Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
At the same time, several influential officials of the Service are implicated in the case.
The Security Service of Ukraine confirmed that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office are conducting searches this morning, 4 November, at the Service employees' premises.
"These investigative actions are taking place within the framework of a number of criminal proceedings and the relevant court rulings. The Security Service advocates for an objective and impartial investigation and is assisting the procedural actions," the agency's press service said.
It is noted that since morning NABU has been carrying out searches at the first deputy head of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood of the SBU, General Serhiy Duka, and at the head of the Main Directorate of Internal Security of the SBU, Colonel Anton Kravchuk. As the bureau said early this morning, one of the officials obstructed investigative actions and authorized detectives to use weapons.
Later NABU reported that it uncovered another criminal organization within the framework of the "Carthage" case, whose members systematically paid bribes to high-ranking law enforcement officials for the unhindered operation of fraudulent call centers and other illegal businesses. According to the statement, officials from the Office of the Prosecutor General, the SBU, the National Police, and representatives of the criminal underworld figure in the case.
According to ZN.UA sources, about 70 searches are taking place across Ukraine today in a case concerning the protection of call centers. In addition to the aforementioned figures, searches are also being conducted at the first deputy head of the Main Directorate "D" of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood, Oleksandr Kovalchuk.
These investigative actions "intersect" with the case of Andriy Osipov, whom NABU and SAP suspect of extorting one million dollars from a Russian citizen to "resolve the matter" of criminal prosecution and extradition to Russia. Sources say law enforcement reached top SBU officials after examining Osipov's phone.
ZN.UA previously wrote that Duka and Kravchuk supervised the force component of operations against bureau detectives and investigative journalists in July last year, and that during searches in Osipov's case investigators found cover license plates, IDs, and other SBU documents.
How NABU detectives may have uncovered the criminal-clan system in which state authority, security resources, money, private and political interests are increasingly difficult to separate was described in the article "The Degeneration of Power. How Zelensky Reached His Ceiling, and the State Administration System Hit Bottom" by Inna Vedernikova.
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