Office of Hranovskyi: Smuggling in Ukraine Is “Protected” by a Group of High-Ranking Officials Who Cause the State at Least 28 Billion UAH in Annual Losses

Office of Hranovskyi: Smuggling in Ukraine Is “Protected” by a Group of High-Ranking Officials Who Cause the State at Least 28 Billion UAH in Annual Losses

Large-scale smuggling schemes in Ukraine are controlled from a single center — the so-called Office, whose operations are overseen by MP from the BPP Oleksandr Hranovskyi. Currently, the annual losses to the state budget from its “work” amount to about 28 billion hryvnias, not counting profits from drug supply.

This is reported in an investigation by the information resource Blind Trust.

According to the investigators, members of the Office include Deputy Head of the SBU’s “K” Department Serhiy Kovalenko, Head of the Department for Oversight of Law Compliance in Criminal Proceedings at the GPU Volodymyr Bedrykivskyi, First Deputy Head of the SFS Serhiy Bilan, Acting Deputy Head of the SFS Viktor Kryvitskyi, Head of the SFS Energy Customs Ihor Pikovskyi, Deputy Head of the National Police Ihor Kupranets, Acting Director of the Department for Organizing Counteraction to Customs Offenses of the SFS Ruslan Firsov. Their activities are coordinated by Seyar Kurshutov.

Blind Trust reports that the Office oversees smuggling in the following areas:

In the petroleum products trade, state losses from its activities amounted to 9 billion UAH. The main source of smuggling is the pipeline of the company PrykarpatTransZakhid, controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk. He is also involved in smuggling through southern ports.

Annual losses to the state budget from trade in smuggled cigarettes amount to 8 billion UAH. Smuggling flows go from the so-called DNR into the Ukraine-controlled part of Donbas, from Lviv and Volyn to Poland, from Chernivtsi region to Moldova and Romania, from Zakarpattia to Slovakia and Hungary, and from Kherson region to Bulgaria.

A lucrative source of the Office’s profits is smuggling of luxury cars, which are brought from the EU through Poland to Volyn. On average this involves about 2 thousand vehicles per month. Annual state losses from this smuggling amount to 6,5 billion UAH.

From smuggling of consumer goods the state loses up to 2 billion UAH annually. Goods are brought from the EU by road through various border checkpoints in western Ukraine. A significant portion of the products arrive by sea from China, Afghanistan, Turkey, and, besides Odesa region, Kyiv region and the city of Kyiv often serve as customs clearance locations.

Alcohol smuggling causes state losses of 1,3 billion UAH per year. Alcohol that goes from Ukraine to the EU under the Office’s control re-enters our territory from Moldova.

Representatives of the Office also oversee smuggling of nitrate mainly from the territory of Russia. State budget losses from this amount to 1,2 billion UAH annually.

The criminal group of high-ranking officials also controls the trade in cocaine, which is brought to Ukraine from South America.

Blind Trust reports that due to the change of power, Oleksandr Hranovskyi is trying to organize negotiations to preserve the inviolability of the Office’s operations under the new President.