The scandal of the “disability” of 50 prosecutors: Prosecutor General’s Office launches investigation
16 October 23:27The Prosecutor General’s Office has responded to the scandal surrounding the head of the Khmelnytsky MSEC, Tetiana Krupa, who issued “disability” certificates to 50 prosecutors. An investigation into this fact has been launched. This was reported by Komersant Ukrainian with reference to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“In connection with the dissemination of information about 50 prosecutors of the Khmelnytsky Regional Prosecutor’s Office receiving disability groups, the Prosecutor General signed an order to conduct an internal investigation,” the report said.
According to the agency, the inspection will affect not only prosecutors of the Khmelnytsky Regional Prosecutor’s Office, but also other bodies.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has already set up a commission that has begun collecting information and documents to establish all the circumstances.
The scandal of the ‘disability’ of 50 prosecutors
This refers to the publication of the editor-in-chief of Censor.Net, Yuriy Butusov, who stated that the prosecutor of Khmelnytsky region and 49 of his subordinates had allegedly obtained “fake disability”.
Media journalists learned that almost all the prosecutors of Khmelnytskyi region were found to be disabled of the 2nd group, according to the decision of the chief doctor of the MSEC, Tatiana Krupa. They have been receiving disability pensions from the state for years and continue to do so, according to the decisions of the head of the Pension Fund, Oleksandr Krupa, the son of the corruption suspect.
“During a search of Krupa’s workplace at the regional medical examination commission, the State Bureau of Investigation found $104,000, which Krupa received from 30 people between 2 and 4 October, i.e. approximately $3,000 to $4,000 per person for obtaining a disability certificate. The corruption scheme worked on a daily and massive scale, on a first-come, first-served basis,” Butusov wrote.
What was the corruption “scheme” of Tetiana Krupa?
Yurii Butusov explains that the essence of the scheme was that Tetiana Krupa’s disability was most often registered by women. After all, if a disabled wife has a disabled husband, the husband takes care of the disabled person and thus is automatically excluded from the list of those eligible for mobilisation. And the statistics of evaders are concealed, because no one would notice that women are the ones who register disability.
“Corruption has become an instrument of anti-state actions in the region to disrupt mobilisation,” Butusov is convinced.
Why corruption schemes were exposed not by local law enforcement, but by the State Bureau of Investigation
The editor-in-chief of Censor.NET claims that the law enforcement agencies of Khmelnytskyi region were aware of the large-scale system created by Tetiana Krupa and were complicit in the corruption schemes.
Out of all the leadership of the Khmelnytskyi regional prosecutor’s office and its structural units, only one prosecutor, Oleksandr Honchar, the head of the Kamianets-Podilskyi district prosecutor’s office, did not take a pension from Krupa.
Which of the prosecutors in Khmelnytskyi region have registered their disability
According to the decision of the MSEC, there are almost no healthy prosecutors left in Khmelnytskyi region. If we calculate the total amount of pensions received by the 50 disabled prosecutors we identified from taxpayers, it amounts to at least UAH 54.1 million.
They have been granted the status of a disabled person:
- Oleksiy Leonidovych Oliinyk, prosecutor of Khmelnytskyi region;
- Iryna Oleksandrivna Oliinyk, the wife of the regional prosecutor, the prosecutor of the Khmelnytsky region prosecutor’s office until 2024, according to our data, she has now been transferred to the regional TCC of the Ministry of Defense;
- Oleksandr Hryhorovych Martyniuk, head of the prosecutor’s office department;
- Serhiy Stanislavovych Nagrebetskyi, Deputy Head of the Prosecutor’s Office Department;
- Oliynyk Roman Volodymyrovych, head of the Shepetiv District Prosecutor’s Office;
- Galus Oleg Petrovych, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Oleksiy Petrovych Lugovy, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Lazarenko Volodymyr Volodymyrovych, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Shcherbatiuk Oleksandr Yevhenovich, head of the prosecutor’s office department, according to our information, he is currently one of the leaders in the state penitentiary service;
- Nikityuk Petro Hryhorovych, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Oleh Oleksandrovych Shpak, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Sidelnikov Ruslan Viktorovych, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Mykhailo Pavlovich Voytiuk, head of the regional prosecutor’s department;
- Oleg Petrovych Kozlyuk, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Volodymyr Volodymyrovych Kokhanskyi, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Mykola Vasyliovych Maksymchuk, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Ihor Mykhailovych Barakhtenko, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Oleg Mykolayovych Lviv, head of the department of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Olga Petrivna Veselovska, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Sarelo Volodymyr Petrovych, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Oksana Omelyanivna Lisova, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Roman Leonidovych Romanyuk, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Vitaliy Oleksandrovych Balyuk, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Yulia Anatoliivna Lun, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Vitaly Ihorovych Pronozyuk, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Halyshuk, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Olga Oleksiivna Yaremchuk, prosecutor of the regional prosecutor’s office;
