During the special operation, the Security Service of Ukraine together with  DBR investigators under the guidance of the Prosecutor's Office documented the facts of large-scale deforestation in the West and the North of Ukraine.

Law-enforcement officers established that officials of forestries are involved in illegal felling of age-old oaks and other valuable species of woods. Allegedly, their actions caused a great damage to the state.

The law enforcement officers exposed illegal felling of forestry trees during forest rehabilitation in Zhytomyr region. The illegal business was set up and managed by the head of one of the regional state forestries. The criminal group included officials from the State Forest Guard, specialized forest protection enterprise and businessmen.

The employees of the state enterprise had been performing illegal felling of the trees and entering false data into official documents for 3 years. The perpetrators also sold the wood to customers from abroad. 

SBU found that the illegal felling of more than 300 trees of different breeds in the territory in August-September 2019 of one forestry alone caused damage to the state budget by almost UAH 2.5 million (USD 90,000).

15 perpetrators were served notices of suspicion of committing crimes under Articles 246, 358, 365, 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, as a part of an organized group for various types of complicity. The issue of choosing the form of detention for the suspects and dismissal of the forest guardians is currently being resolved.

The SBU officers exposed illegal felling of trees, performed by the officials of several state forest enterprises  without any proper permits in Ivano-Frankivsk and Thranscarpathian regions. The suspects sold the obtained wood for cash to private sawmills. According to the experts, the perpetrators caused losses to the state budget amounting to more than UAH 9 million (USD 325,000).

Based on the results of searches and evidence obtained, 6 employees of forestry enterprises were served notices of suspicion of committing crimes under Part 2, Art. 364 and Part 1 Art. 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The investigation is ongoing in the framework of criminal proceeding initiated under Part 2 Art. 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The law enforcement officers carried out a search in a forestry in order to obtain material evidence proving the illegal scheme which caused budget losses amounting to UAH 2,5 million (USD 48,000) and officials’ involvement in the fraud.

The work of the Security Service of Ukraine on consistent prevention and detection of illegal destruction of state eco-resouces is ongoing.