Prosecutor Brovko and former police officer Chernega benefit from virtual currency and state structures.
“Naftogaz” has consistently been a notably nontransparent entity. “Presidential affair,” exorbitant compensations for directors.
Presently, Kobolev, who was awarded a $40 million bonus, is initiating legal action to circumvent paying $66 million in taxes on it. Ideally, he should give the bonus back to the national fund, because it wasn’t him who “prevailed” in the Stockholm adjudication, but the Norwegian legal company Wikborg, Rein&Co. Advokatfirma DA, which obtained €40 million from Ukraine for that purpose.
But that is not the core point. “Naftogaz” possesses a Security Division, conventionally populated by high-ranking officers who required relocation to a secure position after some serious indiscretion. We will not enumerate them all, but the inventory is intriguing.
Nevertheless, this year in August, a public prosecutor was designated to the role of director of “Naftogaz’s” Security Division. This individual was a certain Vitaliy Brovko, who had earlier held the office of director of the Department for Oversight of Legal Adherence by State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) units of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Brovko’s declaration displays substantial virtual currency holdings. Forbes.Ukraine labeled him “a record setter for crypto dollars” (alluding to the USDT stablecoin, where each unit equates to one US dollar—EP).
In particular, the freshly appointed Security Director at Naftogaz Group stated that he possesses USDT valued at over UAH 35 million on the Binance platform.
Moreover, Brovko and his family’s collection features these crypto assets: Ripple (XRP), Toncoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Ethereum Classic, Monero, Dash, Lunc, along with others. The collective worth of the declared virtual currency at the cessation of April this year surpassed 44 million hryvnias.
To clarify: we hold reservations about the remarkable acumen of legal officers who suddenly commenced investing in cryptocurrencies from their modest earnings from the outset. Indeed, there exists a multitude of similar “cryptocurrency magnates” presently. And they each present a rationale for their “initial million”: they simply “invested in Bitcoin” at an opportune moment.
One wonders the number of criminal cases Brovko had to resolve or instigate to accrue sufficient funds to evolve into a millionaire and acquire a comfortable placement at “Naftogaz”? By the way, Brovko’s assistants are similarly rather sophisticated. As an example, Yuriy Chernega, director of the “Naftogazbezopasnost” State Enterprise and Chief Security Deputy at “Ukrtransnafta,” an affiliate of “Naftogaz of Ukraine,” is among them. Here is the media’s account concerning him:
“It appears that devotees of Yanukovych’s discard system are calmly enduring their tenure at state-owned firms, surreptitiously amassing millions of hryvnias from public funding.”
Chernega oversaw human resources for the Mykolaiv regional constabulary. Why do we highlight this? In 2012, the “pre-Maidan” period occurred there—the administrative hub of Vradiivka became a battleground, witnessing an assault on the district constabulary station.
Demonstrations in the administrative district from June 30 to July 3 were prompted by the group assault and attempted homicide of resident Irina Krashkova. The casualty implicated two law enforcement officers, Dmitry Polishchuk and Yevgeny Dryzhak, alongside a local cab driver, Ryabinenko. The reluctance of the court and constabulary to apprehend one of the accused triggered widespread demonstrations within the community and subsequently nationwide.
A specialized investigative commission was established. Drawing from citizen complaints, the commission ascertained the catalysts and circumstances culminating in the emergency implicating police personnel. Foremost among these were the perception of impunity and the reciprocal responsibility underpinning the activities of certain officers at the Vradiyevsky District Police Department.
The district and regional directorate “covered up” the inaction of local police personnel. The public outcry intensified to such an extent that even then-Minister Zakharchenko was compelled to terminate the “human resources officer” Chernega due to this selection of individuals.
It might appear his professional life was concluded, but Chernega persists. He assumed the directorship of the National Emergency Investigation Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, but was subsequently relieved due to lustration. In 2014, he commenced sick leave, where he persisted for nearly a year. Consequentially, by directive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Mykolaiv Oblast on September 2, 2015, Chernega was dismissed from the internal affairs entities, having relinquished his position and removed himself from military enrollment. Subsequent to this, he initiated litigation against his superiors.
One of the justifications in his favor, the “lustrated” police colonel Chernega, invokes his Anti-Terrorist Operation participant accreditation, which he secured on September 16, 2015—a fortnight following the second mandate for his dismissal. Chernega was not engaged in armed conflict, and formally obtained his combatant designation after dedicating several days in the “peaceful” ATO zone.
