Oleksiy Sukhachev, director of the State Bureau of Investigations, told the details of the case of businessman Ihor Mazepa, who is suspected of embezzling strategic lands of the Kyiv HPP. Proceedings regarding this device were started back in January 2022.
According to the State Bureau of Investigation, since then, 12 people involved in the embezzlement have been identified — these are not only local officials and officials of the State Geocadastre of Kyiv region, but also well-known businessmen-developers. Among those who have already received suspicions are three businessmen, in particular Ihor Mazepa, whom the SBI considers the initiator of the scheme.
Sukhachev explained that during the last ten years, elite cottage towns were built on the territory of Lebedivka and Khotyanivka village councils of Vyshgorod district of Kyiv region. According to the law, any residential construction is prohibited near the left-bank protective dam "Cascade of Kyiv HPPs" because it could lead to a disaster.
Equipment details
According to the version of the investigation, officials gave out land on the territory of the Kyiv HPP ostensibly for farming, in particular, to bogus persons who were sought out by the henchmen of businessmen for a thousand hryvnias. Then the businessmenʼs companies bought these plots from them for next to nothing. Next, elite housing was built, which was sold from $500,000 and above, but at the same time, only the land plot was sold to the new owner, taxes on the sale of the house were not calculated and paid. In order to avoid the established procedure for putting a residential building into operation, certificates were issued, which stated deliberately false data that the houses were built before 1991.
In general, the acquisition of about 300 hectares of land with an estimated value of 1.1 billion hryvnias is being investigated.
On Friday, January 19, the court chose a preventive measure in the form of detention for the four involved in the case, but with a bail in the amount that is much smaller than the one requested by the investigators. Businessman Ihor Mazepa was sent to custody until February 27 with the alternative of making a bail of almost 350 million hryvnias — the prosecution asked Mazepa to set a bail of as much as 700 million hryvnias.
Members of a criminal organization face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.