news flew through the mass media. On paper, it provides taxi and transportation services. But in fact, he is engaged in illegal evacuation of cars, outright theft of cars and suspicious transportation. The name of this company is "Express-T". And we decided to investigate the history of the main cell of the tow truck mafia in Kyiv.
The company first came to light in 2018.
Since February 2018, a small firm from Mariupol, Vape-Estair LLC, has been receiving money for the evacuation of improperly parked cars in Kyiv. Even then, the company issued evacuation bills that were at least two and a half times higher than the market rates and even those set by the state. The company has not won any competition and does not even have its own tow trucks.
This was discussed in the investigation of Oleksandr Kurbatov for the program "Our money with Denis Bigus".
Back in 2017, the recipient of funds for the forced evacuation of improperly parked cars was the State Ministry of Internal Affairs "Inform-Resources". The cost of the service was agreed upon by a joint order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, and the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine.
There have been no changes in the order since that time, but in 2018, the offending drivers started billing with much higher prices — UAH 1,500 even for a motorcycle or car. The money now goes not to the state, but to the private company Vape-Estair LLC.
This company was established a year ago, in August 2017, for non-specialized wholesale trade. Six months later, in February 2018, it won a monopoly on the forced evacuation market in Kyiv without any competition. How it happened in the central office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs "Inform-Resursy" does not know.
Back then, the Kyiv branch of DP said that this was a temporary agreement. Meanwhile, as the journalists of the TV program "Our Money" recorded, evacuation services are actually provided by another company, which is already famous, "Express-T". She also worked in 2017, when the service was paid in accordance with the tariffs set by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the recipient of the funds was the State Ministry of Internal Affairs "Inform-Resursy".
That is, "Vape-Estair" LLC is a classic installation that does not provide any services, but only collects money at tariffs that are several times higher than those set by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and market prices.
Inform-Resursy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, says that this situation arose due to the lack of people willing to work in the forced evacuation market. Only the contests from SE "Inform-resursy" are special. The business avoids posting ads online where random competitors might see them. Therefore, there are no offers and competition, but there is a route from Mariupol and the opportunity to collect exorbitant amounts of money from Kyiv motorists for a front company. This is how the transport mafia was born - as a "temporary solution"
So the money trickled down to interested persons so far in 2021. The National Police has not started an investigation into the actions of parking inspectors and the evacuation service in Kyiv
As part of the investigation, the actions of three companies, LLC "Evacuator Service", LLC "Expedition 777" and LLC "Avtosos-Service", which may have participated in a fraudulent scheme, were highlighted. Also mentioned is Express-T LLC, whose role in this scheme remains unclear.
The National Police and the Prosecutor General's Office conducted an inspection for possible violations in the field of parking in Kyiv. According to law enforcement officers, parking inspectors in collusion with employees of towing companies organized a scheme where cars were illegally towed, and their owners had to overpay for the return of vehicles. For January-March 2021, according to data, scheme participants earned about 7.6 million hryvnias. As part of the investigation, criminal cases were initiated against five officials of the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA, including the head of the parking inspection Dmytro Rakhmatulin.
According to the information, the investigation concerns criminal case No. 12020000000000808, opened by the Main Investigative Department of the National Police on August 20, 2020. The participants in the case were charged under articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including misappropriation of property, abuse of power and official position, as well as official forgery.
In 2019, a parking monitoring system was introduced in Kyiv by decision of the Kyiv City Council, and a specialized parking inspection under the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA began working to monitor compliance with parking rules. Inspectors have the right to record violations of traffic rules and call tow trucks to remove cars that obstruct traffic.
However, according to the investigation, the parking inspectors exceeded their authority by participating in the unjustified evacuation of cars. Evacuation is the responsibility of companies that have contracts with the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA for the transportation of temporarily detained cars.
As a result of the work of the parking inspection, the capital budget received 37.9 million hryvnias until August 2021, which is probably related to the payment of fines by drivers. However, most of the funds paid for the tow truck services went to the accounts of the respective companies, leaving a minimal contribution to the city coffers after taxes.
The investigation did not reveal the dates of the contracts with these companies, but court rulings show that interest in these contracts was expressed between June 22 and December 31, 2020 and from January 4 to March 31, 2021. During this period, according to the investigation, parking inspectors together with tow truck drivers organized "work shifts", the goal of which was to maximize the number of evacuations in order to increase the income of the said LLC.
Investigators also found that drivers were overpaying for the services of tow trucks by twice the standard price established by law. This allowed scheme participants to illegally receive 7.6 million hryvnias from January to March 2021.
