In Kyiv, a former top tax official was detained who created a "conversion center" with a shadow turnover of UAH 1.5 billion.

The Prosecutor’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine have shut down a conversion center in Kyiv with a turnover of UAH 1.5 billion. The scheme was organized by a former high-ranking tax official, UNN writes with reference to the Office of the Prosecutor General and the SBU.

DetailsAs UNN learned from its own sources, this refers to Yevhen Bambizov, who worked at the SFS in 2018-2019 and oversaw the tax direction.

Under the procedural guidance of the Pechersk District Prosecutor’s Office of Kyiv, the activities of a conversion center were exposed and stopped. Its organizers and participants, using fictitious firms, provided enterprises in the real sector of the economy with services for withdrawing funds into shadow circulation, including budget funds.

According to the investigation, in the period 2023-2025, a group of individuals, whose organizer is a lawyer and, in the past, a high-ranking official of the tax authorities of Ukraine, registered a number of firms in Kyiv and Kyiv region that were used to provide enterprises with services for minimizing tax obligations.

In total, the organizer of the criminal scheme created 14 fictitious import enterprises and about 80 “transit” enterprises. For 2023-2025, the total amount of transactions carried out by these firms amounts to over UAH 1.5 billion.

The investigation found that from July 2024 to May 2025, UAH 127 million was credited to the accounts of one of the enterprises controlled by the group for alleged delivery of goods, works, and services, which the director and accountants, controlled by the scheme’s organizer, did not reflect in the tax declarations for VAT.

As a result, there was a deliberate understatement of value-added tax from these operations of their controlled company by UAH 21 million. Subsequently, this money, obtained by criminal means, was transferred to the bank accounts of other controlled enterprises for alleged payment for goods, works, and services without reflection in tax and accounting records. Thus, this money was effectively legalized.

In accordance with the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Criminal Proceeds, Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” expenditure operations on the accounts of economic entities controlled by the organizer have been suspended.

During searches of the case’s defendants, money, seals of controlled enterprises, bank cards, computer equipment, and financial and economic documents recording fictitious operations were seized.

Currently, all five defendants have been detained. They are planned to be notified of suspicion under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:

•  Part 3 of Art. 212 (evasion of taxes, fees (mandatory payments));

• Part 3 of Art. 209 (legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means).

The defendants face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

AdditionProsecutors of the Kharkiv Regional and District Prosecutor’s Offices, together with law enforcement officers, notified 27 individuals involved in abuses of budget funds, illegal seizure of property, environmental crimes, and corruption schemes of suspicion. The total damage to the state and community was estimated at almost UAH 45 million.

The Office of the Prosecutor General, together with the SBU, exposed the owner and commercial director of one of Kyiv’s enterprises who organized a scheme for supplying polymer products to Russia. According to the investigation, the materials were used by state companies and the military sector of the aggressor country.