The Security Service of Ukraine detected and blocked the illegal extraction of minerals on industrial scale on the territory of one of forestry agricultural farms of Zhytomyr region.

Pre-trial investigation established that in the spring 2015 the Zhytomyr Regional Council transferred almost 40 hectares of lands of the Korostyshiv State Forestry to the local extractive enterprise’s use. Since the commercial structure started topsoil excavation roughly violating the registration procedures of the authorization documents, the Regional Prosecutor's Office appealed the decision of the Regional Council.  At the beginning of 2016 the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine granted the petition and returned the site to the ownership of the municipal agroforestry enterprise Zhytomyroblahrolis.

Despite the prohibition, the mining firm continued the illegal excavation of subsoil. With the use of heavy excavator-based equipment, the suspects removed the soil on the site over half a hectare and arranged a natural quarry of 3 meters depths.

Initiated by the Service engineering-ecological and commodity examinations showed that during this time the suspects managed to illegally extract 25.5 thousand m³ of sand, what caused the damage of more than UAH 13,500,000 (USD 540,000) to the state. The environmentalists confirmed that the land undergone irreversible damage and is not subject to recovery.

The director of the enterprise is served a notice of suspicion within the framework of the criminal proceeding under Part 1 Article 329-1, Article 254, Part 1 Article 240 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. As investigation indicates, the law enforcement is finding the offender wanted since he acquired the citizenship of the aggressor country and is currently hiding in the temporarily annexed Crimea avoiding the criminal liability.

The documenting of the crime was conducted by the SBU Office in Zhytomyr region jointly with National Police under the supervision of Prosecutor’s Office of Zhytomyr region.