SBU employees documented a “gray” scheme of importing trucks and special equipment from the European Union, organized by officials of a customs checkpoint in Zhytomyr region.

Allegedly, the illegal scheme was set up by the head of a customs checkpoint together with three subordinates - the chief state inspectors. It is established that during 2018-2019, the officials assisted importing companies in the illegal import and customs clearance of vehicles on preferential terms, for money. The dealers entered false data concerning technical characteristics and year of manufacture of vehicles into official documents, thus artificially underestimating the amount of obligatory payments to the state budget. The customs officials, in their turn, "did not notice" these discrepancies.

The SBU initiated a number of examinations and inspections, which showed that due to the illegal scheme, the state budget did not receive almost UAH 4 million (USD 143,000) of excise duty and value added tax.

According to the SBU information, the head of the customs checkpoint and three of his subordinates were served notice of suspicion of abuse of office (Art. 364 of the Criminal code of Ukraine).

The issues of removal the officials from office and choosing a form of detention are being settled.

The investigation is ongoing.

The corruption scheme was documented by the SBU Office in Zhytomyr region together with investigators of the Territorial Department of the State Bureau of Investigations located in Khmelnytskyi city, under the supervision of the regional Prosecutor's Office.