According to court documents and tax inspections, a transnational scheme for withdrawing funds abroad has been operating for years through a number of Ukrainian companies in the agricultural sector, which, according to investigative documents, involved fictitious exports, non-commodity transactions, and the illegal formation of tax credits. The focus of attention is on Ukrainian companies from the agricultural market, as well as foreign counterparties from Switzerland, Malaysia, and Turkey, which in the lawsuits and expert reports act as possible "screens" for transactions that do not have commodity confirmation.
According to examples cited in court cases, some Ukrainian suppliers filed lawsuits against foreign counterparties for failure to fulfill contractual obligations - we are talking about claims for hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars, which, according to the documents, may indicate the absence of actual supply in part of the agreements. The materials also contain indications of cash transactions without actual supply of products and the formation of tax credits without supporting invoices.
According to information contained in official conclusions and expert opinions, some companies allegedly made large cash purchases without actually transferring the goods, others had overstated tax credits or were recognized as risky payers. The conclusions of the State Service and the Bureau of Economic Security, cited in the materials, also mention a reduction in tax liabilities due to fictitious transactions by hundreds of millions of hryvnias. The total amount of foreign exchange earnings, which, according to the documents, were not properly reported, is estimated in some episodes at hundreds of millions of hryvnias.
The case law of 2023–2024 and complaints from suppliers to foreign companies record a number of claims for non-fulfillment of contracts for amounts ranging from several hundred thousand dollars to millions, which, according to the parties to the claims, reflects the scale of problems in the chains of foreign economic operations. In many cases, as indicated in the documents, import counterparties did not make payments or evaded refunds, and the goods were not actually delivered.
Representatives of the companies involved have the right to official comments and objections - in many cases, audits and legal proceedings are ongoing, and the final conclusions must be provided by the investigation or the court. The publicly available materials contain references to foreign companies HARVESTREAM AG (Switzerland), Cosmopolitan Trade & Development SDN BHD (Malaysia) and MAVERA GRUP GEMICILIK (Turkey), which are named as counterparties in some lawsuits, as well as to a number of Ukrainian companies that appear in the documents.
Market participants and experts emphasize: identifying and proving such schemes requires comprehensive work of tax authorities, law enforcement agencies and international cooperation with foreign jurisdictions. If necessary, we can prepare more detailed material with a chronology of key lawsuits, links to open court decisions and comments from the parties.
