In Ukraine, the investigation into the scam of “the forester Yanukovych” was put on hold.
The investigation into the case of the former head of the State Forest Resources Agency, Viktor Sivts, and his wife, Russian woman Marina Zhuravleva, has been stopped, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
This was reported by the prosecutor of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office Natalya Vysotskaya.
“The NABU investigation into the case of Sivets and Zhuravleva has been stopped until they are detained or put on Interpol’s wanted list,” she said.
The prosecutor noted that the Solomensky District Court of Kyiv gave permission to detain Sivets and Zhuravleva back in the summer for the purpose of bringing them to court to participate in the consideration of the petition to select a preventive measure.
“They are abroad all the time, so we cannot use this right, but we took a different path,” Vysotskaya said.
According to her, SAPO applied to the court with a request to arrest the suspects, which is a necessary condition for putting Interpol on the wanted list. The Solomensky District Court did not satisfy both requests for detention of Sivets and Zhuravleva. The prosecutor's office appealed these decisions.
The Kyiv Court of Appeal did not allow the choice of a preventive measure for Sivts. The court granted a similar petition regarding Zhuravleva at a hearing on October 29.
“To put them on the international wanted list of Interpol, a court decision is needed to select a preventive measure in the form of detention. The Solomensky court denied this to us, the Court of Appeal granted it only for Zhuravleva,” explains the prosecutor.
According to Vysotskaya, for now the investigation is “moving in the direction of convicting Sivets and Zhuravleva in absentia, and their property in Ukraine remains under arrest.
In 2016, the GPU reported suspicion to Viktor Sivets. He is suspected of obtaining illegal benefits and money laundering. Later, the court arrested houses, cars and corporate rights that belonged to the family of the ex-head of the State Forestry Agency, as well as the funds of Viktor Sivets and his wife in a Swiss bank.
In 2017, Interpol removed Sivets from the international wanted list due to the refusal of the Pechersk court to take him into custody.
The GPU claims that in 2011-2014. Viktor Sivets, as chairman of the State Agency for Forest Resources, with the complicity of his wife, received undue benefits from foreign enterprises for the purchase of forest products in Ukraine.
The amount of unlawful benefit to the family of the former head of the State Forestry Agency was previously estimated at $12,8 million and 24,5 million euros. According to investigators, these funds were later legalized through offshore companies.
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