SAPO has initiated a case against the head of the State Financial Monitoring Service due to VAT schemes

SAPO has initiated a case against the head of the State Financial Monitoring Service due to VAT schemes

The SAPO has opened a criminal proceeding against a group involved in VAT schemes using conversion centers and receiving illegal reimbursements for this tax, which resulted in damages to the state budget amounting to 79 billion hryvnias.

This is reported by the website of MP Oleksandr Dubinskyi, Dubinsky.pro, with reference to an extract from the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations.

The corresponding extract was signed by the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Nazar Kholodnytskyi."

Proceeding No. 42020000000000953 was opened against the head of the State Financial Monitoring Service, Ihor Cherkaskyi, certain heads of regional subdivisions of the State Fiscal Service, and Ministry of Finance employees for abuse of office. The investigation has been entrusted to NABU detectives. Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code will be applied.

This is abuse of power or office, which caused severe consequences. It is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 5 to 8 years and a prohibition on holding certain positions or engaging in activities for up to 3 years," the statement said. According to the case file, the head of the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine, Ihor Cherkaskyi, covered up a global scheme for receiving illegal VAT reimbursements during 2019-2020, causing budget losses of 79 billion hryvnias. The embezzlement was extensive and carried out on a large scale.

The criminals involved a wide network of transit-conversion enterprises. Only in February 2020, the state budget lost 3.5 billion hryvnias, with 549 companies participating in the scheme: in the Lviv region, losses amounted to 500 million hryvnias (involving 62 enterprises); in the Kyiv region - 391 million hryvnias (102 enterprises); in Kyiv city - 135 million hryvnias (116 enterprises); in the Donetsk region - 100 million hryvnias (54 enterprises), etc.