Land without owners and fictitious inheritance: a scheme involving the re-registration of land plots worth UAH 75 million was uncovered in Odesa
16 January 18:50
In Odessa, the prosecutor’s office announced charges against the organizer and two participants in a large-scale land scam, in which plots of land without official owners were illegally re-registered over several years.
This was reported by the Odessa Regional Prosecutor’s Office, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
What is the essence of the scheme?
According to the investigation, the group operated between 2022 and 2024. Its members found land plots that formally had no registered owners and registered ownership rights to them using forged documents.
Law enforcement officials have identified one of the accomplices as a notary. According to the prosecutor’s office, at least four other people were involved in the scheme.
How the land was registered
Investigators claim that the suspects used information about the deaths of relatives, on whose behalf they submitted false documents to notaries. These papers were allegedly found among the personal belongings of the deceased.
On this basis, they illegally registered inheritance rights to land plots. The land was then repeatedly re-registered to individuals and legal entities under their control and divided into smaller plots to make it more difficult to trace the origin of the assets.
The scale of the damage
As a result of these transactions, according to the prosecutor’s office, ownership rights to five land plots in the Primorsky and Khadzhibey districts of Odesa were illegally registered.
The total area of these lands is almost 1.3 hectares, and the damage caused to the territorial community is estimated at more than 75 million hryvnias.
The prosecutor’s office has applied to the court for a preventive measure in the form of detention for the suspects.
The investigation is ongoing, with law enforcement agencies establishing the full circle of persons involved in the scheme and checking other possible episodes of illegal land acquisition.
