Investigation into how Hlynyana and ’Atomservice’ earn millions on army food

In recent weeks, the author has heard several times that anti-corruption reforms will lead to the army going hungry. At the same time, there are theories about an armless DOT that wrote the conditions for retail, and that the old suppliers are not so bad.

Therefore, some people will have to open their eyes to the unpleasant truth - there is production. And they just show exactly how corruption is organized in the purchase of food.

Who forgot - on February 14, the existence of corruption was confirmed by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau with its appeal to the Ministry of Defence .

It is usually customary to talk about any conspiracies in the offices of the ministry. However, even in the first months of work, members of the Anti-Corruption Council of the Ministry of Defence learned that money was actually being withdrawn through units.

It is there that fictitious invoices are formed, where instead of the delivered goods they put more expensive ones or even bring empty invoices. And now this has been recorded by specific production of the SBI.

We are talking about two companies from Tetyana Hlynyana’s group, "Active Company" and "Grand Consult", which implemented the scheme in one of the military units during the year.

"Grand Consult" - Youcontrol data

In the register of court decisions, you can find a ruling that refers to an investigation that revealed a criminal scheme by the head of the flight canteen of one of the military units, who, with the help of several other servicemen, misappropriated property of the Ministry of Defence.

Firstly, the chief instructed the cook to "issue 30% less food to the canteen than the amount indicated in the primary accounting documents".

This actually meant that the portion of food for the military in the military canteen was reduced by a third. And then the "saved" food was sold for money.

In particular, the military sold 60 kg of sugar, 15 kg of pasta, 4 bags of frozen hake weighing almost 60 kg, 110 kg of frozen pork, almost 30 kg of broiler thighs, 20 cans of tomato paste and other products.

But later, judging by the case materials, the newly minted businessmen decided that it was unsafe to keep excess goods at the base, so they “improved” the scheme.

As a result, the organizer of the scheme “decided to organize an illegal scheme, which consisted of re-posting them (food products - ed.) in accounting on the basis of fictitious primary accounting documents about their alleged delivery to the military unit of Active Company LLC, which at that time supplied food products to military unit NUMBER_1 on the basis of Agreement No. 286/2/22/75 dated December 23, 2022 concluded with the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine” the court ruling says.

This is the same contract where the eggs were initially written at 17.

“According to the agreement, counterfeit consolidated acts by an official of Active Company LLC, not identified by the investigation, were to be submitted to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine for payment, and the illegally received funds of Active Company LLC were to be distributed among the group members,” notes the pre-trial materials.

As a result, only during June-July 2023, false invoices and invoices were issued for supplies of Active Company LLC to a military unit for a total amount of UAH 1,393,170.89.

UAH 1.3 million in one instalment, in one month. As you know, last year Hlynyana bought 4 hotels in Croatia, which she then sold, most likely to a front person.

Hlynyana’s hotel in Croatia.

In November, the Ministry of Defence paid "Active Company" under the contract. After that, an "unidentified person" withdrew the funds from the accounts and distributed them among the members of the criminal group.

If you think the scheme stopped after that, it didn’t. It was just that in July, a representative of Grand Consult LLC was involved in it.

Why did this happen? It was simply that Grand Consult LLC won the same region and parts that Active Company had previously served.

So a logical question arises as to how a company with a different name, but of the same group, got the right to supply the same parts. And could this have been prevented at the ministry level?

But that’s not all: for some reason, only two companies from the Hlynyana Group took part in the auction. Other companies did not apply for this lot, which makes us think that there is collusion between participants in the market of food supply for the army.

As a result, “Grand Consult” also received the highest price for daily meals at that time – 147 UAH.

And as the investigation shows, during August-November 2023, in the same part, now through the accounts of Grand Consult LLC, UAH 4.042 million was stolen.

In December 2023 - January 2024, the State Bureau of Investigation announced suspicions against those involved in the scheme. House arrest was applied to them. True, the leaders of "Active Company" and "Grand Consult" are witnesses in the case.

Andriy Zhosan, Head of "Grand Consult"

Hlynyana’s companies are among the largest players in the Armed Forces catering market. Her company, "Grand Consult", has won UAH 8 billion in tenders alone.

Hlynyana’s closest competitors are the so-called "Geus Group", which is associated with Viktor Yanukovych’s associate Yuriy Ivanyushchenko.

At the last Ministry of Defence tender, this group was represented by "Atomservice", which earned more than UAH 7 billion.

According to the court register, "Atomservice" representatives also considered it possible to make money from the army.

Currently, the head of Atomservice’s warehouse facilities is under investigation for bribing the military to supply cheaper products to the unit.

So, on September 26, 2023, in his office, he “incited” a military man for a bribe to replace products in the invoices - “that is, in applications he must indicate the name according to the catalog, and receive other products that are much cheaper.” For this, the accomplice received as much as 5,000 hryvnia. But at the same time, the "Atomservice" representative promised to pay more if there was an increase in the size of replacement products.

“Realizing that PERSON_6 offered him an undue benefit, PERSON_8, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On the Prevention of Corruption,” reported this situation to his management and filed a corresponding statement with law enforcement agencies and subsequently acted under their control,” the materials say consequences.

In October, a representative of "Atomservice" called the military man and offered to replace the position “meat-vegetable buckwheat porridge with beef” with another product.

A representative of Atomservice "offered to replace 1000 kg of products, to which PERSON_8 agreed and they made a replacement in the application in such a way that the INFORMATION_4 divisions received only 1/3 of the corresponding buckwheat and beef products within a week, and the rest were replaced with cheaper goods, namely: peas with vegetables and pork", "borscht in meat broth with beef meat", "pea soup in meat broth with pork meat", "wheat porridge with chicken meat", "barley porridge with chicken meat" .

As a result of such actions. the total quantity of products received was 995 kg, of which 350 kg of products were “buckwheat with beef”, and 645 kg were replaced with cheaper products.

On October 13, a representative of "Atomservice" already offered to replace 2,200 kg of products for a fee of 5 UAH. for one kilogram of replaced products, which would be 11,000 UAH.

On October 26, 2023, during a meeting in the office premises of Atomservice LLC, this person was detained.

However, this initiative was hardly a one-time thing and was implemented only in this part. In the end, someone, as we saw above, did not consider it necessary to inform law enforcement.

The materials presented show why reform is needed. Because it is very difficult to track such thefts piece by piece.

The same corruption can be broken by introducing a different method of collecting applications.

This is exactly what the State Logistics Operator is trying to do now. And this is exactly what they are now trying to take away from him, so that God forbid no one finds out how many millions a month they steal from the plates of “well-fed” soldiers, exchanging one porridge for another.

Read more about why the Ministry of Defence is losing to the food mafia tomorrow.

Author: Tetyana Nikolayenko

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