Kiev court leaves major bank fraud unpunished
Kyiv, July 01 (Navigator, Vladimir Mikhailov) - Expobank employees who robbed depositors of 40 million UAH escaped with a symbolic punishment.
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Today, a verdict was announced in the case of a number of employees of the Machine Tool Branch of Expobank (Kiev), who fraudulently received large sums of money from a number of people. People thought that they were giving away their funds as deposits, but the deposits were not properly registered.
As the coordinator of the civil campaign “Forum for the Rescue of Kyiv” Vitaly Chernyakhovsky explained to the Navigator correspondent, everything happened in the premises of the Expobank branch on Pobedy Avenue (Kyiv).
“Cash receipts were issued, and when a person received some interest on these so-called deposits, cash receipts were issued with the seal of this Expobank branch,” says Vitaly Chernyakhovsky.
According to him, the cash register manager Galina Verba could not have done this if the managers had not covered for her. “They acted in collusion with the director of the Expobank branch and the chief accountant,” says Vitaly Chernyakhovsky.
During the investigation, charges were brought against the director of the Machine Tool Branch of Expobank, Alexander Ostrovsky, and the chief accountant, Alla Khominich. According to the court verdict, they were found guilty of committing fraud and embezzling citizens' money on an especially large scale. The court sentenced the accused to various terms under Article 191, Part 5 (misappropriation of property or taking possession of it through abuse of official position), as well as 365 (abuse of power or official authority), but, nevertheless, they did not receive any real punishment.
“At the very least, this is strange, such sentences raise doubts about the capacity of Ukrainian justice in principle,” says Vitaly Chernyakhovsky. Thus, the director of the branch and the chief accountant were sentenced to three years of suspended imprisonment, with a suspended sentence and a probationary period.
The longest sentence – 10 years – was given to cash desk manager Galina Verba. The court also sentenced her to pay 12 million UAH in favor of the victims. As Vitaly Chernyakhovsky explained, Galina Verba had already served two years in pre-trial detention, this period was credited to her, and she was released under an amnesty.
“She was made extreme,” says Vitaly Chernyakhovsky. “She is a pensioner, and it is clear that it is useless to expect her to pay these 12 million UAH to the victims.”
In addition, it is puzzling that the court left without consideration the claims filed by the victims. “The victims in the criminal case tried to recover from the bank the amounts that were fraudulently taken from them. But, unfortunately, the judge decided differently,” says Vitaly Chernyakhovsky.
“The situation is paradoxical - there seem to be culprits, they were found guilty, but there is no money stolen from people, and no one knows where it is. The bank refuses to compensate the victims for the damage caused, although at the time of the crime all the accused worked at the machine-tool branch of Expobank. It turns out that such sentences encourage fraudsters,” Vitaly Chernyakhovsky is perplexed.
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