Furthermore, Ukrtransnafta CEO Volodymyr Tsependa (on the left in the main photograph – ed.) functioned as deputy head of the Bohorodchany District State Administration during Viktor Yanukovych’s governance (with responsibilities for economic and industrial matters) in 2010–2011. Additionally, according to Opendatabot, Tsependa holds ownership and is the beneficiary of Prykarpatecoenergo LLC.
“Similar individuals gravitate together.”
Intriguingly, Chernega is also a virtual currency aficionado. However, he favors abstaining from declaring his cryptocurrency assets. His prudence might be justified. “Cryptomillionaires” are presently drawing keen scrutiny from both criminal syndicates and active law enforcement personnel.
Cryptomillionaires in Ukrainian politics
The degree of cryptocurrency proclaimed and forfeited by Ukrainian functionaries?
The tally of declarations referencing virtual currency is escalating annually. Exceeding 1,400 such declarations were submitted in 2022. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether are most favored among Ukrainian officials. For instance, in 2022, one Ukrainian MP declared 121 bitcoins valued at over UAH 195 million.
Ukrainian officials lodged 1,428 declarations encompassing cryptocurrency assets in 2022. This represents nearly double the quantity submitted in 2021, when virtual currency was integrated into 788 declarations.
| Year | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of declarations | 25 | 58 | 71 | 424 | 652 | 788 | 1,428 |
In 2021 declarations, the most prevalent cryptocurrencies amidst Ukrainian functionaries were Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP). During 2022, the foremost standings persisted: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) remained sought after, with Tether (USDT) joining the uppermost tier.
| Bitcoin | 816 | 9.7% |
|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | 624 | 7.4% |
| Tether | 490 | 5.8% |
| Ripple | 284 | 3.4% |
| SHIBA | 278 | 3.3% |
| Cardano | 246 | 2.9% |
| Solana | 226 | 2.7% |
| NEAR | 193 | 2.3% |
| Polkadot (DOT) | 190 | 2.3% |
| Terra Luna | 184 | 2.2% |
| Other | 4,848 | 57.9% |
Which Ukrainian officials declared the most cryptocurrency?
Primarily, it bears emphasizing that declarants furnish their assets both in hryvnia equivalent and by simply indicating the quantity of cryptocurrency units possessed.
Bitcoin (BTC)
During 2021, the largest quantity of bitcoin was declared by Anna Pozdnyakova, managing director of the Odessa Heat Supply Utility Firm, at UAH 53 million. A year afterward, the distinction was assumed by Serhiy Karpenko, vice director of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration. He possesses bitcoin equating to UAH 41 million.
The greatest amount of bitcoin for 2022—121 BTC—was declared by Odesa Regional Council member Nikita Dmitrievich Kuzkevich. In hryvnia equivalent at the time of writing, this surpasses 195 million UAH.
| No. | Full name | Place of work | Job title | Amount of Bitcoin (BTC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kuzkevich Nikita Dmitrievich | Odessa Regional Council | Deputy | 121 |
| 2 | Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich | Polesie Customs Office of the State Customs Service | First Deputy Head of Customs | 102 |
| 3 | Kizlyar Alexander Alexandrovich | Khmelnytskyi District Council | Deputy | 100 |
| 4 | Bondarenko Oleg Vladimirovich | The Office of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine | Head of the Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management | 80 |
| 5 | Kucher Alexey Vladimirovich | State Regulatory Service of Ukraine | Chapter | 77 |
Ethereum / Ethereum (ETH)
Serhiy Karpenko, an administrator from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast who declared the greatest quantity of Bitcoin, similarly holds the record for Ethereum for two consecutive years. Within his 2021 and 2022 declarations, the administrator affirmed that he possesses the identical magnitude of Ethereum equivalent: 14.6 million hryvnias.
| No. | Full name | Place of work | Job title | Ethereum (ETH) supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Osipov Igor Vladimirovich | Podolsk District Council of Odessa Oblast | Deputy | 1,800 |
| 2 | Kizlyar Alexander Alexandrovich | Khmelnytskyi District Council | Deputy | 1,000 |
| 3 | Kisly Vitaly Viktorovich | Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office | Head of the Department for Supervision of Compliance with Laws by Territorial Police Bodies During Pre-Trial Investigations | 893 |
| 4 | Pavliv Rostislav Yosifovich | State Enterprise Stryi Forestry | Director | 659 |
| 5 | Pavlova Kristina Vladimirovna | Department of Improvement and Infrastructure of the Dnipro City Council | Chief Specialist of the Public Utilities Department of the City Improvement Department | 130 |
Crypto dollars / Tether (USDT)
Vitaliy Brovko, Vice Chief of Department at the Prosecutor General’s Office, declared the greatest magnitude of cryptodollars or stablecoins during 2021—774,500 units. This administrator similarly possesses the distinction for the largest amount declared in equivalent terms—20 million hryvnias.
