The Security Service, together with the Prosecutor’s Office, has dismantled a large-scale scheme for legalizing criminal proceeds in several regions of Ukraine. According to the investigation, between 2023 and 2025 the perpetrators laundered over UAH 1.5 billion (USD 36.3 mln), most of which was stolen from our state budget.

The organizer of the scheme, a former deputy head of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, who organized a ‘conversion center’ under the guise of a lawyer, has been detained.

He involved four accomplices in the crime. They ensured the functioning of the ‘scheme’ and included two accountants and the head of an affiliated company legalizing and converting illegal profits into cash.

The main clients of the clandestine centre were representatives of commercial entities that performed contract work and services for budgetary institutions and attempted to illegally appropriate state funds.

To cover up shadow financial transactions, the individuals involved created dozens of controlled companies, most of which were engaged in economic activities only ‘on paper’.

To plan and carry out their criminal activities, the group rented office space in Kyiv, where they met with clients and stored shadow documentation.

During the searches of the organizer of the scheme and his accomplices, cash obtained by criminal means was found, as well as seals of controlled companies with signs of fictitiousness, bank cards, computer equipment and financial and economic documents containing evidence of the crime.

All five suspects have now been detained. They are to be notified of suspicion under two Articles of the CCU:

• 212.3 (tax evasion);
• 209.3 (money laundering).

The perpetrators face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

The operational and investigative measures were carried out by the SSU Office in Kyiv and Kyiv Region with the assistance of the State Tax Service and the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine and the procedural supervision of Pechersk District Prosecutor’s Office of Kyiv.