Former MP Maksym Mykytas was sent to custody with bail set at UAH 30 million — the prosecutorʼs office requested UAH 200 million.
This decision was made by a judge of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC).
Mykytas is one of the defendants in the Forrest Gump case, which NABU and SAPO reported on August 19. According to the investigation, the case concerns the legalization of money used for bail for former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko. For this, according to investigators, the state-owned Sense Bank was used.
Among the other defendants in this case is former Deputy Head of the Presidentʼs Office Iryna Mudra. The court also began to select a pretrial detention order for her today, but the hearing was postponed to August 24.
Earlier that day, subordinate Mykytas — the head of PJSC “Metrobud” Valentyn Yelizarov — was taken into custody with a bail of UAH 20 million.
Operation “Forrest Gump”
On August 19, NABU and SAPO reported that they had uncovered a criminal scheme that organized the legalization of UAH 150 million to pay bail for one of the defendants in the “Midas” case, former Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko.
According to the investigation, in early June, the participants in the scheme gained actual control over “Sense Bank” and began using it to launder money. They were informed of suspicion under Part 3 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — legalization of money obtained by criminal means.
On the first day of the court session, the SAPO prosecutor named all the defendants in this case, including:
- former Deputy Head of the Presidentʼs Office Iryna Mudra;
- former MP Maksym Mykytas;
- current MP Vadym Stolar;
- Deputy Minister of Justice Olena Ferens;
- Director General of the Directorate for Legal Policy of the Public Prosecutorʼs Office Viktor Dubovyk;
- businessman and former deputy of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council Vasyl Astion;
- former chairmen of the supervisory board and management board of the state-owned Sense Bank Mykola Hladyshenko and Oleh Stupak;
- Head of the department of the state-owned Sense Bank Lyudmila Snigur;
- According to the prosecutor, the people connected with Mykytas are Valentyn Yelizarov, Yehor Merkulov, Oleksandr Ostapenko, and Mykyta Tarkovsky.
In addition, on August 20, NABU and SAPO presented a continuation of this case — Operation “Femida” with the same defendants. As investigators established, with the help of hackers, the defendants hacked into state registers, forged documents, and used "their" people in the Commercial Court and the Ministry of Justice to seize enterprises and real estate.
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