Ex-deputy prosecutor Dmitro Verbytsky from Odesa exposed for

A former Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine was found guilty of illicit enrichment and entering false information in his declaration. It is Dmytro Verbytskyi from Odesa, who was fired after a corruption scandal.

The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) came to the conclusions about the former Deputy Prosecutor General after a full review of the 2023 declaration.

It was found that the former official had acquired property worth more than UAH 30 million without confirmed sources of income. These are:

• an apartment and a land plot in the Turkish cities of Antalya and Alanya with a total value of over UAH 3.8 million
• a residential manor house together with non-residential premises and a land plot in Odesa, valued at UAH 10 million
• a house and land in Kyiv valued at over UAH 16.3 million.

The total value of the questionably acquired assets amounted to UAH 30 million 266 thousand. The NACP qualifies such actions as illicit enrichment.

In addition, the agency found false data in Verbytskyi's 2023 declaration with a discrepancy of more than UAH 2.3 million, which may be grounds for criminal liability.

The NACP also recorded numerous inconsistencies in the financial activities of the former official's relatives and suspicious transactions involving the transfer of property through third parties.

Even before his official dismissal, Verbytskyi was the subject of journalistic investigations that reported on his alleged involvement in the purchase of luxury real estate.

According to Skhemy, Verbytskyi's nephew purchased a house in a prestigious village near Kyiv for an amount six times less than the market value, which may indicate a scheme to minimize tax liabilities. There were also reports about Verbytskyi's possible girlfriend, Khrystyna Ilnytska, who in May 2024 became the owner of a cottage worth UAH 48 million in Kyiv and shortly before that bought a 2023 Porsche Macan T for USD 100 thousand.

After the publication of the investigations, the NABU showed interest in Verbytskyi. On July 1, 2024, the then Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin signed an order to dismiss the official on his own accord.

In September, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andrii Kostin appointed Dmytro Verbytskyi as his deputy, having previously served as deputy head of the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office from October 2020 to September 2022.

Andriy Kostin himself was appointed Prosecutor General of Ukraine in July 2022, and in October 2024, the Verkhovna Rada approved his resignation.

Ірина Глухова