The High Anti-Corruption Court took ex-MP Serhii Pashynskyi into custody. He appears in the criminal case on the misappropriation of “Kurchenko’s oil products,” namely the oil products of the seized Odesa Oil Refinery.
The refinery’s petroleum products, which were imported by the East European Fuel and Energy Company group of companies controlled by the oligarch Serhii Kurchenko, were seized back in 2014. In 2015, the seizure was canceled, and petroleum products “disappeared.”
Find out from the article why this happened and what the consequences were.
What oil products are we talking about?
The so-called “Kurchenko’s oil products” were stored at the Odesa Oil Refinery, the Kherson oil transshipment complex, and an oil depot in Vasylkiv. They were planned to be sold under the “disrupted transit” scheme; legally, they had to pass through Ukraine, but instead they were to be sold here. Through these actions, the criminals planned to avoid paying various taxes and fees.
But the scheme was not realized because oil products were seized as material evidence, and Kurchenko, an oligarch of the times of Yanukovych, fled abroad after the Revolution of Dignity.
Instead, Serhii Tyshchenko, the head of the Factor group of companies, and Serhii Pashynskyi, the ex-MP and then de facto head of the Presidential Administration, had, according to the investigation, a criminal plan to seize oil products. To this end, they involved a number of managers of companies controlled by a co-organizer, businessman Tyshchenko.
Kurchenko’s oil products were the subject of interest of many businessmen; this information was also confirmed by some witnesses from the NABU side. So, it is not surprising that the seizure of this asset could be curated in the highest departments.
Kurchenko's oil products were the subject of interest of many businessmen; this information was also confirmed by some witnesses from the NABU side.
What was to happen to petroleum products?
The scheme boiled down to the fact that petroleum products were removed from storage at the Odesa Oil Refinery, the Kherson oil transshipment complex, and the oil depot in Vasylkiv. Then they fell under the control of the state enterprise Ukrtransnaftoprodukt.
For this, Tyshchenko and Pashynskyi needed to lobby for changes to the Procedure for the Realization of Physical Evidence. In addition to these changes, the suspects wanted to change the order of receipt of proceeds from the sold assets to the state budget, allowing to postpone payments.
The draft of these changes was even able to pass the approval of a number of departments, but the obstacle was the negative conclusion of Ruslan Riaboshapka, the then Deputy Minister of Justice. It was because of this that the Prime Minister did not approve the changes, so they did not come into force. But according to law enforcement officers, Pashynskyi and Tyshchenko still found a convenient SE Ukrtransnaftoprodukt, which at that time had a small staff and worked only to pay wages.
To arrange the transfer of petroleum products, the defendants negotiated with law enforcement officers. As a result, investigators in Odesa were entrusted with investigating the case of Kurchenko. They appealed to the court with a request to transfer the seized raw materials to this enterprise. In November, the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv transferred the oil assets to the SE.
By the way, even then, Andrii Fedur, one of Serhii Kurchenko’s defenders, who currently represents Serhii Pashynskyi in court, wrote that oil from the Odesa Oil Refinery worth “tens of millions of hryvnias” can be stolen.
After that, the defendants organized the signing of a contract for the sale of seized petroleum products between SE Ukrtransnaftoproduct and LLC Ukroilproduct controlled by Tyshchenko with the possibility of deferring payments for 2 years and a reduced cost, which was explained by the “forced sale.”
The proceeds from the sale were withdrawn to the Fortuna bank of Tyshchenko’s mother through LLC Etanik Strong and LLC Trade Invest Company, both controlled by Tyshchenko. Subsequently, the bank was declared insolvent, so part of the funds paid for petroleum products simply disappeared. As a result, the state suffered losses of UAH 967 million.
The NABU also states that Pashynskyi and Tyshchenko tried to purchase other oil products from Belarus and Russia to mask the disappearance of seized oil assets. Subsequently, the newly purchased oil products were sold to the state for the needs of the army; However, according to the investigation, they were sold at inflated prices.
The proceeds from the sale were withdrawn to the Fortuna bank of Tyshchenko's mother through LLC Etanik Strong and LLC Trade Invest Company, both controlled by Tyshchenko.
