Government orders sale of Sense Bank: proceeds to go to Armed Forces of Ukraine
The government instructed Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance to accelerate the sale of state-owned Sense Bank amid NABU’s Forrest Gump operation.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi reported this, according to Censor.NET.
What is known?
According to him, the proceeds from the sale will be allocated to the needs of Ukraine’s Defense Forces.
"The Ministry of Finance has been given a clear task to accelerate the sale of Sense Bank. The process must be conducted with maximum transparency, competition and efficiency. At the same time, the Finance Ministry and the National Bank must resolve all the accumulated problems at this financial institution and ensure transparent and sound corporate governance," Koretskyi said.
The previous day, the Ukrainian government suspended the chair of state-owned Sense Bank’s supervisory board and initiated the suspension of the chair of its management board following the NABU and SAPO case.
Operation "Forrest Gump"
- It was previously reported that NABU and SAPO were conducting a special operation aimed at exposing a criminal group involving MPs and senior Presidential Office officials.
- According to media reports, NABU and SAPO were conducting searches involving Deputy Head of the Office of the President Iryna Mudra as part of the announced operation.
- NABU detectives also conducted searches involving Hladyshchenko, chair of the Sense Bank supervisory board.
- Vadym Stolar, an MP from the court-banned Opposition Platform – For Life party, confirmed that NABU and SAPO were searching his property as part of Operation "Forrest Gump."
- NABU later said the case involved UAH 150 million in cash, which, according to the investigation, was channelled through a series of shell-company accounts and brought into legal circulation to post bail for one of the defendants in the Midas case.
- Former deputy head of the Presidential Office Iryna Mudra later confirmed that searches had been conducted at her home on August 19, that she had been served with a notice of suspicion and a motion seeking a preventive measure, but that she had not been detained. She is preparing for a court hearing.
- On 20 August, NABU released new recordings of conversations involving individuals implicated in "Forrest Gump"—the second part of the investigation, titled "Themis." The case concerns a scheme to seize real estate and other assets through unauthorised interference with the Justice Ministry’s information (automated) networks.
- On August 20, a prosecutor from the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) named all individuals mentioned in connection with NABU’s Forrest Gump and Themis operations.
