The SSU cyber units jointly with the SBI continue to expose former high-ranking officials of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre on stealing state-owned agricultural land.

The SSU has collected evidence against another 4 suspects - former heads of the StateGeoCadastre Main Office in Vinnytsia oblast.

The officials illegally issued orders to transfer land plots to the ownership of the same person two or more times for the same purpose, i.e. carried out illegal ‘double privatization’. Then, such plots were sold in the interests of third parties.

In this way, the officials withdrew from state ownership 30 land plots of more than 60 hectares.

Their total market value is over UAH 85 mln.

Based on the evidence collected, all 4 officials have been notified of suspicion under Article 367.2 of the CCU (official negligence). Court is to decide on a measure of restraint.

The investigation is ongoing. The suspects are facing up to 5 years in prison.

In April 2021, the SSU documented a large-scale scheme of unlawful alienating of agricultural land from the state.

Chiefs of 22 regional offices the StateGeoCadastre were involved in organizing the fraud.

The illegal mechanism functioned due to ‘gaps’ in the work of the National Cadastral System and the Docprof electronic document management system, into which the suspects entered false data.

The SSU then sent an official letter to the StateGeoCadastre demanding that it immediately remove the identified shortcomings in the agency’s information systems.

Eight chiefs of StateGeoCadastre offices in Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad and Chernihiv regions had been notified of suspicion earlier.

The investigation was conducted under the supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office.