Recent weeks have raised serious concerns in society and among experts after it became known about the lack of progress in the criminal investigations against the leadership of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), which is responsible for conducting these cases, has been in the spotlight for its inability to find and punish those responsible for a number of scandals related to the activities of the NBU.
Ukrainian law enforcement officers are investigating several criminal cases involving officials and former and current top management of the National Bank of Ukraine. However, it turns out that there is no movement in the criminal proceedings conducted by investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation, which raises a logical question: is the SBI deliberately merging these cases?
The latter is a criminal case involving the director of the NBU's legal department, Oleksandr Zyma. The State Bureau of Investigation is investigating his alleged abuse of power or official position, which led to grave consequences (Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The case concerns Zyma's instruction to the Deposit Guarantee Fund of Individuals to withdraw four lawsuits against the NBU of Concord Bank. In court, the bank demanded that the NBU cancel fines totaling almost 63.5 million hryvnias. It is worth noting that, in addition to his position at the National Bank, Oleksandr Zyma is also the chairman of the Fund's administrative board, which appoints and dismisses its management. Therefore, the Fund could hardly have failed to comply with the boss's instruction. Therefore, the Fund withdrew the lawsuits filed by the bank before the start of liquidation. That is, Zyma's conflict of interest is obvious.
Despite the fact that the Territorial Department of the State Bureau of Investigation in Kyiv opened criminal proceedings in December last year, no charges have been filed in the case and doubts arise that it is being investigated at all. Zima continues to work calmly both at the National Bank and to fulfill his duties as the “overseer” of the Fund.
Moreover, in April of this year, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv recognized the co-founder of Concord Bank Yulia Sosyedka as a victim in these criminal proceedings. After all, according to the co-owner of Concord Olena Sosyedka, with his instructions Zima deprived the bank's shareholders of their constitutional right to a fair trial. However, the State Bureau of Investigation investigators have still not complied with the court's ruling and have not handed Yulia Sosyedka a memorandum on the rights and obligations of the victim.
Experts suggest that Zima is not reacting to the criminal proceedings because he feels a strong support in the form of the leadership of the National Bank, with whom he has had friendly relations since his time at Oschadbank.
In addition, the leadership of the National Bank, both current and former, also appears in criminal proceedings, which are being investigated under articles including "abuse of power or official position, which led to serious consequences.".
In addition to the Zyma case, the SBI reported that it was investigating a criminal case involving the First Deputy Head of the National Bank, Kateryna Rozhkova, as well as the former head of the regulator, Kyrylo Shevchenko.
In accordance with the requirements of Article 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, the investigative bodies of the State Bureau of Investigation, among other things, conduct a pre-trial investigation of criminal offenses committed by the Chairman of the NBU, his first deputy and deputy. Within the framework of criminal proceedings, at this time, the State Bureau investigators have not informed Rozhkova K. V. of any suspicion,
The State Bureau of Investigation has not yet clarified the facts on which this criminal case was opened, under which articles of the Criminal Code it is being investigated, or any other information. No suspicions were served in this case, so there is reason to believe that it has “stalled,” like the rest.
It is worth noting that Rozhkova continued to work at the NBU even after the court ordered her, along with other members of the board and supervisory board of Platinum Bank, to return funds illegally withdrawn from the bank before it was declared insolvent.
We cannot fail to mention the infamous PrivatBank case, which the State Bureau of Investigation took on at the end of 2020. At that time, the State Bureau of Investigation was investigating the possible involvement of a number of National Bank officials, in particular the former head of the regulator Valeria Hontareva and the already known Kateryna Rozhkova, in the embezzlement of funds worth over UAH 900 million during the nationalization of PrivatBank in 2016. It will not be difficult to guess one of the articles of the Criminal Code under which criminal proceedings were opened.
The Main Investigation Department of the State Bureau of Investigation, based on the results of considering an application from one of the public organizations, entered information from 12/31/2020 into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations on the grounds of criminal offenses provided for in Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,
In this case, as in others investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation, there are no suspicions, no searches, no arrests..
Another interesting case concerns the NBU Financial Monitoring Department. In 2019, the National Police opened a criminal case due to alleged abuse of power or official position by employees of this department, namely that they “abused their power, intentionally for the purpose of obtaining unlawful benefit, during 2017-2019, acting in the interests of third parties, carried out a formal verification of the origin of funds directed to the capitalization of banks, knowing for certain that their origin did not correspond to the documents provided.” Investigators indicated that the officials may even have received bribes.
Officials of the NBU Financial Monitoring Department, while conducting inspections of banking institutions for compliance with legislation on financial monitoring and compliance with currency legislation, receive undue benefits from managers and owners of banking institutions for not fully reflecting existing violations of the law in banking institutions,
Law enforcement officers believed that National Bank officials "for the purpose of personal enrichment do not reflect or enter unreliable information about violations of economic standards of banks' activities in bank inspection reports.".
The case was later transferred to the State Bureau of Investigation. The courts have extended the investigation several times. It is currently unknown whether the State Bureau simply closed the case or whether it has ended up in a long and dark drawer of uninvestigated cases.
In conclusion, it becomes clear that there are as many criminal cases in the National Bank as there are fleas on a stray dog, and not all of them are known in the public domain. But despite such a number of proceedings and their public resonance, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) is again and again filling its “dark drawer”. Is it true that the officials of the National Bank are immune and criminal cases are being opened against them only to extinguish the fire of public indignation?