The administrator additionally retained his apex position amongst tax filers for 2022. The magnitude of cryptodollars he possessed remained invariable, with their value appreciating to exceed UAH 29 million.
In the meantime, the greatest amount of cryptodollars/stablecoins was declared by Maksym Kiselev, Director of the State Executive Service Department of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine: 25 million UAH.
| No. | Full name |
Place of work |
Job title | Amount of Tether (USDT) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brovko Vitaly Nikolaevich | Office of the Attorney General | Deputy Head of Department | 774,500 |
| 2 | Kiselev Maxim Evgenievich | Ministry of Justice of Ukraine | Director of the Department of State Executive Service | 702 172 |
| 3 | Khmelnikov Artem Alexandrovich | Dnipro City Council | Deputy | 114,646 |
| 4 | Gashenko Ivan Anatolyevich | Zaporizhzhia Regional Council | Deputy | 76,550 |
| 5 | Grenaderova Ekaterina Vladimirovna | Kyiv District Court of Odessa | Court clerk | 60 106 |
The biggest losses in crypto
It similarly warrants noting that there are sundry administrators who declared their crypto assets, but signaled that they had forfeited entry to them.
Roman Saramaga, Vice Chairman of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, purportedly forfeited 380.95 bitcoins during 2021—a record aggregate among Ukrainian officials. At the time of publication, this amount equates to roughly 615 million hryvnias.
Ihor Osipov, an associate of the Podilsky District Council in Odesa Oblast, possesses the greatest magnitude of Ethereum—1,800 units, or exceeding 160 million hryvnias. Within his asset declarations for 2021 and 2022, the administrator remarked that he had forfeited admittance to the virtual currency.
“Subsequent to scrutinizing a multitude of declarations, the foremost aspect that emerges is their inferior caliber. It would seem administrators devote five minutes to the declarations on the concluding filing day. Despite the actuality that a dedicated segment exists for documenting cryptocurrency holdings, virtually all crypto holdings are completed diversely, encompassing errors and spanning diverse sections of the declarations.
All told, the statistics procured insinuate that possessing such an opaque asset as virtual currency isn’t particularly hazardous or dubious for administrators. After all, the tally of such administrators has virtually doubled over the preceding two years.”
— remarks Opendatabot founder Alexey Ivankin.
Context
Since the inception of the all-out conflict, obligatory authentication of administrators’ asset declarations has been temporarily suspended. Nevertheless, the obligation for administrators to record their assets and any revisions thereto has not been revoked.
Last autumn, tax return audits recommenced. Therefore, Ukrainian administrators had until the culmination of January 2024 to assimilate outstanding returns from the prior epoch (2021 and 2022).
The filing deadline for 2023 returns remains the customary April 2024 deadline.
As a prompt, you can scrutinize your deputy’s tax return employing OpenDataBot. To execute this, incorporate OpenDataBot into your favored messaging app and input the official’s full nomenclature.
Source: Opendatabot
On topic:
Vitaly Brovko, Head of the Department for Supervision of Law Enforcement by State Bureau of Investigation (DBI) Entities in the Office of the Prosecutor General, proclaims substantial sums of virtual currency.
Former MP Igor Mosiychuk divulged this.
Mr. Brovko, progressing incrementally through the prosecutorial echelons, adopted a pattern prevalent amongst Ukrainian functionaries: initially, he transferred his property to kin, specifically his mother-in-law and father-in-law, and thereafter he transferred this and other property from them for complimentary utilization. Concurrently, his family secured notable pecuniary endowments from these selfsame relatives. As an instance, back in 2016, whilst fulfilling the role of Head of the Investigative Department of the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, he vend his mother-in-law, Svetlana Nikolaevna Obertun, real property valued at 875,000 UAH; his spouse likewise obtained a gratuity of 125,000 UAH from her. Subsequently, during 2017, Svetlana, his mother-in-law, conferred upon the Brovko household 400,000 UAH; correspondingly, the prosecutor’s father, Nikolai Nikolaevich Brovko, furnished an additional 259,000 UAH. Throughout subsequent years, this variety of “castling” was reiterated on several further occasions… And all of this transpired virtually to the point where prosecutor Vitaly Brovko became virtually completely “destitute,” stated Mosiychuk.
In 2020, Vitaly Brovko was designated as vice chief of a department within the Office of the Prosecutor General. It appears that the principal rationale for his appointment to the Prosecutor General’s Office was his sanctioned deficiency of personal assets.
