Estonians on trial for laundering €35 million for ex-minister Stepanov

Author:
Olha Bereziuk
Date:

The Estonian State Prosecutorʼs Office has sent an indictment to the court against several Estonian businessmen suspected of laundering money for the former head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health Maksym Stepanov.

This is reported by the Estonian broadcaster ERR.

The defendants are entrepreneurs Prit Porila, Dmytro Fokin, and Aivar Risi (they are accused of money laundering on a particularly large scale), as well as Svetlana Kalinina (she is accused of aiding and abetting money laundering).

According to the investigation, the defendants provided Maksym Stepanov with services for laundering money obtained through criminal means. The case concerns the period when Stepanov was the director of the Ukrainian state-owned company Polygraphic Plant "Ukraine".

According to Ukrainian law enforcement, he created a scheme to obtain illegal income and withdraw at least €35 million from a Ukrainian company between September 2013 and April 2021.

According to the pre-trial investigation, this money was transferred to the Estonian company Feature OÜ, which was managed by the accused Fokin.

The participants in the scheme created a supply chain in which an Estonian company was supposed to supply raw materials for the production of documents to a Ukrainian company, but its cost was inflated several times.

The money that was transferred to the Estonian companyʼs account was transferred through dozens of other Estonian and foreign companies, the prosecutorʼs office said. In order to make the transactions appear legitimate, various contracts were drawn up to create fictitious debts, which allowed the true origin of the money to be hidden.

A significant part of the money, according to the investigation, was returned to Stepanov or people associated with him.

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