The SSU continues to expose officials involved in unlawful schemes of expropriation of state-owned agricultural land.

This time, the suspects are the heads of the StateGeoCadastre in Zhytomyr and Kirovohrad regions in 2019-2021.

It was established that abusing their official position, the ex-officials signed orders allowing illegal transfer of agricultural land to private ownership worth almost UAH 6 mln (USD 200,000).

In particular, in 11 episodes land plots with of the same intended use two or more times were transferred to private property to the same person. This is a gross violation of the current legislation and was possible due to ‘gaps’ in the ‘National Land Registry System’ and the electronic document management system Dokprof.

Currently, 4 former heads of the StateGeoCadastre in Zhytomyr region and 2 former heads of this institution in Kirovohrad region have been notified of suspicion under Article 367.2 of the CCU (official negligence).

A pre-trial investigation is underway to identify and prosecute all those involved in the scheme.

In the spring of 2021, the SSU conducted searches in 22 territorial divisions of the StateGeoCadastre, during which we found evidence of unlawful privatization of over 2,500 land plots. Then, 2 top officials of this institution were declared suspects.

The operation was carried out by the SSU Cyber​​Department together with the SBI Kyiv Department under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office.