State-owned vessels scheme: former heads of state-owned enterprises suspected of fraud that cost the budget UAH 17 million

Former officials subordinate to the State Fisheries Agency leased vessels to a private company on terms that led to multimillion-dollar losses.

National Police investigators have uncovered a large-scale scheme to embezzle state property. This was reported by the press service of the National Police of Ukraine.

These are officials of the state-owned enterprises “Service” and “Maritime Administration of the Black Sea Fishing Port”. In 2020, they transferred three tankers and a boat to a private company for use for 16 million hryvnias cheaper than the market value.

The contracts also provided that the charterer’s repair costs would be automatically credited as rent, which effectively reduced budget revenues to zero.

To make this scheme appear legal, the defendants involved a controlled valuation company that prepared knowingly false reports on the value of the vessels.

As a result, state-owned vessels have “decreased in price” several times:

• tanker “Tamansky” — from over 35 million UAH to 4.2 million UAH;

• tanker “Vostochny” — from 19 million to 3.6 million UAH;

• tanker “Yuzhny” — from 16 million to 1.8 million UAH;

• boat “Sadko-2” — from over 1.2 million to 396 thousand UAH.

As a result, according to forensic assessments, the state received less than 16.7 million UAH, and the undervalued value of the vessels on paper led to losses of more than 61 million UAH.

Law enforcement officers conducted searches in Kyiv, Kyiv and Odesa regions, seized documents, data carriers and other evidence. Two former heads of enterprises have already been reported on suspicion under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — abuse of official position with grave consequences. They face up to six years in prison.

As USM wrote, the Supreme Court of Ukraine previously closed the case of former Minister of Infrastructure Pyvovarskyi.