Odesa utilities suspected of fake booking

Two officials of municipal enterprises of the Odesa City Council are suspected of fictitiously booking citizens and misappropriating budget funds.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the acting director and head of the HR department of the Porto-Frankivsk Housing and Communal Services in 2024-2025 illegally employed 14 people who did not actually work. Their employment was intended to obtain a deferral from mobilization.

"In addition, officials of the Porto-Frankivsk Housing and Communal Services Company and the Fontansky Housing and Communal Services Company set up a scheme to misappropriate funds intended for salaries and other payments. For this purpose, they fictitiously registered more than 50 "employees," the statement said.

Prosecutors of the Specialized Defense Prosecutor's Office in the Southern Region served the defendants with a notice of suspicion. They are charged with obstructing the activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, abuse of office and embezzlement of budget funds.

As part of the criminal proceedings, more than 50 searches were conducted - at the premises of enterprises, at the residences of the defendants and among fictitiously booked persons. During the investigation, documents and other evidence of illegal activity were seized.

Earlier, in Podilskyi district of Odesa region, men were falsely employed in critical enterprises so that they could receive a reservation from mobilization. Law enforcement officers stopped the illegal business by detaining the dealers.

Recently, law enforcement officers detained a member of a civil society organization in Odesa region who is suspected of extorting $5,000 from a man with a disability so that he would not have "problems" at the territorial center for recruitment and social support.

In July 2024, the Center for Public Investigations made a film "Guarding the Odesa Cauldron " about community groups. It combines three textual investigations about more than 30 civil society organizations, including the NGO "Ukraine is a Mother":

• "Volunteers" for budgetary funds, bodyguards a la volunteers, and government-supported groups: who is behind Odesa's CFs
• Guardians of Odesa's rear: who is behind the civil society groups
• Guarding the Odesa "cauldron".

Already in September 2024, after an investigation by the CPR, prosecutors exposed the deputy head of the "Law Enforcement Assistance Unit" for corruption. He is suspected of helping to evade the mobilization of persons liable for military service.

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