The case against Kolomoyskyi and five other defendants for embezzling 9,2 billion UAH from PrivatBank sent to court

Ihor Kolomoyskyi and five other former top managers of PrivatBank will be tried on suspicion of embezzling the bank’s funds totaling more than 9,2 billion hryvnias. A prosecutor from the Specialized Anti‑Corruption Prosecutor’s Office sent an indictment on the businessman and former bank employees, who held various positions on the management board during the investigation, to court on 6 August. Among the suspects are interbank dealing department director Yaroslav Luhovyi, former PrivatBank chair Oleksandr Dubilet, deputy Lyudmyla Shmalchenko, head of the interbank operations department Nadiia Konopkina, and deputy head of the correspondent accounts service department Tetiana Yakymenko.

According to the investigation, the scheme to appropriate funds was organized as early as January–March 2015, when Kolomoyskyi was the owner of the bank and simultaneously the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration. This was reported by the press services of the National Anti‑Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti‑Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP). The agencies’ statements did not explicitly name the former owner of PrivatBank, but the case materials indicate that they are referring to Kolomoyskyi. According to the investigation, the then‑owner of the financial institution organized the scheme to seize funds in order to finance a controlled offshore company and to increase his own share in the bank’s authorized capital.

“To do this, PrivatBank was artificially obliged to pay the specified controlled company more than 9,2 billion hryvnias under the pretext of an alleged repurchase of its own bonds at an inflated price,” NABU said.

According to the investigation, part of the sum in the amount of more than 446 million hryvnias was transferred, for the purpose of legalization, to the accounts of three companies linked to the businessman under the guise of securities purchase‑sale transactions, and later to the accounts of two more companies.

“Subsequently, those funds were contributed by him to the bank’s authorized capital in order to meet the requirements of the financial recovery program of PJSC CB PrivatBank. The perpetrators disposed of the remaining funds at their own discretion,” the SAP added.

The actions of all the suspects have been qualified under the elements of crimes provided for in Articles 191, 209 and 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, depending on each participant’s role in the scheme. The sanctions of these articles provide for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term from 8 to 12 years with confiscation of property.

The investigation has accumulated several cases against the oligarch

The history of prosecuting Kolomoyskyi for financial crimes has been ongoing for more than three years. In February 2023, law enforcement conducted searches at his home, and already in September of that year the businessman was ordered detained as a preventive measure in a fraud case, with the possibility of bail of more than 509 million hryvnias. Kolomoyskyi was notified of suspicion specifically for the embezzlement of 9,2 billion hryvnias from PrivatBank on 7 September 2023, and now the case has finally reached court.

The investigation recorded the involvement of other bank managers

Earlier Informator reported that a PrivatBank top manager approved 126 loans, under which Kolomoyskyi and his partner Hennadii Boholiubov, according to the investigation, withdrew billions of hryvnias from the financial institution. We also wrote that Russia sentenced Kolomoyskyi in absentia to 12 years in a penal colony in a case about oil theft — alongside the Ukrainian prosecution, the businessman is also implicated in cases in Russia.