Oligarch Pavlo Fuks charged with financial fraud involving strategic companies
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The SBU said that oligarch had illegally seized over UAH 100 billion ($2.7 billion) worth assets of Ukrainian companies since 2018.
Fuks' holding targeted energy, machinery, and metallurgical companies, which had loans from bankrupt banks.
The businessman bought out the "credit obligations" of these companies from banks "for a song", which allowed him to interfere in their business, the SBU said.
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He froze assets of Ukrainian plants and infrastructure facilities, blocked their operations, or forced them into bankruptcy.
Fuks and his accomplices are alleged to have carefully concealed the sources of financing for the transactions and the real customers through a complex financial fraud scheme.
The suspects received excessive profits and evaded taxes, the security service said. Just one of these transactions caused almost UAH 100 million ($2.7 million) losses to the state.
"Based on the evidence collected, Fuks and two top managers of his holding were charged with tax evasion under Part 3 of Article 27, Part 3 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,” the SBU said.
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“The corporate rights and accounts of 101 companies involved in their illegal activities were seized, as well as the rights to claim more than 1,600 repurchased loans, over 240 real estate objects and vehicles of the scheme participants.”
“Some of the seized assets have already been transferred to the management of the ARMA (National Agency of Ukraine for finding, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes)," the security service said in a statement.
The day earlier, the SBU charged another Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash with misappropriation of state gas worth billions of hryvnias. Firtash refuted all the charges and will defend himself in court.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed in June 2021 sanctions on a number of individuals and legal entities, including oligarchs Dmytro Firtash and Pavlo Fuks.
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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
