10 December SBU and State Fiscal Service officers searched the house and workplace the ex-head of the Odesa Regional Council — deputy and large agrarian Sergei Parashchenko. A week later, December 16 law enforcement officers conducted several dozen more searches in homes, offices and companies affiliated with the ex-official.
ElitExpert found out why the SBU and GFS took Parashchenko so seriously.
Version of the investigation
According to the SBU, after the first search, operatives of the special service exposed a corrupt scheme of illegal use of land at the Odesa experimental station of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences (NAANU). According to the Security Service, the organizer of the scheme was Sergei Parashchenko - it was he, using two controlled commercial structures, in collusion with the heads of some state-owned enterprises, who "facilitated" the creation of obviously unfavorable conditions for the cultivation of agricultural products on the lands of NAAU. According to the terms of the agreements, 80% of the crop became the property of the merchants. In addition, the volumes of the obtained production in the official documentation were significantly underestimated.
— The perpetrators actually sold the harvested crop at market value. As a result, NAAU enterprises actually became unprofitable, and the profit from the use of highly liquid lands did not enter the state budget, — the SBU noted.
During the searches, security forces seized draft documentation, computer equipment, charter documents of enterprises connected with Parashchenko, including those registered and located on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Politics has nothing to do with it
Sergey Parashchenko and his supporters immediately connected the searches with political pressure: they say, the customer is the ruling power, which is trying to sway the deputy to its side.
— The SBU convinces to love the Green Team and all their "improvements", he wrote on his Facebook page on the day of the search.
He also noted on social networks that "SBU is looking for 10 votes "For the future". It is in this party that Parashchenko is a member of the regional council — and thus once again hints at political pressure.
The same opinion is held by his son, Sergey Parashchenko, Jr., as well as Yuriy Karabaghak, the deputy's business partner.
However, after conducting a small investigation, the editorial board of ElitExpert established: the statements that the searches and criminal cases were initiated by the "Servant of the People" in order to persuade the ex-official to cooperate do not withstand any criticism. The fact is that the production was opened during Poroshenko's presidency in January 2018.
Perhaps, the fact that Parashchenko was a close associate of the ex-head of state was the reason why criminal proceedings were not allowed before, but were activated only under the new government.
The editorial office has court decisions to search Sergei Parashchenko (more than 50 of them were conducted in total). First of all, it is worth paying attention to the dates of decisions: November 16, 23 and 26. That is, two of them were accepted even before local elections, and one - before the announcement of the results. At that time, it was not yet known how many deputies from the parties would be included in the Odesa Regional Council and whether they would be included at all, which means that there was no point in putting pressure on their council members for votes.
Secondly, court decisions reveal details of the criminal proceedings, which were not mentioned in the SBU. Thus, during the "cooperation" with NAAS, the supply of sunflower seeds worth more than UAH 10 million was not indicated in the tax returns. Because of this, more than 4 million hryvnias were not accounted for in the State Budget of Ukraine.
In addition, judging by the materials, a number of companies, including Parashchenko's "Druzhba Narodov", tried to take possession of the property and funds of five state-owned enterprises for a total of UAH 10 million.
These two episodes were combined into one criminal proceeding, and the investigators officially consider Sergey Parashchenko to be the organizer of the schemes. According to law enforcement officers, it was he who deliberately brought state-owned enterprises to bankruptcy in order to take possession of their property and lands.
Thus, there is no politics here: the case is only related to the appropriation of property and non-payment of a large amount of taxes, and another high-ranking deputy can become the accused.
