Odesa exposes scheme of budget embezzlement at traffic lights

The BES served a notice of suspicion to seven participants in a scheme to misappropriate funds from the Odesa local budget during the purchase of traffic lights. The organizer and his accomplices inflated prices through controlled companies and created discriminatory conditions for other bidders.

This was reported by the press service of the BES in Odesa region.

Detectives of the BES territorial office in Odesa region found that an organized group of people seized UAH 20.9 million during the purchase of uninterruptible power supplies for traffic lights.

According to the investigation, the owner of the group of companies, in collusion with the heads of the utility company, organized purchases through controlled companies at artificially high prices. The expected cost was determined on the basis of fictitious commercial offers without market analysis, and the technical conditions were formed in such a way as to exclude other bidders.

According to Serhii Muntyan, head of the TU BES in Odesa region, 11 purchases worth more than UAH 40.8 million took place in the first five months of 2024, with the winners of the bidding being related companies that purchased equipment almost twice as cheap as the price at which they sold it to the utility.

During the investigation, 37 authorized searches were conducted, during which bank cards, seals and stamps, mobile phones and computer equipment, accounting and financial documents, as well as draft records were seized.

Seven suspects were served suspicion notices: the organizer of the scheme, the director of the institution, the heads of the enterprises, a lawyer and a procurement specialist. The court imposed on them preventive measures ranging from custody with bail to round-the-clock house arrest. The pre-trial investigation is ongoing under Part 4 and Part 5 of Art. 191, as well as Part 1 of Art. 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

BES detectives searched the premises of the municipal enterprise "Specialized Installation and Maintenance Unit" of the Odesa City Council in June 2025.

All tenders, according to the BES, were won by two companies that, as it turned out, were not involved in the production of uninterruptible power supplies for traffic light facilities. In fact, the equipment was manufactured by a third company, and the winners of the tenders were used as a gasket to artificially inflate the cost of the supply by more than five times. The head of the utility company, Petro Stoyanov , said at the time that this was disinformation.

On the same day, members of the Odesa City Council's Committee on Planning, Budget and Finance approved the allocation of more than UAH 60 million for the Department of Transport. The funds were used to pay salaries, reconstruct a cable line, and purchase equipment for traffic lights.

Анна Бальчінос