In Odessa, an official testified against his accomplices in the "Dead Souls" case

In Odesa, the head of a production unit at the municipal enterprise “Housing and Utilities Service ‘Porto-Frankivskyi’” was convicted of fictitious employment. The official pleaded guilty and provided incriminating testimony against other employees of the enterprise.

The Center for Public Investigations examined the details of the case.

According to the case file, from April 2024 to June 2025, the division hired 11 employees who did not actually perform their duties. Among them were plumbers, a carpenter, and general cleaning workers.

The site manager signed timesheets containing false information about these individuals’ work. The documents were forwarded to the accounting department, where salaries were calculated based on them. Meanwhile, the duties of these fictitiously employed workers were actually performed by other employees.

The total amount of losses specified in the case file is approximately 2.5 million hryvnias. Of this amount, 1.6 million hryvnias were in salaries, and another 360,000 hryvnias were in unified social contributions.

In May 2026, the man entered into a plea agreement with the prosecutor. He pleaded guilty and informed investigators of possible illegal actions by other officials at the municipal enterprise. 

Last year,Intent and the Center for Public Investigations examined how the employee rostering system operated in Odesa’s public utilities sector, identifying individuals whose primary activities were not related to public utilities.

Анна Літман