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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The defendants in the “Carthage” operation may have been “protecting” not only fraudulent call centers but also gambling businesses. On one of the recorded conversations, the former head of the Office of the Prosecutor General’s Department of Information Technology, Ivan Tymoshenko, discusses gambling with the deputy head of the State Tax Service, Ihor Panchenko. This was reported on 24 October by Slidstvo.Info, citing sources in law enforcement agencies. On 22 October the High Anti-Corruption Court chose pretrial detention for Tymoshenko with the alternative of bail of 8 million hryvnias.
According to Slidstvo.Info, Tymoshenko has maintained friendly relations with the suspect accused of organizing the “protection” scheme for fraudulent call centers, Serhii Kropyva, at least since 2020. Since then both have held leadership positions in various structures, including the National Police, the Odesa Regional State Administration, and the Office of the Prosecutor General. Law enforcement believes Tymoshenko helped Kropyva organize the scheme’s operations.
As the investigation claims, for that purpose Tymoshenko appointed Danylo Slipchuk to the Department of Information Technology of the OPG, through whom scheme participants received cash from call centers, converted it into another currency, and transferred it into cryptocurrency. In addition, according to the investigation’s version, he sought “couriers” who collected cash from call center representatives, and they used passwords and cars with somebody else’s license plates for meetings.
“Listen, okay, but gambling, online gambling— is that also your area?” asked Ihor Panchenko, deputy head of the State Tax Service.
In response, a voice the investigation identifies as Tymoshenko’s assured the interlocutor that “in principle we can” deal with that. It is worth noting that the OPG’s Department of Information Technology, where Tymoshenko held the position until 11 September, is responsible for digital transformation, technical support, and information security of the prosecutor’s offices, not for investigating fraud or gambling. Because of his position the man had access to the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations, which, law enforcement believes, allowed scheme participants to keep the situation around the call centers under control.
Another participant in the scheme was charged
On 22 October the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office informed about charges against Tymoshenko as one of the key members of the criminal organization uncovered in the “Carthage” operation. According to the investigation, Tymoshenko was directly responsible for communications with representatives of illegal call centers and for systematically receiving money from them, as well as for ensuring the organization members’ concealment and recruiting other persons into the activity. The total amount of documented illicit gains in the case exceeds 1 billion hryvnias.
Earlier Informator reported that NABU had announced suspicion against Tymoshenko as the former head of the OPG department, and the investigation believes he organized a trip to Spain for former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and selected a Harley-Davidson motorcycle for Kropyva. In the case materials the investigation believes that the head of one of the OPG departments, Serhii Kropyva, led the criminal organization, and the documents include data on 505 call centers. We also wrote that the High Anti-Corruption Court detained lawyer Dydych, a relative of Kropyva, who is suspected of legalizing the assets of “Kanzler” by re-registering them onto close persons.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Справа Карфаген – фігуранти могли кришувати гральний бізнес, а Тимошенко з ОГП обговорював це із заступником голови ДПСУ". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Informator.
