Odesa Customs Officials Charged with ₴13M Tax Evasion Scheme

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

According to the BES press service, the customs officers were found to have abused their official position, which allowed the sunflower export company to evade paying more than UAH 13 million.

Investigators insist that they have established that customs officers issued certificates of origin to the exporting company on the basis of documents containing false information.

Later, the exporter used these certificates 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.

In the course of the pre-trial investigation, the Bureau's detectives served suspicion notices to two current and three former officials of Odesa Customs under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (abuse of office), and to the director of the exporting company under Part 3 of Article 212 and Part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (tax evasion and forgery). The pre-trial investigation was completed and the indictment was sent to court.

On May 30, 2024, detectives from the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) conducted searches at Odesa Customs.

And in January 2023, the Bureau of Economic Security, together with the SBU, conducted 30 searches at the administrative premises of the State Customs Service of Ukraine, Odesa Customs, and customs posts Chornomorsk-Port, Pivdennyi Port, Odesa Port of the State Customs Service and at the residences of State Customs Service officials. The searches were conducted as part of an investigation into a large-scale scheme of tax evasion on a particularly large scale in the export of grain.

Кирило Бойко