Photo: Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)
Officials promised to close a criminal case related to amber mining in Ukraine.
Deputy heads of two regional offices of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) have been detained for allegedly demanding $620,000 in exchange for closing a criminal case involving the amber business in the Rivne Oblast. The SBU reported the details on its Telegram channel.
According to the investigation, the organizers used an intermediary to demand money from the head of a company described as a monopolist in the amber industry. In return, the suspects allegedly promised to shut down an earlier criminal investigation against the businessman’s company.
The SBU emphasized that the arrests are part of an ongoing effort to clean up corruption within the agency itself.
“Self-purification of the Service is our priority. We continue to eliminate any manifestations of corruption and regularly hold participants in such schemes accountable. Today’s detention only confirms this. Corruption is unacceptable, and during wartime it equals treason,” said acting SBU head Yevhenii Khmara.
Investigators from the SBU’s internal security department detained both organizers and their accomplice red-handed while they were receiving more than $270,000 of the demanded sum.
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine reported that searches are currently being conducted in offices of the SBU headquarters in Kyiv and the Kyiv Oblast office, as well as in the SBU office in Rivne Oblast and at the suspects’ homes.
Authorities are now preparing formal charges under Part 3 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (accepting an offer, promise, or receipt of an unlawful benefit by an official). If convicted, the suspects face up to 10 years in prison with property confiscation.
Earlier, in early February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed acting SBU head Khmara and his first deputy Oleksandr Poklad to intensify efforts to cleanse the agency of officials serving “other interests.” Later, following the detention of the head of the SBU department in the Zhytomyr Oblast and the commander of logistics of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Zelenskyy stated that the first results of this internal “clean-up” were already visible.
