A corruption scheme in the field of gas production has been exposed in Ukraine

Ukrainian law enforcement officers have exposed an illegal scheme in the field of natural gas production, which caused damage to the state in the amount of $7 million, Ukrainska Pravda reported on April 6.

"The organizers of the corruption scheme were officials of Ukrgasvydobycha JSC, as well as businessmen affiliated with them. <...> The damage of more than UAH 295 million ($6.8 million — Ed.) is confirmed by a forensic economic examination," the article says.

According to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Kravchenko, shell companies bought reagents necessary for gas production at real market prices. Further, these materials were repeatedly "resold" by firms to each other. Fictitious transactions artificially inflated the price of reagents by two to three times. In the end, the chemical products were sold to a state-owned company at the highest bid price.

Investigators of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine suspect two people — a representative of a chemical supplier company and an employee of one of the divisions of Ukrgasvydobycha — of embezzlement and embezzlement of state property on an especially large scale.

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On February 17, the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine (HACC) arrested former Minister of Energy of Ukraine Herman Galushchenko, accused of money laundering, for 60 days with the possibility of posting bail in the amount of 200 million hryvnias (about $4.6 million). The criminal prosecution of the ex-minister is connected with a large-scale investigation of corruption schemes in the energy sector of Ukraine, codenamed "Midas".

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