Land without owners and fictitious inheritances: A scheme involving the transfer of land plots worth 75 million hryvnias was uncovered in Odesa
16 January 18:50
In Odessa, the prosecutor’s office has charged the organizer and two participants in a large-scale land fraud scheme, in which plots of land were illegally re-registered over several years without the consent of their official owners.
This was reported by the Odessa Regional Prosecutor’s Office, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
According to the investigation, the group operated from 2022 to 2024. Its members identified 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. In total, 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, in whose names they submitted forged documents to notaries. These papers were allegedly found among the personal belongings of the deceased.
Based on these documents, they illegally registered inheritance rights to the land plots. The land was then repeatedly re-registered in the names of controlled individuals and legal entities and divided into smaller parcels to make it harder to trace the assets’ origin.
As a result of these schemes, 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 plots is nearly 1.3 hectares, and the damages caused to the local community are estimated at more than 75 million hryvnias.
The prosecutor’s office has filed a motion with the court requesting that the suspects be held in custody as a preventive measure.
The investigation is ongoing; law enforcement officials are identifying all individuals involved in the scheme and examining other possible instances of illegal land acquisition.
