The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) detained the head of the Western Interregional Department for the Execution of Criminal Punishments of the Ministry of Justice.
According to the investigation, the official allowed entrepreneurs to use the labor of prisoners in the production of their products "for free" for bribes.
In July, a businessman who harvests wood approached the official and offered to set up wood processing in a workshop in a correctional facility in the Lviv region. The official said that it is possible under this condition — he will receive €70-100 per cubic meter of treated wood.
From July to September, the head of the department received more than €2 000. The suspect ordered the transfer of money in one of the cafes in the center of Lviv. When he took the money, he was detained by law enforcement officers. The funds were withdrawn.
The man was informed about the suspicion of receiving an illegal benefit. This is punishable by up to ten years of imprisonment with confiscation of property. The court chose a preventive measure for him — detention with the possibility of paying two million hryvnias as bail. The man was also fired from his job.
Law enforcement officers are studying other facts of the use of prisonersʼ labor in similar schemes.