viktor Zhora, his deputy in charge of digital development, digital transformations, and digitalization, also lost his position.
- On the same day, SAPO 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. Shchyhol himself is sure that he will be able to prove his innocence and emphasizes that the purchases were made according to the law. On November 30, the Court seized $1.5 million of crypto-assets of the ex-head of the State Special Communications Service Yury Shchygol.
- On December 1, the Cabinet of Ministers appointed a new head of the State Special Communication Service, Yuriy Myronenko. Prior to his appointment, Myronenko was the commander of the BpLA strike company operating in the Zaporizhzhia region. He has the Silver Cross award.