An official from the Mykolaiv region stole money and fled abroad

From a position on a village council to being wanted internationally—the story of an official from the Mykolaiv region ended with a court sentence and his flight abroad. Investigators believe that over the course of several years, he used his official authority to enrich himself illegally.

This was reported by the Center for Public Investigations.

According to the case file, in 2023, Oleksandr Tsymakh, head of the “Center for Administrative Services” department at the Sofiivka Village Council and the official responsible for procurement, organized a scheme to embezzle nearly 450,000 hryvnias allocated for the repair of the community’s administrative building’s roof.

According to the investigation, the construction materials were actually delivered, but the budget funds were transferred to another contractor based on forged documents. Law enforcement officials claim that this money subsequently came under the official’s control.

The court also concluded that the official defrauded a local resident of more than 1.07 million hryvnias. The victim transferred funds to purchase a tractor and a disc harrow, but never received either the equipment or the money.

A separate incident involved the misappropriation of a work laptop worth over 6,000 hryvnias. In addition, the investigation established that the official traveled abroad three times using forged documents purporting to be official business trips to Chisinau to address humanitarian aid issues.

According to law enforcement officials, he spent part of the illegally obtained funds on the purchase of a BMW X5 for 400,000 hryvnias. This served as the basis for the charge of laundering proceeds obtained by criminal means.

The court sentenced Tsymakhto eight years in prison with the confiscation of all his property. At the same time, according to the State Border Guard Service, he left Ukraine on October 27, 2023, and never returned. In November 2024, an international arrest warrant was issued for him.

In addition, multimillion-dollar deals by the “Mykolaiv Parks” municipal enterprise have come under the scrutiny of law enforcement. Investigators are examining whether funds were illegally diverted from the Mykolaiv community budget through these procurement transactions.

Анна Бальчінос