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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Portnov threatens to confiscate Poroshenko's assets. Video
While the authorities cannot even announce suspicions against some of the Yanukovych regime's pillars, Portnov, on a Russian phone line, threatens a “revenge.”
5 thousand 14 hryvnias 5 kopecks – that is the amount the state returned to the budget in a year from confiscated property obtained through corrupt means. At the same time, according to the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine told journalists of Schemes (a project of Radio Liberty on the First Public Channel), at home and abroad, for former high-ranking officials, property seized amounts to more than 5 billion hryvnias.
One of the former “owners” of the Presidential Administration will soon argue with the European Commission in court. The Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration during Viktor Yanukovych – Andriy Portnov – is challenging the sanctions against him. The case will be heard by a Luxembourg court in May. It is titled “Portnov v. European Commission.”
Portnov himself “fled” at the same time as Viktor Yanukovych, and later became one of the first officials of the dictatorship who fell under the EU sanctions list of 22 people. But last month the sanctions against him were lifted. Portnov told Schemes by phone that this happened because the sanctions were based on falsified documents.
“In the near future, I will definitely prove not only the illegality of the actions of the Ukrainian authorities, but also violations of European standards by those in the EU who used this information from the Ukrainian authorities,” he explains.
While Andriy Portnov boasts on social networks about his invulnerability and mocks Ukrainian investigators, domestic law enforcement has seized on his accounts… as much as 40 thousand hryvnias. Schemes was told this by the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine.
In total, in Ukraine and abroad, according to the GPO, more than 5,5 billion hryvnias have been seized. Yet, Ukrainian financial intelligence, in the past year alone, uncovered suspicious bank operations at home and abroad totaling 300 billion hryvnias. These findings should have become the basis for economic investigations. But they did not, according to the Center for Countering Corruption. Although law enforcement reported hundreds of millions seized from former Energy Minister Eduard Stavytsky, Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov, and other officials from Yanukovych's era. But high-profile account seizures did not translate into confiscation for the benefit of the state, which is possible only by court decision.
“As of today, there is not a single court verdict that would provide for confiscation of property to be sent abroad and to request its return,” says Vitaliy Kasko, Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Confiscation of property is possible under open cases specifically under economic articles. But there are no such cases even against 18 members of the Yanukovych regime who are currently mentioned in the EU sanctions list. Primarily, Ukrainian prosecutors investigate abuses of official position.
The problem of tracing and confiscating illegally acquired property is successfully solved in many countries.
Michele Riccardi, consultant on money laundering at the Italian financial security committee, says that it is worth introducing special norms that would allow law enforcement to confiscate property belonging to third parties. After all, most assets of the corrupt are hidden behind endless trusts and front persons.
Precisely through civil confiscation, and through links with the mafia, authorities managed to return the assets of Italian “entrepreneur” Vito Nicastro to the sum of 1,7 billion euros. Nicastro’s renewable energy firms were used to launder organized crime proceeds.
“For example, the country house of Bernardo Provenzano, who was the ‘boss of all bosses’ of the Sicilian mafia, was arrested. Now it’s a tourist estate, and on confiscated land nearby they grow grapes. Do you understand how much good – people have jobs, while the mafia destroys social structures,” says Michele Riccardi.
When will we hear similar stories about Ukrainian assets? Pedro Gomez from Basel University, who works on legal assistance for asset recovery in Eastern Europe, says not soon. He cites the assets of former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who fled the country in 1999.
“As many as 18 months have passed since the fall of the previous regime. But understand, to identify all corrupt assets, it takes a lot of time. As an example, I’ll cite the Lazarenko case, which has been ongoing for 15 years, and not all is found yet. Good financial investigation takes time,” explains Pedro Gomez.
For now, the authorities are not even able to announce suspicions against the former pillars of the Yanukovych regime – Dmytro Tabachnyk, Olena Lukash, and Serhiy Klyuyev. As of June they all remain under European sanctions, but they can be removed from the list, just as Andriy Portnov was. He, by the way, is on a Russian-numbered line threatening the current authorities with “revenge,” saying that he will confiscate the assets of the sitting president. “I think Ukrainian authorities, from government ministers to the President of Ukraine, should carefully examine their online banking now. Which offshore accounts do they use? How do they arrange deals in offshore jurisdictions? We will surely, when the time comes, determine which accounts, which assets the current authorities hide abroad, and this will certainly be the subject of criminal prosecution,” Portnov said.
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