Where 4.7 million in trunk of accountant Hlyniana came from

Author: Tetiana Nikolaienko

How do we usually imagine the fight against corruption? NABU, SBI, SSU detained some official for bribery; the minister who appointed the official was dismissed; the son of a not very clever supplier was put face down on the floor in his underpants; the photo in his underpants was leaked to friendly media. That’s it.

Is the minister stealing? No. We put a green tick in the box. Does the new head of the agency steal? No. We put a green tick.

Is corruption overcome? No! It occurs at the lower levels, where it is almost impossible to catch it unless systemic reforms are implemented.

In fact, the photos of the same trunk from the car of the company's accountant, Tetiana Hlyniana, also show that corruption in the Ministry of Defence has not been overcome. The accountant was arrested by law enforcement last Friday.

And now let's see how, despite the fact that corruption has supposedly been overcome in the MoD and prices in the food catalogue have been lowered to the thresholds of the State Statistics Service, someone manages to launder millions of euros of cash.

So, this story publicly began when last week, Meat Prom, one of the food suppliers to the Armed Forces contracted by the State Logistics Operator, claimed that law enforcement officers were blocking its work.

"Due to the actions of BES representatives, the process of shipping food to the army was completely blocked. The BES employees blocked the possibility of leaving the loaded trucks and forbade employees to go to their workplaces. The criminal proceedings, in which BES detectives literally broke into the company's enterprise and warehouses, were registered more than eight months ago. All this time, the company has been reasonably refuting the BES's groundless suspicions of alleged value-added tax evasion, providing the investigators with relevant explanations and documentary evidence," the statement said.

Meat Prom also hinted that the company "in strict compliance with the tax legislation of Ukraine fulfils all its obligations under contracts with the Ministry of Defence" and hinted that the BES was allegedly pushing them to some kind of illegal cooperation.

In response, law enforcement officials reported that as part of the investigation into tax evasion by a group of companies supplying products to the Ministry of Defence, detectives from the Economic Security Bureau's Territorial Directorate found and seized more than €4.7 million in unaccounted cash.

"The money was transported by the company's accountant in the trunk of the car. She could not explain the origin of the money. The detectives exposed the attempt to smuggle and hide the black cash during the investigation. The issue of seizure of the seized funds is being decided," the BES press service said in a telegram channel.

It also stated that in 2022-2023, the company supplied the Ministry of Defence with food worth UAH 14.5 billion including VAT. At the same time, its officials documented a number of non-commodity transactions for the purchase and supply of food with controlled companies that had signs of fictitiousness.

The name of the company was not mentioned in the press release, but some media outlets indicated that it was the accountant of Meat Prom.

Later, the company itself denied that it was its accountant.

However, this does not mean that Meat Prom has no relation to this pool of campaigns.

So who are we talking about and why did the journalists guess Hlyniana's group so easily?

Thus, according to law enforcement officers, it is a company that supplied the Ministry of Defence with products worth UAH 14.5 billion including VAT. In fact, there are at least two companies involved - Grand Consult LLC and Active Company LLC.

Both of which are part of Tetiana Hlyniana's group. As a result of the bidding in the Prozorro system, GRAND CONSULT LLC signed contracts worth UAH 8.6 billion. And with Active Company, direct contracts were signed for UAH 13 billion, but the company received only half of the amount (almost UAH 8 billion) due to its access to Prozorro.

(youcontrol data)

The register of court decisions contains a ruling that refers to an SBI investigation that revealed a criminal scheme by the head of the flight canteen of a military unit in the Kyiv region, who, with the help of several other servicemen, misappropriated property of the Ministry of Defence.

I would like to point out that it was the Kyiv region where the companies of the Hlyniana Group supplied goods. Last summer, even though the bidding was made public in the ProZorro system, a non-competitive auction was held there between two companies of the group, where Grand Consult won (tender UA-2023-05-25-013846-a-L1) with the highest price for the DOS (day of supply) of UAH 147.

In procurements conducted from November to December 2013, the highest price for a set of products was UAH 117.84, also from GRAND CONSULT LLC. Supplies were made to military units in the Kyiv region.

According to the analysis commissioned by the Public Anti-Corruption Council and NAKO, the prices in the contracts of GRAND CONSULT LLC for Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions are overstated, sometimes by 2 times, compared to other contracts for the same period in other regions.

For example, fresh green onions usually cost 85 UAH/kg under all contracts with this supplier in winter, and 190-200 UAH/kg in Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions.

The most expensive prices for meat and meat products are set in the contract with GRAND CONSULT LLC (No. 286/2/23/22 of 22.06.2023 - this is the same most expensive contract through Prozorro).

