Former court observer" for the Ministry of Justice: Andriy Dovbenko notified of suspicion of embezzling hundreds of millions of hryvnias

Former court observer for the Ministry of Justice: Andriy Dovbenko notified of suspicion of embezzling hundreds of millions of hryvnias

They are suspected of embezzling property valued at more than 485 million UAH that was arrested and transferred to management by the National Agency on Asset Tracing and Management (ARMA).

This was announced on journalist Oleh Novikov's page on Facebook.

“Among the suspects are, among others, the former head of ARMA Anton Yanchuk, the former head of ARMA’s Asset Management Department Vitaliy Riznyk, and others. Detention investigators have also suspected the organizer of this scheme, who owns a number of companies. According to my information, this refers to lawyer Andriy Dovbenko. He was notified of suspicion in absentia because he is outside Ukraine. As Bihus.info claimed, Dovbenko was the “watcher” for the Ministry of Justice.

In addition, the former general director of the state enterprise SETAM Viktor Vishnyov was notified of suspicion. He currently serves as deputy head of the State Maritime and Inland Water Transport and Shipping Service of Ukraine.

Recall that, according to the investigation, the seized property was transferred to ARMA under the pretext of enforcement of court decisions. ARMA officials, in turn, prepared justification that such assets are difficult to manage, store, or they quickly deteriorate and may lose their value. Subsequently, the property was appraised by a company that participated in the scheme at a significantly undervalued price. The property was then put up for electronic auctions organized by State Enterprise SETAM. Representatives of the state enterprise, conspirators, organized the trades in such a way as to ensure the victory of a pre-designated private company.

National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Special Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) obtained evidence of at least four episodes of such unlawful activity over 2019 year. Namely:

– sale of three plots of land in Odesa region, originally acquired for building shopping centers of the “Auchan” network, was realized in 18 times cheaper than market value;

– sale of 2,6 thousand tons of river sand of medium and fine grain size in Kyiv region, undervaluation by more than 6 times compared to market price;

– sale of over 4,5 thousand tons of urea – almost 5 times cheaper than market prices;

– sale of grain, cereals, and oilseeds – four times cheaper than market value", said the journalist.