Maxim Melnichenko and Olga Varchenko
The news feed of recent days is replete with personnel news from Riznitskaya.
Lutsenko gave a new position to the GPU official who handed Kasko the notice of suspicion, Lutsenko gave a position in the GPU to the son of a deputy from Khomutynnik's group , and so on...
These are just high-profile figures, nothing more. But there are more interesting characters vying for positions in the General Assembly.
Just a month ago, the press reported on a special operation to dismantle a group that was extorting apartments from disadvantaged people. The scammers have been arrested and will likely be punished. Unless, of course, they have relatives in the prosecutor's office.
In 2011, police in Kyiv's Podolsk district investigated a case involving the illegal seizure of apartments and the disappearance of their owners. Incidentally, these individuals remain missing. Gang members intimidated alcoholics and drug addicts, seized their apartments, and promised to relocate them outside the city. However, after the sale, the former apartment owners were never seen alive again. Relatives of some of them even filed a wanted list, which led to nothing. This is not surprising, since the gang included... law enforcement officers. Looking ahead, let us note: the participants and organizers of these crimes not only escaped punishment, but today occupy high positions in the Prosecutor General's Office. For example, Olga Aleksandrovna Varchenko. Her husband, Aleksandr Varchenko, once served as the head of the Organized Crime Control Department and was one of the organizers of the aforementioned criminal group.
The editorial board has at its disposal the transcript of the witness's interrogation in that high-profile case:
At that time, Olga Varchenko held the position of deputy head of the investigative department of the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office. When the case was transferred to the prosecutor's office, Yuriy Sevruk, the Podolsk District Prosecutor (in 2011), and his first deputy , Maksym Melnichenko, personally obstructed an objective investigation. This Melnichenko is the one with an influential godfather—the odious former prosecutor Viktor Kudryavtsev, who covered for his godson in all the scandals. This is precisely the Melnichenko that the press wrote about in the context of the lustration scam, which Maksym managed to deceitfully remain in the prosecutor's office and even advance through the ranks. It was he, Maksym Melnichenko, who was arrested for accepting a $7 bribe and got away with it. Journalists have unearthed a great deal of interesting information about Melnichenko. Nevertheless, he still holds a high position in the Prosecutor General's Office, to which he was transferred by Shokin at Sevruk's request.
Back in 2011, a high-profile case involving missing persons—more than 10 in all—and real estate fraud was "buried," as the defendant in the case was a relative of a prosecutor. And all of this was under Melnichenko's supervision. The mechanism was simple: Sevruk "went up the ladder" to the Prosecutor General's Office. Melnichenko took his place, sending the case directly to Varchenko's department, who personally signed a decree closing the case, which would have put her husband in jail for a long time, if not forever. Incidentally, back then, a man's body was found in a vacant lot in Vinogradar; relatives identified him as one of the missing drug addicts, whose apartment had been "sold" to the gang. Perhaps unsurprisingly, two days later, the relatives retracted their testimony. In circles close to the prosecutor's office, they say that the operation to break up the werewolf gang case cost those who were eager to avoid punishment half a million dollars.
Today, former Organized Crime Control officer Varchenko, who escaped punishment due to his wife's criminal activities, is not particularly prominent. However, after his scandalous involvement in a gang of werewolves, Alexander Varchenko became involved in Arbuzov's financial schemes. At least, that's what the media reports.
Olga Varchenko herself currently holds a high-ranking position—head of one of the Prosecutor General's Office departments. She continues to work under the supervision of Maksym Melnichenko, who currently serves as head of the General Inspectorate for Internal Investigations and Security of the Prosecutor General's Office. Unofficial but reliable sources have revealed that Kudryavtsev and Sevruk's men in the Prosecutor General's Office—Melnichenko and Varchenko—are immune. Is there really no force capable of rooting out this vile, corrupt growth from the law enforcement system? What more obvious actions must occur to ensure this evil spirit is gone forever?
The cynicism of the situation isn't that a bribe-taker, a schemer, and a corrupt official thrives as a top prosecutor. It's not even that, with minimal assets disclosed, Melnichenko owns a huge apartment in an elite building in Pechersk, registered, of course, to his mother. Like his other real estate and all his cars.
The cynicism of the situation is that it's happening in full view of everyone. And if there's no adequate action, it's covered up. Why? Does the new system need such people, too?
Oleg Boyko
DOSSIER: Black Prosecutor Maksim Melnichenko. The Story of Donetsk's Cinderella
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