Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko (Read more about it in the article Vitaly Kasko – a swindler, a corrupt official, a "shot-down pilot"), who is being investigated following revelations and complaints from members of parliament from Serhiy Pashinsky's group, is not involved in the scam involving the transfer of $23,5 million from the British accounts of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky to Cyprus. This was reported by Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of parliament from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, on his blog on Ukrayinska Pravda.
He reconstructed the chain of events that preceded one of the grandiose scams carried out with the connivance of the post-Maidan Prosecutor General's Office (GPU) leadership. Specifically, Leshchenko pointed out that the reason for initiating criminal proceedings against Zlochevsky was the fact that funds were transferred to his BNP Paribas bank accounts from Serhiy Kurchenko, who had been subject to international sanctions since March 2014.
Around the same time, Zlochevsky's account manager, lawyer Andriy Kacha, instructed the bank to transfer approximately $23 million from London to Cyprus, after which BNP Paribas informed the UK's Serious Fraud Office, which operates under the supervision of the Attorney General.
As a result, on March 22, 2014, the Serious Fraud Office opened a money laundering investigation, resulting in a UK court seizing $23,5 million of Zlochevsky's funds on April 16 and May 28, 2014. Having received the relevant materials from the UK, the Prosecutor General's Office opened proceedings on August 5, 2014, under the article "Illegal Enrichment on an Especially Large Scale."
Leshchenko claims that, having assessed the scale of the problem, Zlochevsky began seeking avenues to the leadership of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine and, at the same time, is challenging the seizure of funds in the UK.
"What did Kasko do? On November 20, 2014, as the deputy prosecutor responsible for international relations, he warned another deputy head of the Prosecutor General's Office, Oleh Zalisko, who was responsible for the investigation, that 'hearings on this case are scheduled for early December, specifically on the legality of the seizure of Zlochevsky's assets...'" the parliamentarian wrote.
Meanwhile, on December 2, 2014, investigator Andriy Kravets, who reports to Deputy Prosecutor General Zalisko, wrote a letter stating that Zlochevsky was cleared of wrongdoing (even though the Prosecutor General's Office had already opened a case against him for illegal enrichment and was gathering materials for the case). It was this letter that gave Zlochevsky the green light to withdraw his funds, as it was received on December 3, 2014, just in time for the start of the London hearings to lift the freeze on the frozen assets.
But that's not all—on December 4, 2014, First Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Gerasimyuk decided to transfer Zlochevsky's case from the Prosecutor General's Office to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Leshchenko suspects that the case was simply hidden. However, the MP points out that overseeing the investigation at the Ministry of Internal Affairs at that time was the job description of then-Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
The sabotage of Ukrainian law enforcement shocked their foreign handlers. On December 10, the British issued a warning that the seizure of Zlochevsky's funds was about to be lifted. In response, Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema instructed Gerasimyuk and Shokin to resolve the issue of appealing to British law enforcement regarding Zlochevsky's case by December 25, 2014. However, by that date, Kasko, who was responsible for international legal assistance, had still not received any documents. The scheme was completed by Gerasimyuk's decision to resign voluntarily—the corresponding report from the First Deputy Head of the Prosecutor General's Office was dated December 22, 2014.
On December 25, 2014, the Prosecutor General's Office received a letter from the competent US authorities warning that further delays in the Zlochevsky case would jeopardize all sanctions imposed by the European Union, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein against former high-ranking officials during Viktor Yanukovych's presidency. Kasko hastily reported this in a report to Prosecutor General Yarema.
As a result of the scandal, on December 29, 2014, the "Zlochevsky case" was hastily returned from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Prosecutor's Office, and on the same day, Zlochevsky was charged. All these fluctuations were taken into account by a London court, which granted Zlochevsky's motion and lifted the freeze on his accounts. In his ruling, the judge drew attention to the inconsistency of the Ukrainian prosecutor's office's position: within 27 days, they first issued a letter to the former Minister of Ecology stating his innocence and then issued a notice of suspicion. Thus, Zlochevsky managed to regain control of nearly 500 million hryvnias.
In topic: Why does the devil wear Prada and Zlochevsky wears Zlocci?
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!