Case on conspiracy of exporter and customs officers to evade taxes sent to court in Odesa

Detectives of the Main Detective Unit of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine have completed a pre-trial investigation against officials of the Odesa Customs customs posts and the head of an exporting company in a case of tax evasion on a particularly large scale.

According to the BES press service, detectives exposed current and former Odesa Customs officials for abuse of office, which allowed the sunflower export company to evade paying over UAH 13 million in taxes.

Investigators insist that customs officials issued certificates of origin to the exporting company based on documents containing false information.

These certificates were later used by the exporter to freely export agricultural products and evade taxes by reducing export duties from 10% to 3.6% and 2.7%. In this way, the state budget suffered more than UAH 13 million in losses.

During the pre-trial investigation, the Bureau's detectives served six participants of the scheme suspicion notices. The pre-trial investigation on the grounds of criminal offenses stipulated by Part 3 of Article 212, Part 2 of Article 364, Part 2 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine has been completed. The defense was provided with the case file for review.

Meanwhile, the State Bureau of Investigation completed a pre-trial investigation in Odesa region against an entrepreneur involved in a scheme to extort grain corridor exporters. In early April 2024, SBI officers detained an entrepreneur and two officials of the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia regions who organized a corruption scheme to extort money for issuing phytosanitary certificates and other documents for barley and corn exports.

Кирило Бойко