SBU under the procedural supervision of the regional Prosecutor’s Office uncovered the activities of an organized group in Dnipropetrovsk region whose participants conducted illegal operations on acquisition, storage and export of agricultural products.

According to the pre-trial investigation, several dealers without any permits built elevator near the river port of one of the cities in Dnipropetrovsk region. Its capacities were designed for receiving, storage and drying up to 5 thousand tons of agricultural products per month.

The group members received from local farmers grain crops for cash without drawing up the relevant documents and, accordingly, without payment of taxes and fees to the state budget of country. In addition, storage and drying of agricultural products was carried out in violation of the necessary sanitary norms. The products, respectively, were drawn on forged documents. The organizers of the deal transported cargoes on river barges to Ukrainian seaports for sale to the neighboring and foreign countries.

The special service operatives have established that the elevator activity was carried out through a number of sham enterprises and did not reflect in any official report. Therefore, the organizers managed to hide illegal activity during 2019. The illegal turnover of the elevator comprised almost UAH 90 million. Thus the state did not receive at least UAH 20 million of taxes.

During the searches at the location of illegal agroterminal law enforcement officers found documentation and draft records, property complex of the elevator and other commodity and materials.

According to preliminary investigation, the violations were established not only in the sphere of tax discipline, but also in the norms of urban development, environmental protection and technogenic safety provision.

Within the framework of the initiated criminal proceedings, investigative actions are ongoing to identify all circumstances of the deal and to serve suspicion notices to persons, involved in the illegal scheme.

The information about the possible involvement of local, law enforcement and regulatory authorities’ officials to the operation of the illegal elevator and illegal transactions is being checked.