On October 6, detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, under the procedural guidance of employees of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, informed 16 persons of suspicion of illegal possession of assets of the Odessa territorial community and legalization of illegally obtained income. 10 of them are members of a criminal organization, the rest are accomplices in the commission of other crimes. This was reported in the press service of NABU.
In particular, we are talking about the head of a criminal organization, the mayor of Odessa, the head of the Permanent Commission on Communal Property of the Odessa City Council, the head of the Land Commission of the City Council, the head of the legal department of the city council, the head of the department of communal property of the city council and his deputy, as well as three people who performed the functions of financial control, legal support and coordination of actions between the participants of the criminal organization .
In addition to them, suspicions were reported to six more persons whom the members of the criminal organization involved in their actions. Among them are the deputy mayor of Odessa, the former head of one of the municipal enterprises, the ex-prosecutor of the Odessa region, the owners of the developer company and its top managers.
The actions of suspects are qualified under seven articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: part 1 of article 255; part 4 of article 28; Part 2 of Article 364; Part 5 of Article 191; Part 3 of Article 209; Part 4 of Article 368; Part 3 of Article 369.
Some of the suspects, including the head of the criminal organization, are hiding outside of Ukraine. Therefore, they were informed of the suspicion in accordance with Article 135 and Article 278 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine.
Note that a number of suspects have already been prosecuted by NABU and SAP for other corruption offenses, such as the purchase at an inflated price of the building of the "Krayan" plant and real estate for the purpose of increasing burials at the "Zapadnoye" cemetery in Odessa.
As the investigation established, the members of the criminal organization, in collusion with other persons, developed a mechanism for the illegal possession of assets - funds from the local budget and land of the Odessa territorial community (hereinafter - OTS) for its further transfer for development. As a result, during 2016-2019 OTG lost at least six land plots with a total area of 15,9 hectares and illegally spent UAH 131 million from the local budget. The total amount of damage in these episodes, according to the results of the examination, amounts to UAH 689 million.
NABU and SAP established that during 2016-2019 the land of OTG was provided for development according to the mechanism established by the criminal organization, which provided for the transfer of such land plots to predetermined companies bypassing the competition. This left the local community to receive the greatest economic benefit. Instead, the developers, on the basis of "conceptual contracts", paid the money that should have gone to the community to a criminal organization, which, in turn, through controlled persons in the Odessa City Council, ensured the adoption of the "necessary" decision on the lease of this or that plot of land .
The members of the criminal organization received from the developer the real market value of the development right (in the range of UAH 100-200 million for each plot of land) and for such remuneration provided the developer with the right to develop the plot of land (surfaces) guaranteed by the Odessa City Council for free.
The criminal organization strictly adhered to measures of conspiracy, information security and adopted counterintelligence techniques. NABU and SAP established that the recruitment of new members of the criminal organization was carried out with the use of a polygraph, during the survey, among other things, questions were asked about affiliation or cooperation with law enforcement agencies. In communication, the members of the criminal organization used secure means of communication, held meetings in premises with enhanced security measures, used special equipment for removing information from electronic means of communication, and the like.
Representatives of local law enforcement, control and judicial bodies were involved in the criminal activity. In exchange for making relevant decisions in favor of the criminal organization, they received illegal benefits in the form of money, apartments in new buildings built on land stolen from the community, and other material goods.
During the investigation, NABU detectives also established the facts of legalization of funds received by the criminal organization from the commission of other criminal offenses.
