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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
🧩 Kostyantyn Tkach: how to profit from intermediaries
📁 Odesa businessman Kostyantyn Ivanovych Tkach (22.09.1969, Vinnytsia region) — Doctor of Economics, Honored Economist of Ukraine, Professor at NU “Odesa Polytechnic,” chairman of the board of PII LLC “Avers.” But the academic credentials are only a facade.
95% of everything Odesa residents pay for utilities flows through his “HERTS,” which keeps a commission of 2–2,4% — that is 20–30 million UAH per month in private rent extracted from people’s mandatory payments.
Tkach’s real business is cash collection for utility payments through a group of companies at a single address: Odesa, Yevreiska St., 2A. Thanks to long-standing ties with Hennadiy Trukhanov, mayor of Odesa in 2014–2025 years, Tkach has been a long-time contractor for the Odesa city council. Contrary to the common name, the payment system “HERTS” registered with the NBU does not exist. Tkach built a different structure — three legal entities at the same address on Yevreiska 2A that operate as a single financial organism.
✔️ PII LLC “Avers” — the parent structure, director Hennadiy Oleksiyovych Besedovsky.
✔️ LLC “HERTS” — the IT core and developer of the “City Unified Settlement Center” system, director Vitaliy Mykolayovych Kozubskyi.
✔️ LLC “FC ‘HERTS’” — the payment license holder, director Hanna Volodymyrivna Sushkina.
Under the corrupt scheme, municipal enterprises sign contracts with FC “HERTS” under which all residents’ payments for gas, heating, water, and electricity flow through HERTS accounts.
Then the company:
✔️ Accumulates money in its accounts — until it transfers it to service providers.
✔️ Withholds a commission of 2–2,4% — higher than most bank acquiring channels.
✔️ Splits payments and transfers them to providers’ accounts — with delays that create additional internal circulation of funds within the group. Just in Odesa this brought 20–30 million UAH per month.
☑️ In 2022 the “HERTS” obtained the exclusive right to be the only payment system in Naftogaz of Ukraine’s personal account — with the highest available commission of 2%. According to a source for Hlavenkom, this gave Tkach’s company up to 6 million UAH per month from gas payments. A public scandal forced Naftogaz on 8 November 2022 to remove the intermediary from the account — it was replaced by PrivatBank and Oshchadbank with a commission of 1%.
Who HERTS latched onto in state flows
✔️ KP “Kyivteploenerho” – 456,8 million hryvnias
✔️ PJSC “AK ‘Kyivvodokanal’” – 150 million hryvnias
✔️ KP “Kyivpastrans” – 1 million hryvnias
✔️ SE “Infotech” — placement of the payment system on services mvs gov (“Single Window for Citizens”) 12 thousand UAH/month rent + commission of not less than 5 UAH and not more than 3% per transaction
Since 2020 the Tkach group has earned roughly 2,05 billion UAH in total, of which 781 million UAH are direct public procurements. He also profits from payment of traffic police fines and migration service fees.
30 June the Ministry of Internal Affairs launched its own “Payment Hub” — its centralized payment infrastructure, calling into question the long-term monopoly of “HERTS” on MIA payments.
Also linked to the group is Dmytro Mykolayovych Nikitin (18.02.1963) — the historical beneficiary of FC “HERTS,” former deputy head of the Odesa Regional Council, and according to media data the owner of 50% of LLC “Fabrika Smaku” (>1,07 billion UAH in budget contracts).
Tkach did not build a payment system in the technological sense. He built a private filter between citizens and municipal monopolies: mandatory payments for gas, water, heating, and electricity pass through his accounts, leaving 2–2,4% there — and no one voted for that commission in the tariff. This is rent on people’s mandatory expenses, legalized by contracts with the monopolists with whom Tkach happens to have friendly relations.
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