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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
“Oligarch” from the KFC Kitchen: a Restaurant Worker Became the Nominal Owner of 538 Companies with Income Over 581 Million Hryvnias
An industry of nominal directors — people on whom dozens or hundreds of companies are registered while the real beneficiaries remain in the shadows — has operated in Ukraine for years. One of the most striking examples is Andriy Sosonny, a KFC employee with a Group III disability from the village of Borshchiv in the Kyiv region, on whom 538 companies have already been registered.
Over the past 2 years, more than 300 firms have been registered to Sosonny. In total his “portfolio” now numbers 538 companies, and the combined income of those enterprises for 2025 year exceeded 581 million hryvnias.
At the same time, according to the investigation, Sosonny actually did not manage any of these companies. He worked in the kitchen of a fast-food restaurant and agreed to become the owner of firms because of difficult financial circumstances — for a few hundred dollars.
And here the main question arises: how does a person who works in the KFC kitchen suddenly become the “owner” of more than five hundred enterprises with hundreds of millions of hryvnias in turnover?
The story began in August of 2023. Then Sosonny became the owner of TOV “TDM Trading,” which is now called “Leicher.” Previously the company belonged to Volyn businessman Andriy Yaruchyk.
According to the investigation materials, Sosonny simply signed a stack of documents at the notary without even reading them. Law enforcement believes this was part of a scheme to conceal previous tax fraud.
In March of 2026, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv found Sosonny guilty of aiding the submission of knowingly false information in registration documents. The court sentenced him to 3 years in prison with a probationary period of 1 year, and also banned him from engaging in entrepreneurial activity for 1 year.
But the story did not end there.
Yaruchyk filed a suit against Sosonny demanding the recovery of 30 million hryvnias allegedly owed for the purchase of the company. And this despite the fact that the company’s authorized capital was only 10 thousand hryvnias.
The court denied the claim because the matter should have been heard in the commercial court. But the mere appearance of such a claim again shows how convenient nominal owners can be for those who do not want to appear in schemes.
Coal from dust, earth, stone, and garbage
The most cynical part of this story is connected not just with fictitious owners but with public procurements.
A group of companies — TOV “Resursy Batkivshchyny,” TOV “Zakhidmarket,” and PP “Naftoagroservis” — according to the investigation, earned nearly a quarter of a billion hryvnias on procurements through Prozorro.
At tenders the companies submitted quality certificates from TOV “Energo Vostok Antratsyt” and TOV “Promtopresurs.” According to the case materials, these enterprises were controlled by Ruslan Bragin and Oleksandr Sosiura — natives of Vuhledar.
But on paper it was one kind of coal, and in reality it was something completely different.
According to the investigation, the companies bought coal dust and rock on the “black market,” then mixed them with earth, stone, and garbage to increase the weight of the product. Then this “coal” was supplied to state institutions — schools, lyceums, and psycho-neurological boarding schools in Zakarpattia, Lviv region, and Kirovohrad region.
The result of such “savings” was entirely real: boilers clogged with slag and cold in the premises.
Examinations cited in the case confirmed that the delivered fuel did not meet DSTU standards.
When the investigation approached its finale, at the beginning of 2026 the companies involved in the scheme began rapidly changing owners. In particular, the toxic assets were re-registered to Andriy Sosonny.
The convenient nominee again ended up where, according to the scheme’s logic, he belonged: on paper.
However, law enforcement managed to identify probable organizers. Suspicions were brought against Valeriy Ryizheholov, Serhiy Hluhov, Oleksandr Sosiura, and Ruslan Bragin.
One of the group leaders was placed in custody by the court, which set bail at 4,58 million hryvnias.
But the most telling thing in this story is something else. Even after the loud exposure the scheme, according to the provided data, did not disappear.
TOV “Zakhidmarket” continued to win tenders even in 2026.
Meanwhile, court claims and fines continue to be filed in Sosonny’s name. Among them are the tax debts of TOV “Oktan 101” of over 10,7 million hryvnias, debts of TOV “Heimpy Fast,” and fines of TOV “TD “Ukrtoplivo,” which previously had revenue of over 93 million hryvnias.
In the end, we are looking at not just the story of a single nominal director to whom hundreds of companies were re-registered. This is an illustrative example of how schemes can work, in which a person on paper owns a business empire but in real life has neither the resources nor the ability to manage it.
And while the nominal owner answers to the court for documents, the real organizers can remain in the shadows.
Sosonny with his 538 companies looks almost like a caricature of a Ukrainian “oligarch”: instead of a billionaire’s office — the kitchen of a fast-food restaurant. But behind this absurd image stand hundreds of millions of hryvnias, public tenders, and products that, according to the investigation materials, were supplied to Ukrainian schools and boarding institutions.
That is why the problem is much broader than the fate of one nominal director. If the system allows mass registration of enterprises to people who do not actually manage them, and companies with questionable histories to continue receiving public contracts, then the question is no longer only about individual perpetrators.
The question is for the mechanism that for years has allowed real beneficiaries to hide behind other people’s names while budget millions continue to travel along the old routes.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "«Олігарх» із кухні KFC: працівник ресторану став номінальним власником 538 компаній із доходом понад 581 мільйон гривень". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
