"HERTS"

Odessa's "City Unified Settlement Center," through which all municipal payments in the city pass, is the financial hub of Kostyantyn Tkach, who has been taking a percentage from each receipt for years and is regularly subject to searches.

What it is. "HERTS" accepts and distributes payments for all municipal services in Odessa, consolidating water, gas, electricity, heating, intercom, and cleaning into a single bill. LLC "Herts" was registered back in December 1999; the specialized entity is LLC "Payment Center 'HERTS'" (Odessa, Yevreys'ka St., 2A). "Herts" is managed through the "Avers" holding by Hennadiy Besedovsky and Kostyantyn Tkach; until July 2022, among the ultimate beneficiaries was Dmytro Nikitin (former deputy chairman of the Odessa Regional Council), and the group's interests are represented by former Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Malin. It services, among others, payments for Naftogaz.

How it earns. From each municipal payment by Odessa residents, "HERTS" took about a 2.4% commission—according to experts, UAH 20–30 million monthly. Besides utilities, Tkach's group entered tenders for catering in school canteens and monopolistically services payments for SE "Dokument" (a migration service structure)—a direction that became highly profitable with the start of the large-scale war, when documents were mass-issued to those leaving abroad. This year, the State Audit Service found violations in SE "Dokument" amounting to UAH 71 million—unjustified bonuses/supplements and procurements without proper procedures exceeding UAH 52 million.

Proceedings

The State Bureau of Investigations opened cases regarding the owners of "Herts"—including case No. 72022000110000023, involving related entities "Svetstroy" and "Ecostroygrad"; "Herts" lawyers even tried to recuse a detective citing asset seizures of the group. There are also cases under Article 212 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (tax evasion); searches in the Odessa office even occurred this summer, and some proceedings have been ongoing since 2021–2022. The main beneficiary, Kostyantyn Tkach, left the country after the searches.