And now, how did they make money on these supplies? We are talking about fraud in a military unit in Vasylkiv.

At first, the head instructed the cook to "issue 30 per cent less food to the canteen than the amount indicated in the primary accounting documents".

This actually meant that the portion of food provided to the military in the military unit became one third smaller. And then the "saved" food was sold for money.

In particular, the military sold 60 kg of sugar, 15 kg of pasta, 4 bags of frozen hake weighing almost 60 kg, 110 kg of frozen pork, almost 30 kg of broiler thighs, 20 cans of tomato paste and other products.

But later, the newly-minted businessmen, according to the case file, decided that it was dangerous to keep the surplus goods at the base, so they "improved" the scheme.

As a result, the organiser of the scheme "decided to organise an illegal scheme, which consisted in their (food products - ed.) repeated accounting initial recognition on the basis of fictitious source accounting documents on their alleged supply to the military unit of Active Company LLC, which at that time supplied food products to military unit NUMBER_1 on the basis of Agreement No. 286/2/22/75 of 23.12.2022 concluded with the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine," the court ruling says.

This is the same contract that originally specified eggs for 17 each.

"According to the agreement, the forged consolidated acts were to be submitted to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine by an unidentified official of Active Company LLC for payment, and the funds illegally received by Active Company LLC in this way were to be distributed among the group members," the pre-trial investigation materials state.

As a result, in June-July 2023 alone, false delivery and stock delivery notes were issued for the supply of Active Company LLC to a military unit in the total amount of UAH 1,393,170.89.

In November, the Ministry of Defence paid Acts Company under the contract. After that, an "unidentified person" withdrew the funds from the accounts and distributed them among the members of the criminal group.

If you think the scheme stopped after that, it didn't. It was just that in July, a representative of Grand Consult LLC was added to it.

Grand Consult LLC won the same area and parts that were previously serviced by Active Company. This is the tender with the highest price of the DOS, which was mentioned above.

As of January 2024, the investigation obtained evidence of possible fictitiousness of invoices for the supply of food to one military unit from Grand Consult LLC in the amount exceeding UAH 3,645,000 and from Active Company LLC in the amount exceeding UAH 1,400,000.

In December 2023 - January 2024, the SBI served the defendants with suspicions. They were placed under house arrest. The management of both Hlyniana's companies was not affected. Not to mention the head of the group herself.

Moreover, in April, the courts lifted the arrest of one of the arrested persons.

However, the investigation insisted that it had evidence to suspect PERSON_5 of committing the crime charged.

Among them:

-Report of the criminal investigator of the 2nd sector of the 2nd department of the Main Directorate "D" of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood of the Main Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv and Kyiv region PERSON_10 of 02.03.2023 regarding the illegal actions of individual servicemen of the MILITARY UNIT NUMBER_1, who, acting in prior conspiracy with business entities, under martial law, carry out fictitious transactions when purchasing food for the needs of the military unit, as well as carry out illegal sales of fuel and lubricants to unidentified individuals and legal entities;

-Letters from the Department of Counterintelligence of the Security Service of Ukraine dated 28.03.23 and 10.04.23 regarding the illegal actions of military personnel of the MILITARY UNIT NUMBER_1, who sell food in Vasylkiv;

-Protocols of criminal intelligence and surveillance (search) operations containing information about the misconduct of soldier PERSON_6 (including protocols of 03.10.2023, 04.10.2023 and 20.07.2023), from which it can be seen that she, together with PERSON_7, PERSON_11 and other currently unidentified persons, "saves" food products kept in the food warehouse of military unit NUMBER_1, and signs fictitious source accounting documents for the received food items available stock on their supply to the military unit, and sells some of them to third parties;

-testimony of PERSON_12, Senior criminal investigator of the Main Directorate of Security Service in Kyiv and Kyiv region, dated 19.04.2023, regarding the illegal actions of individual servicemen of MILITARY UNIT  NUMBER_1 and business entities; testimony of PERSON_13, dated 18.11.2023, according to which PERSON_5 is involved in the commission of a criminal offence and receives a percentage of illegally obtained funds for committing illegal actions;

-the inspection report of 18.03.2024, during which the files (computer data) obtained during the inspection of the mobile phone of witness PERSON_14 were examined, and correspondence between PERSON_14 and PERSON_5 was revealed, as well as correspondence between PERSON_14 and PERSON_13 regarding the production of fake invoices;

-protocols of temporary access to documents held by mobile operators, which show that the subscriber numbers used by PERSON_5 and PERSON_7 at the time of the offence were repeatedly connected;

-the inspection report of 18.11.2023, according to which PERSON_13 voluntarily handed over the money in the amount of UAH 50 thousand, which was provided to him by PERSON_7 as a reward for recording fictitious invoices in military unit NUMBER_1 (that is why, among other things, that money from the trunk is needed. The food supply officers themselves admit that some of their colleagues have not stopped taking money for fictitious supplies even now);

-the inspection report of 25.10.2023, during which the postal item from Meat Mix LLC was inspected, which contained, among other things, fictitious source accounting documents (delivery notes, stock delivery notes) with the signatures and seals of Grand Consult LLC, but without the signatures of representatives of military unit NUMBER_1; the inspection report of 21.11.2023 and other materials of the criminal proceedings in their entirety.