- Oleksandr Viktorovych Bazan, head of the district prosecutor’s office;
- Oliynyk Roman Volodymyrovych, head of the district prosecutor’s office;
- Serhii Ivanovych Stetsyuk, head of the Volochysk District Prosecutor’s Office;
- Komar Ivan Vasyliovych, head of the district prosecutor’s office of the city of Khmelnytskyi;
- Oleksandr Tsezarovych Terletsky, deputy head of the district prosecutor’s office;
- Bandura Boris Borisovych;
- Yuriy Mykhailovych Zubyk;
- Arseniuk Viktor Mykolayovych;
- Lysyuk Ivan Viktorovych;
- Oleksandr Ivanovych Zaremba;
- Mykhailo Anatoliyovych Polishchuk;
- Andriy Stanislavovych the Blessed;
- Evgeny Oleksandrovich Vytiuk;
- Tatyana Evgenivna Bodnaruk;
- Skrynnyk Maksym Vadimovych;
- Lutak Bohdan Vasyliovych;
- Kushnir Dmytro Volodymyrovych;
- Iryna Mykolaivna Guchynska;
- Yuriy Antonovych Tuz;
- Lyubov Volodymyrivna Vasilieva;
- Vitaly Mykolayovych Prokopchuk, prosecutor of the District Prosecutor’s Office;
- Marina Vasylievna Pitel;
- Serhii Anatoliyovych Sukhorebry, prosecutor of the Letychiv district prosecutor’s office;
- Nakonechnyi Serhii Oleksandrovych, head of the Khmelnytskyi District Prosecutor’s Office.
UPDATED
In this list, under number 5, Yuriy Butusov entered Romas Serhiy Ivanovich, head of the regional prosecutor’s department.
The prosecutor’s office informed Komersant.Info that Butusov made a mistake.
“Butusov made a mistake by writing under point 5 – S.I. Romasya, who is not and has never been disabled, but receives a pension based on years of service, therefore, accordingly, he reflects in the declaration the amount of the received pension, which is three times less than the disability pension (7148 UAH.). The author corrected it within an hour,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Why did prosecutors need the status of a disabled person?
According to Butusov, prosecutors do not need disability dividends as cash payments. Each prosecutor in the region has dozens of hectares of land, apartments, houses, cars. But, according to labour law, disabled people have a preference in employment and are much harder to fire when moving from position to position. The presence of a disabled spouse is an additional reason to prevent a prosecutor from being transferred from his or her “home” region, where he or she has all the acquaintances, property, and flows, to some other region that is not as “convenient”.
What is known about the case of Tatiana Krupa
on 4 October, it became known that law enforcement officers had exposed the head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Medical and Social Expertise Centre (MSEC) and her son, who holds a senior position in the regional Pension Fund administration, for illegal enrichment. During the searches, almost $6 million in cash in various currencies was found in their possession.
In Tetiana Krupa’s office, law enforcement officers found $100,000, a number of forged medical documents, and lists of tax evaders with fake names and fake diagnoses. During the investigation, the official tried to get rid of some of the money by throwing two bags with half a million dollars out the window.
It has been established that Tetiana Krupa and her son Oleksandr did not include all this money in their annual declarations of persons authorised to perform state functions.
The officials are being served suspicion notices of fraud committed on a particularly large scale or by an organised group, legalisation of the proceeds of crime by prior conspiracy on a large scale, declaration of false information and illicit enrichment (Article 190(5), Article 209(2), Article 366-2, Article 368-5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The sanction of the articles provides for imprisonment for up to 12 years with confiscation of all property.
Moreover, during the search of Tatiana Krupa’s house, not only a large amount of cash was found, but also valuable jewellery. In particular, a Rolex watch and Dior earrings.
It should be noted that recently new details in the case of Tatiana Krupa have become known. The text of the Pechersk District Court’s ruling on Krupa’s arrest (the officials chose a preventive measure in the form of detention with the possibility of bail in the amount of UAH 500 million) refers to the substantial savings of the official’s family, which were kept in foreign banks and were not reflected in the electronic declaration for 2023.
It is about $590 thousand (or UAH 21.5 million at the NBU exchange rate at the time of the transaction) that Tetiana Krupa transferred to the account of the Polish bank Pekao (Bank Polska Kasa Opieki).
In addition, the official’s husband Volodymyr Krupa kept funds in Polish banks. In total, he accrued 11.3 thousand euros and $1.2 million. He also failed to include the listed funds in his wife’s declaration.
As a reminder, law enforcement officers detained and served a notice of suspicion of illicit enrichment to the head of the Khmelnytsky Regional Centre for Medical and Social Expertise, from whom almost $6 million was seized.
Recently, as part of the pre-trial investigation, the State Bureau of Investigation began to study lists with fictitious diagnoses of men found during searches in the office of Tetiana Krupa, head of the Khmelnytsky Regional Centre for Medical and Social Expertise. According to the SBI, these lists contained names and fictitious diagnoses.