On December 3, the Kyiv Court of Appeal released National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) detective Ruslan Maghamedrasulov from custody.
This was reported by the Anti-Corruption Center.
This was the fourth attempt to consider the appeal against Magamedrasulovʼs preventive measure. In particular, on November 26, the hearing was interrupted due to an anonymous report of a bombing of the courthouse.
Ruslan and his father — Sentyabr Maghamedrasulov — were detained on July 21. They are accused of illegal business with Russia and selling industrial hemp to Dagestan.
Later, Magamedrasulov Jr. was declared a new suspicion — according to the investigation, he helped conversion centers with their fraud.
After the arrest and publication of the so-called Mindich recordings, the NABU stated that detective Ruslan Magamedrasulov helped obtain a number of evidence in the “Energoatom” corruption case.
On December 2, Sentyabr Maghamedrasulov was released from custody and placed under nightly house arrest.
The “Energoatom” case
On November 10 and 11, NABU released four parts of the wiretap audio recordings and announced a large-scale "Midas" operation to expose corruption in the energy sector.
According to the bureau, “Energoatom” counterparties were forced to pay kickbacks in order to avoid blocking payments for services and products supplied or losing their supplier status. This practice was called "barrier".
According to NABU, members of the organization systematically received 10-15% as a bribe from “Energoatom” counterparties. Using this scheme, they legalized approximately $100 million through an office owned by the family of former MP and current senator of the Russian Federation Andriy Derkach.
Five people were detained in this case, and seven were declared suspects. Their names were later announced by the SAPO prosecutor at court hearings:
- businessman Tymur Mindich, who appeared in the NABU recordings as "Carlson" and is considered the organizer of the scheme;
- former advisor to the Minister of Energy Ihor Myronyuk (“Rocket”);
- Executive Director for Physical Protection and Security of JSC NNEGC “Energoatom” Dmytro Basov (“Tenor”);
- four "employees" of the back office for money laundering: Oleksandr Zukerman ("Sugarman"), Ihor Fursenko ("Rioshyk"), Lesya Ustymenko and Lyudmila Zorina.
Myronyuk, Basov, Zorina, Fursenko, and Ustymenko have already been sent to custody, and sanctions have been imposed against Mindich and Zukerman. Subsequently, a total of 37 million hryvnias in bail was posted for Zorina and Ustymenko, and 95 million hryvnias for Fursenko.
The NABU recordings also show the Minister of Energy, who at the time was Herman Halushchenko. He was searched in the case, and on November 12 he was removed from his post as Minister of Justice.
The SAPO prosecutor claimed that one of the defendants in the case interviewed Svitlana Hrynchuk, who later replaced Halushchenko as Minister of Energy.
Hrynchuk and Halushchenko were dismissed from their posts as heads of the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Justice. In addition, Zelensky removed both ministers from the National Security and Defense Council.
NABU also claims that the participants in the scheme transferred money to former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, who was suspected of illegal enrichment and sent to custody for two months. The next day, journalists from Schemes, citing sources, reported that a bail of over 51.6 million hryvnias was paid for him.
On December 1, the Supreme Court of Ukraine remanded in custody in absentia Tymur Mindich, who is considered one of the organizers of a corruption scheme in the energy sector.
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