Detained judge hid $115,000 in cash at home, NABU finds

National Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (NABU) detectives found $115,000 in cash hidden in coffee packages at the residence of Ihor Palenyk, a judge of Kyiv Court of Appeal, charged with bribery in the case of the ex-head of Ukraine’s industrial enterprise Motor Sich, Vyacheslav Boguslayev, the Anti-Corruption Center reported via Telegram on Dec 5.

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Palenyk, during a meeting with another judge, Yuriy Slyva, who was also previously detained on suspicion of corruption, went to the closet and gave his colleague a bag of coffee with the words: "Very good coffee, instant, you used to give it to me, so now I'm giving it to you."

“Palenyk lives in Lviv; he travels to Lviv all the time and brings coffee. For me, for my colleagues, for my retired colleagues,” Slyva said in court, claiming he did not know that the package contained cash.

“If you pay attention to the video cameras, you can see that his apartment is full of coffee.”

Slyva later admitted he tried to conceal the apparent bribe.

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“I started hiding the money, hiding it behind my belt; I thought everything was okay; but you can't hide anything from NABU – they found it,” he said.

Read also: Ukraine seizes $320 million in assets of former Motor Sich leadership

The prosecutor will ask for Palenyk's arrest on bail of almost UAH 7 million (nearly $200,000).

Four judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal were detained on Nov. 30, including Yuriy Slyva, Viacheslav Dziubin, Ihor Palenyk, and the court’s deputy chairman, Viktor Hlynianyi. They are suspected of receiving bribes for the decision to cancel asset forfeiture in the Boguslayev case.

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