The Higher Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) seized the property of the international airport "Odesa". This was reported by the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAP) on October 16.
The property was seized with deprivation of the right to alienate it and dispose of it. It is about:
- the old terminal building;
- airport property in the amount of 2 488 units;
- corporate rights of the company "Odesa Airport Development" are 75% of the rights to the company "Odesa International Airport"
- premises of the new terminal with a total area of 26 700 square meters.
Whatʼs the matter?
The property was seized in the case of illegal seizure of airport property and UAH 2.5 billion of income from its activities. This case includes, in particular, the former mayor of Odesa Oleksii Kostusev (wanted) and businessman Borys Kaufman (in pretrial detention center). According to the investigation, they created a scheme according to which the airport was jointly owned by the city and private investors. Therefore, the city completely lost any control over the airport and did not receive any profits from its activities. Income from airport activities was received by these persons.
In order to prevent the airport from being returned to the ownership of the city, all its property was pledged to the bank for a loan, which was not repaid at all. This caused losses to the local budget totaling more than 2.5 billion hryvnias, of which 118 million is the cost of the airport, and the rest is misappropriated profits.