Losses amounted to UAH 1 billion: National Police comments on searches at Avtomagistral-Pivden
8 October 2024 07:35
The National Police conducted urgent searches at a company suspected of causing more than a billion hryvnias in budget losses. This is a construction company that carries out repair and construction work on state infrastructure facilities. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the National Police.
“The company is suspected of violating tender procedures and arbitrarily setting prices for the cost of work in different regions of Ukraine,” the report said.
The name of the company was not specified, but it is likely to be Avtomagistral-Pivden, which had previously reported the searches.
The investigation believes that the company’s officials, by artificially marking up the supply chain of inventory, “unlawfully increased the cost of goods, entered false information into the acts of work performed, which caused damage to the state budget in particularly large amounts – in excess of one billion hryvnias.”
Urgent searches of the company’s employees’ places of work and residence were conducted after receiving operational information that “documents evidencing criminal activity may soon be destroyed,” the National Police said.
During the searches, documents and digital media “with useful information for the investigation” were seized. A number of construction and technical examinations have been ordered to establish the real value of materials, works and services provided by the company.
“The company’s activities are not blocked, it continues to operate as usual,” the police said.
The investigation is ongoing within the framework of proceedings initiated under Part 5 of Article 190, Part 3 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (fraud in a particularly large scale or by an organised group and legalisation of property).
“On the morning of 7 October, Avtomagistral-Pivden reported on large-scale searches that took place on 4 October. The company noted that the proceedings were related to several tenders that it had won on Prozorro at different times in different regions. At the same time, Avtomagistral-Pivden stressed that no claims were made against the quality and cost of its work.
Prior to 2022, Avtomagistral-Pivden was the main road contractor under the Big Construction programme. During the full-scale war, the company continued to receive large contracts, including for the construction of the Ingulets-Kryvyi Rih water pipeline.
In September 2024, the company won a multimillion-dollar tender to repair an emergency bridge near Darnytsia metro station in Kyiv.
“Avtomagistral-Pivden is owned by businessman Oleksandr Boyko.
