Searches are conducted in one of the road cartel's companies in Odesa

The management of Avtomagistral-Pivden LLC said that law enforcement officers were conducting searches to prevent the "profitable" company from operating.

According to Mykola Tymofeyev, the company's director, law enforcement officers have jeopardized strategic projects in the energy and defense sectors.

"The work was stopped not because of rocket attacks, power outages, or lack of labor. We were brutally attacked by law enforcement agencies that turned pressure on entrepreneurs into a profitable business," he wrote.

The company itself said that the search of its offices, employees' apartments and private cars was conducted by officers of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police under the decision of investigator Taras Girnyi together with the Department of Strategic Investigations on the basis of criminal proceedings.

"As it turned out, the proceedings are related to several tenders that the company won at different times in different regions on Prozorro," Avtomagistral-Pivden said.

However, according to them, law enforcement officers did not seem to make any claims about the quality and cost of the work.

According to YouControl, the owners of Avtomagistral-Pivden LLC until September 2022 were Valeriy Korotkov and Oleh Nalyvanyi from Odesa. Currently, the ultimate beneficiary is Oleksandr Boyko, a resident of Odesa region. At the same time, Nashi Hroshi noted that its owner may actually be businessman Oleksandr Zhukov, the former father-in-law of Roman Abramovich and "one of the most influential representatives of the group that controls Odesa through Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov." According to them, Rostdorstroy LLC also falls within Zhukov's sphere of influence. However, the head of Avtomagistral-Pivden denied that the company is controlled by Trukhanov's entourage.

The company is also included in the list of selected Ukravtodor contractors who received the largest contracts during the Big Construction. In 2021 alone, Avtomagistral-Pivden received contracts worth UAH 58.9 billion.

Олеся Ланцман