Recent weeks have caused serious concern in society and among experts after it became known about the lack of progress in investigations of criminal cases against the leadership of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), which is responsible for conducting these cases, was in the spotlight due to its failure to find and punish those responsible for a number of scandalous episodes related to the activities of the NBU.
Ukrainian law enforcement officers are investigating several criminal cases involving officials, representatives of the 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 the investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation, and therefore a logical question arises: is the SBI deliberately merging these cases?
Of the latter, there is a criminal proceeding in which the director of the legal department of the NBU, Oleksandr Zyma, appears. The SBI is investigating his alleged abuse of power or official position, which led to serious consequences (Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code).
The case concerns the instruction of Zima, which he gave 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 should be noted here that Oleksandr Zyma, in addition to his position at the National Bank, is also the head of the Fund's administrative board, which appoints and dismisses its management. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Foundation could not comply with the boss's instructions. That is why the Fund withdrew the lawsuits filed by the bank even before the start of liquidation. That is, the conflict of interests of Zima is obvious.
Despite the fact that the Territorial Department of the DBR in Kyiv opened criminal proceedings in December of last year, no charges have yet been filed in the case and there are doubts that it is being investigated at all. Zima continues to work quietly both at the National Bank and to fulfill his duties as the "supervisor" of the Fund.
Moreover, in April of this year, the Shevchenkivskiy District Court of Kyiv recognized the co-founder of Concord Bank, Yulia Sosyedka, as the victim in this criminal proceeding. After all, according to the co-owner of "Concord" Olena Sosedka, by his instructions, Zima deprived the shareholders of the bank of their constitutional right to a fair trial. However, the SBI investigators still did not comply with the court order and did not hand Yulia Sosyedka a memo about the rights and responsibilities of the victim.
Experts assume that Zima is not reacting to the criminal proceedings, because he feels a strong support in the form of the management of the National Bank, with whom he has had friendly relations since the time he worked at Oschadbank.
In addition, both the current and former management of the National Bank are also involved in criminal proceedings, which are being investigated under articles including "abuse of power or official position, which led to serious consequences."
In addition to Zima's case, the SBI reported that it is investigating a criminal proceeding 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, investigative bodies of the SBI, among other things, carry out pre-trial investigations of criminal offenses committed by the head of the NBU, his first deputy and deputy. As part of the criminal proceedings, at that time the SBI investigators did not inform K.V. Rozhkova of the suspicion,
The SBI did not specify the facts on which this criminal proceeding was opened, under which articles of the CCU it is being investigated, or any other information. Suspicions were not served in this case either, so there is reason to believe that it "went to a standstill", like the rest.
It is worth noting that Rozhkova continued to work at the National Bank of Ukraine 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.
One cannot fail to mention the infamous "PrivatBank" case, which was taken over by the SBI at the end of 2020. At that time, the State Bureau of Investigation investigated the possible involvement of a number of officials of the National Bank, in particular the former head of the regulator Valeriya Gontareva and the already known Kateryna Rozhkova, in the embezzlement of funds in the amount of more than 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 investigative department of the State Bureau of Investigation, based on the results of the review of the appeal of one of the public organizations, entered the information dated 12.31.2020 into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations on the grounds of criminal offenses provided for in Part 5 of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and Part 2 of Art. 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,
In this case, as in others investigated by the SBI, there were no suspicions, no searches, no arrests...
Another interesting case concerns the Department of Financial Monitoring of the NBU. In 2019, the National Police opened criminal proceedings due to the alleged abuse of power or official position by the employees of this department, precisely because they "abused their power, intentionally for the purpose of obtaining an illegal benefit, during 2017-2019, acting in the interests of third parties, carried out a formal background check of funds directed to the capitalization of banks, knowing reliably about the inconsistency of their origin according to the provided documents." Investigators indicated that officials could even receive bribes.
Officials of the Department of Financial Monitoring of the National Bank of Ukraine during inspections of banking institutions for compliance with the legislation on financial monitoring and compliance with currency legislation receive undue benefit from the managers and owners of banking institutions for not displaying the full extent of existing violations of legislation in banking institutions,
The law enforcement officers believed that the National Bank officials "for the purpose of personal enrichment do not reflect or enter inaccurate information about violations of indicators of the economic standards of banks' activities in the certificates of inspection checks of banks."
The case was later transferred to the SBI. Courts extended the terms of her investigation several times. Currently, it is not known for sure whether the SBI simply closed this case or it ended up in a long and dark drawer of uninvestigated cases.
Summarizing, it becomes clear that criminal cases in the National Bank are like fleas on a homeless dog and not all of them are known in the public space. But despite such a large number of proceedings and their public resonance, the SBI fills its "dark drawer" again and again. Do the officials of the National Bank have immunity and criminal cases are opened against them only to extinguish the fire of public indignation?