In addition, the Pecherskyi and Appellate Courts refused to seize the Redmi phone that was involved in the case. One can only imagine how much evidence disappeared in the process. (Off topic: NABU recently tried to conduct searches at the home of a MoD official in the case of the fortifications. Unfortunately, the detectives went to the wrong apartment and during this time the potential suspect unexpectedly lost his phone).

At the same time, the courts did allow the seizure of computer systems or parts thereof containing databases of software programs (1C, VAG, etc.) for accounting from Grand Consult LLC, Active Company LLC, and MEAT MIX LLC. As well as trackers from the machines of the latter company.

In addition to this SBI proceeding, there is a BES proceeding in which all documentation on the MoD's contracts for the purchase of food for 2022 was seized.

Investigators are looking into the actions of PYRIATYNSKIY DELIKATES LLC (code 36313601), GRAND CONSULT LLC (code 42239070), DNIPRO RIVER GROUP LLC (code 40464816),  MATERIALNO-TEKHNICHNE ZABEZPECHENNIA 2 LLC (code 41744450), YARD COMPANY LLC (code 44811875), ARVIN PRO LLC (code 44792224) and their collusion with the MOD.

During the pre-trial investigation, 3,591 daily field sets of products were seized (these are the same hard or packaged rations known from the case against former LFC (Logistics Forces Command) official Kozlovskyi).

So, what does the unfortunate Meatprom have to do with it, you may ask?

The fact that in the information about the detention of the accountant, the BES at least mentions the company that accused him of disrupting the work.

In those days, only Meatprom was the only company that supplied the Ministry of Defence with anything.

There is no sign of Hlyniana behind the owners.

But. If you open the last lot won by Meat Prom and look at the documents for the facilities, you will find that they are located at 23 A Zavodska Street, Uzyn сity, Bila Tserkva district.

There is also a Meat Mix LLC registered there, the ultimate owner of which is Nazarii Bereziuk (apparently, Hlyniana's grandson). The head of the company is Liudmyla Tsilitska. She was also the head of one of Hlyniana's first businesses, Vizit. In fact, Vizit itself is also registered at this address (it produces the very canned food that Hlyniana's group supplies). Premium Company, a former supplier, is also registered there.

"Meat Mix" appears in the SBI proceedings as a company that transports food to military units.

And if you look at the photos from the BES searches, you can recognise the transport yard on Zavodska Street.

Pshaw, you may say, a company that has won tenders for almost UAH 4 billion rents premises. But it is renting capacity. Well, yes, you can just walk in off the street and lease its main asset from Hlyniana The person still lives in Croatia. In her version, it's even so good that she buys hotels with the money she earns there. True, she occasionally loses her bags with money in them. But that's just the way it is.

However, this is not all. When the Public Anti-Corruption Council of the Ministry of Defence analysed catering contracts with the support of NAKO, an interesting nuance was found.

For a number of items, the prices of products in the contracts of GRAND CONSULT LLC and MEATT PROM LLC coincide to the kopecks (winter contracts), namely by

• fresh potatoes;
• pitted black olives;
• pitted green olives;
• fresh red capsicum;
• fresh green onions;
• late-season potatoes;
• fresh red cabbage;
• pork, frozen liver;
• pork, chilled liver;
• beef, frozen liver;
• Meat offal of the second category;
• Veal (all);
• Rabbit meat, chilled carcass;
• Frozen flounder, etc.

The SBI, the BES and other law enforcement agencies could have been running around the units for a long time collecting evidence of how the military reduced the amount of food by a third and then signed fake invoices with the company. In just a few months, several million were stolen in one unit. But the car seized by the BES showed how much cash is being circulated in this market.

Why companies continue to cheat even after the Ministry of Defence set a price cap and the DOT took over the tender process, you can read here.

Starting next year, the DOT plans to launch a reformed version of procurement to involve more direct producers. And it is hoped that this process will not be hindered by another Deputy Minister and the LFC, which will slow down the process. As it happened last year.

Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor.NET