Poroshenko and the Mafia: The "X" Hour Has Come

Poroshenko and the Mafia: The "X" Hour Has Come

The Minister of Infrastructure publicly accused the President’s fellow party members of laundering billions from Ukrzaliznytsia — through conversion centers

These days Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan released information that fell like a bolt from the blue. According to him, about one billion hryvnias from the state company Ukrzaliznytsia went to conversion centers last year. Mr. Omelyan even described the mechanism for laundering the railway monopoly’s funds, writes the newspaper Express.

According to him, a money-laundering scheme was created through companies linked to members of the Verkhovna Rada from the President’s party — the BPP — Bohdan and Yaroslav Dubnevych.

The minister asserts that under this scheme in 2016 year about one billion hryvnias were directed to conversion centers. How? "Ukrzaliznytsia," Omelyan says, introduced an interesting scheme: shell companies that supposedly, after competitive bids, should supply goods to Ukrzaliznytsia are in fact only a link for funneling the state enterprise’s funds to conversion centers.

What are conversion centers? These are exactly those fictitious enterprises where state enterprise money is turned into cash and ends up in the pockets of the scheme’s participants.

"The main participants in this scheme are firms affiliated with the Dubnevychs," the minister emphasized.

If you take into account that this was said for the first time by a current member of the government, it’s a sensation! He directly and unambiguously accused Poroshenko’s fellow party members of embezzling state funds. An unprecedented, truly brave statement! For several days now the Presidential Administration seems stunned. And it’s not hard to understand the poor advisers to Poroshenko: the minister’s statement is based on concrete facts and is hard to refute. And publicly defending the corrupt — Poroshenko is not yet ready for that.

However, everything the minister said — for the first time and officially — is only part of the truth about the parallel world in which the President’s team lives today. The world they sink into when they disappear from the screens and stroll into expensive clubs, restaurants, saunas, where their other life begins. There they divide influence, the money they steal from taxpayers’ pockets, distribute positions, etc.

The story of the Dubnevychs, who, as court materials confirm, indeed built one of the largest schemes in the country for embezzling funds from a state enterprise, is very illustrative in this sense.

Investigative journalists — and the newspaper Express was the first in the country — uncovered and described in detail the schemes organized by these current members of parliament and their accomplices. It has been proven that a significant portion of the embezzled funds subsequently goes into politics, to bribe prosecutors, police, deputies, and officials. Later, episodic court decisions in cases against individual mafia members confirmed everything the journalists wrote.

All the i’s are dotted.

But, to emphasize once more, for the first time a sitting minister of infrastructure is publicly stating direct involvement in criminal schemes. The same minister who was appointed to his position by the parliamentary coalition in which the leading role is held by the President’s party.

A coalition minister openly accused two deputies from a key political force in the coalition of laundering funds. One would think that after such resonant statements the President, the prime minister, the prosecutor general — who are representatives of the party to which the Dubnevych brothers belong — would call on law enforcement agencies to conduct an investigation.

This is the "X" hour for both the President and the prosecutor general, who, by the way, on the day of his appointment was photographed embracing a deputy whose name the minister mentioned.

The President can no longer remain silent. Otherwise he simply becomes the "godfather" of corruption in this country. But will President Poroshenko dare to break with his corrupt circle, rise above it, and remember the country?

We discuss this with Vitaliy Shabunin, chairman of the board of the Anti-Corruption Action Center; Denys Bihus, host of the anti-corruption investigations program Our Money; People’s Deputy Vitaliy Kupriy; and Oleksiy Shalaiskyi, editor-in-chief of the Our Money project.

- Gentlemen, who should respond to the information released by the Minister of Infrastructure regarding the activities of the Dubnevych brothers?

Oleksiy Shalaiskyi:

- In this situation I expect an immediate reaction from law enforcement. That’s what Minister Volodymyr Omelyan says as well — that law enforcement should be the ones to bring this to a close. But... putting my hand on my heart, I’ll say: I have doubts that they will do it. For two reasons — the Dubnevych brothers are members of the President’s faction, so they belong to the party in power.

Yes, the schemes the minister mentioned are a rather lengthy and troublesome process. Financial reports and other documents need to be checked. But if there is a will this can be done. Yet I doubt that they will investigate it — precisely because of political motives.

Vitaliy Kupriy:

- There will be no reaction from the President, the prime minister, or the BPP to Volodymyr Omelyan’s statement. Why? Because Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Hroisman have concentrated all the cash flows around members of their party. Ukrzaliznytsia is under the control of the Dubnevychs — with the tacit consent of the country’s top officials. Law enforcement agencies aren’t working either.

Last year in March I filed a report with NABU in which I described the corruption schemes the Dubnevych brothers created at the railway. NABU carried out investigative actions, five people were indicted, several were even detained. After that the Dubnevychs realized they needed stronger backing and made an agreement with Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Hroisman that they would influence the actions of law enforcement. According to my information, NABU head Mr. Sytnyk received an instruction from the Presidential Administration to stop the investigation in these cases. So already in December 2016 year the Dubnevychs resumed all their schemes.

Vitaliy Shabunin:

- I would separate the political reaction from the reaction of law enforcement to the minister’s statements. Law enforcement should react by issuing suspicions. Let them stay silent longer, but show real work — by issuing suspicions. We should not emulate Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, who talks a lot, and then the case he announced does not reach court. So I am calm about law enforcement’s reaction to the accusations against the Dubnevychs. They must have time to investigate the facts that Volodymyr Omelyan voiced.

As for the political reaction, politicians should respond to this scandal. The reaction should come from both the prime minister and the President. After all, these are people from the BPP. The President brought them into the party, they ran from the President’s party, so the party must be responsible for them. That’s why our leaders are cowardly silent.

If this had happened abroad, the reaction would have been completely different.

Denys Bihus:

- As far as I know, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau recently obtained access to the documents of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia to investigate purchases from companies linked to MPs the Dubnevychs. This is precisely about the schemes the minister mentioned. I would not be quick to be disappointed.

What the minister said is in fact, as they say, already known even to first-graders in the second term. But for the first time such a high-ranking official is voicing these facts. These are not new, unexpected things for the country’s information space. Everyone has long known who the Dubnevych brothers are and how brazenly they profit and enrich themselves. The unlawful enrichment schemes of the Dubnevychs must be stopped by law enforcement. Decisively and targeted.

Vitaliy Kupriy:

- I agree. This truly is Poroshenko’s "X" hour — the reaction must be immediate. Otherwise I feel sorry for both the President and his circle. They will end very badly.

Source: Express, Bohdan KUFRYK