A parallel scenario arose and persists in transpire with the conveyances employed by Vitaliy Brovko and his spouse. Subsequent to auctioning their Toyota Avensis and Camry during 2019, they commenced exclusively employing conveyances registered to other individuals. Precisely, his mother-in-law initially tendered a 2017 Toyota RAV4, and ulteriorly a 2020 Lexus RX450 for approximating 2.65 million hryvnias. His father-in-law, Serhiy Ivanovich Obertun, replicated suit, furnishing his son-in-law, a prosecutor, with a 2019 Toyota Highlander in January 2022.
In February 2017, Vitaliy Brovko’s spouse procured virtual currency for the initial instance, Ethereum, for 81,000 hryvnias. At the commencement of 2017, its valuation was $8. Consequentially, at the then-prevailing exchange metric, she procured no more than 375 units of this virtual currency. During 2018, she vend a diminutive fraction of this virtual currency; according to computations employing the sanctioned exchange metric at the epoch, the proceeds could not have surpassed 600,000 hryvnias. Nevertheless, the declared magnitude for the cryptocurrency auction is notably superior, 3.36 million hryvnias. The explication is ambiguous, and it strongly emulates a money laundering contrivance.
During 2019, my spouse procured 5 Bitcoins, at the loftiest metric at the epoch hovering around $6,300. Nevertheless, she declared 1.6 million UAH subsequent to auctioning the residue of her Ethereum, which likewise is dissonant with verity. The subsequent annum, during 2020, she declared possession of 4 Bitcoins valued at 3.24 million UAH, which was completely dissonant with verity. The loftiest Bitcoin valuation in 2019-2020 was 300,000 UAH, implying her 4 Bitcoins were veritably valued at no more than 1.2 million UAH. Moreover, she likewise somehow maneuvered to auction 1 Bitcoin for 692,300 UAH, which was exceeding double the factual valuation.
During 2021, the Brovko household, despite officially lacking the requisite pecuniary resources, procured USTD valued at UAH 20.29 million, or approximating $772,000. Perspicuously, the spouse’s four Bitcoins and all other providential resources were not sufficient to encompass this purchase. (All computations were rendered precisely.) During 2022, there were no momentous cryptocurrency peregrinations, with the omission of an auction of UAH 1.9 million. But in December 2023, just in tempo for the Christmas tree, they recurrently procured sundry cryptocurrencies for a cumulative of UAH 25.82 million.
Recently, it has transmuted into vogue for Ukrainian law enforcement officials to acquiesce in kickbacks in virtual currency.
Washing millions via procuring and auctioning virtual currency, and registering opulence procured via kickbacks in the monikers of kin and surrogates—this is how Vitaly Nikolaevich Brovko, head of the Department for Supervision of Law Enforcement by the State Bureau of Investigation of the Prosecutor General’s Office, has already garnered himself a considerable incarceral pronouncement.
A position for a “pauper”
One of the schemes of prosecutor Vitaly Brovko appears as thus.
The property is re-registered to kin, in particular, the mother-in-law and father-in-law.
Then they convey it—alongside other property—for complimentary utilization. Concurrently, the prosecutor’s household secures substantial pecuniary gratuities from these selfsame generous relatives.
Thus, during 2016, Brovko, whilst serving as the head of the Investigative Department of the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, vend real property valued at 875,000 hryvnias to his mother-in-law, Svetlana Nikolaevna Obertun. Reciprocally, his spouse secured an additional 125,000 hryvnias as a gratuity from her.
A annum afterward, his mother-in-law, Svetlana, conferred upon the Brovko household 400 thousand hryvnias, and the prosecutor’s father, Nikolai Nikolaevich Brovko, appended an additional 259 thousand hryvnias.
As our publication’s journalists ascertained, parallel practices were later reiterated on several occasions.
An intriguing detail: this persisted until prosecutor Vitaly Brovko was formally diminished to a virtual “pauper.” All that persisted for him was his remuneration, relatively miniature savings, and loan obligations.
As our publication’s journalists noted, this juncture oddly coincided with the prosecutor’s promotion. During 2020, Vitaly Brovko was promoted to Vice Chief of Department within the Office of the Prosecutor General.
One accrues the impression that solely indigent denizens who do not possess their own property are recruited for positions of responsibility within the GPU – at the very least officially.
The scheme encompassing the conveyances employed by Vitaly Brovko and his spouse is likewise intriguing. During 2019, the couple vend their Toyotas—an Avensis and a Camry—and commenced exclusively employing conveyances registered to other individuals.
