Former Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko was detained while trying to cross the border. He is involved in the NABU case of embezzlement at Energoatom.
This was reported by NABU.
According to the bureau, investigative actions are ongoing, which are carried out in accordance with the requirements of the law and court sanctions.
Previously, Herman Galushchenko claimed to be a witness in the Energoatom embezzlement case. He was questioned once: “I didn't actually hide it, I gave evidence, answered questions.” When asked if he expected suspicions to be declared against him, Galushchenko replied: “Listen, you can expect anything. I don't know.”
What is known about Operation Midas?
On November 10, the NABU announced the conduct of a large-scale operation “Midas” to expose corruption in the energy sector. More than 70 searches were conducted as part of it. According to the investigation, the organizers of the scheme received up to 15% of the value of contracts from Energoatom in the form of “kickbacks”. They were paid by the company's counterparties, who were imposed on them by the participants in the scheme.
The NABU claims that the money was “laundered” in so-called back offices in the center of Kyiv. The premises belonged to the family of former People's Deputy and current Senator of the Russian Federation Andriy Derkach. According to the investigation, in total, the suspects in the case managed to “launder” $100 million.
On November 10, NABU published recordings of conversations of the defendants with code names, and later it became known who they were. The main defendants in the case are businessmen – co-owner of “Quarter 95” Timur Mindich , who had the code name “Karlson” and Oleksandr Zukerman – “Sugarman”. They left the country shortly before the searches. Subsequently, sanctions were imposed against them and they were put on the wanted list.
The head of the NABU detective group, Oleksandr Abakumov, reported that four ministers of the Ukrainian government from different periods were recorded in the corruption case in the energy sector. One of them is the former Minister of Energy and Minister of Justice Herman Galushchenko . He was also searched. On November 12, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko submitted to the Rada a resolution on his dismissal, as well as the dismissal of the head of the Ministry of Energy Svitlana Grinchuk. On November 19, the parliament supported the resolutions of both Galushchenko and Grinchuk.
Former Minister of Economy of Ukraine in 2019-2020 and President of the Kyiv School of Economics, Tymofiy Mylovanov, announced that he was leaving the Supervisory Board of Energoatom. Subsequently, Prime Minister Svyrydenko announced that the government was restarting Energoatom's activities. The first decision was to dissolve the company's Supervisory Board. A new composition is to be elected by the end of the year.