As part of the investigation, on August 13, 2021, one of the participants was charged with abuse of power or official position. Dmytro Rakhmatullin, deputy head of the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA, is mentioned among other figures. Rakhmatullin denies all accusations and claims that the cost of evacuation in Kyiv was set correctly, and the inspectors did not use fake signs for illegal evacuation.
In late August 2021, the Pechersk District Court seized several tow trucks believed to have been used in the scheme.
Despite the objections of KMDA officials about the authorities' involvement in "parking schemes", many car owners in Kyiv expressed dissatisfaction with the actions of parking inspectors. The main complaints relate to cars being evacuated even when it was inappropriate. Evacuation should be used only in extreme cases, when the car interferes with traffic or road works.
Responsibility in the investigation
According to Youcontrol, "Avtosos-Service" LLC was founded in 2008 and registered in Kyiv. The head of the company is Ruslan Porub, and the beneficiary is Ihor Samofal from Brovary, Kyiv region.
"Expedition 777" LLC was registered in 2019. Its manager and beneficiary is Anatoly Yakuba from Kyiv.
"Evacuator-Service" LLC was founded in Kyiv in 2012 and is managed by Natalia Pryimak.
"Express-T" LLC, specializing in the rental of tow trucks, was established in 2010.
The head of the company is Dmytro Zinchuk, and the beneficiaries are Volodymyr Podolin, Oleksandr and Natalia Pryimak.
Dmytro Rakhmatullin headed the parking inspection at the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA since 2018.
Since 2020, the activity of the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA has been supervised by Oleksandr Gustelov. And in 2021, Kandybor Ruslan Vasyliovych was appointed to a fulfilling position.
Meanwhile, the Parking Inspectorate, which belongs to the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA, continued to work as usual and rejected accusations by the Prosecutor General's Office of creating a criminal group that was engaged in the illegal evacuation of cars in the capital.
This was stated by Dmytro Rakhmatullin, the head of the KMDA parking inspection at the time, already known to us, who has been charged, in a comment to "Ukrainian Pravda".
In particular, Rahmatullin rejects accusations of "double fines", which, according to the OGP, Kyiv residents pay to take their cars. It is clarified that the cost of evacuation in Kyiv is 1,270 hryvnias, it is set separately for the city, and 8 private and communal companies work according to this tariff. As an example, he cites other cities, in particular Dnipro, where the cost of evacuation is 2-3 thousand.
Meanwhile, the cost set for the evacuation of cars by authorized units of the National Police is only 720 hryvnias.
The owners could pick up the cars only after paying "fines", the amount of which was twice the official amount. Private services involved in evacuation were involved in the scheme.
As you know, every day the members of the organized group had to make 300 acts, on the basis of which private services evacuated vehicles. In order to fulfill the "daily plan", they resorted to tricks - they installed a sign "Road works" next to a parked car.
Security forces conducted 30 searches, seized documents, media, money and other material evidence. At the suspect's home, they found a "significant number" of acts of inspection and temporary detention of MS.
Later, the KMDA informed that the inspection is currently "decapitated and practically paralyzed", servers and workstations have been removed, and the evacuation of cars in the capital is not carried out.
The agency emphasized that it is ready to cooperate with law enforcement agencies.
However, searches and investigations did not bring much results, and the situation with tow trucks died down by 2023.
Then the NGO "Non-Stop" began to call on law enforcement agencies to further investigate the facts of possible abuses in the field of evacuating cars from the streets of the capital.
As early as April 2023, the mentioned organization applied to a number of bodies - the Office of the General Prosecutor, the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office, the Bureau of Economic Security (BEB), the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), all ten district prosecutor's offices of the capital and departments of the National Police, etc.
According to the applicants, in this case we are talking about the commission of crimes provided for by four articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, namely: part 3 of article 209 (legalization (laundering) of property obtained by crime), part 2 of article 212 (evasion of payment of taxes or fees), Part 3 of Art. 289 (illegal possession of a vehicle) and Part 2 of Art. 364 (abuse of power or official position). However, at the beginning of June this year, the law enforcement officers have not started such an investigation.
In this regard, the "Non-Stop" organization appealed to a number of capital courts with complaints about the inactivity of investigative bodies with a demand to enter information about the offenses declared by the organization into the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations (ERDR). Probably, this was done in order to "force" at least one of the law enforcement agencies to investigate. And although the majority of courts refused to oblige law enforcement officers to perform such work, the mentioned organization managed to achieve a small success - on May 25, 2023, the Dnipro District Court of Kyiv still satisfied the complaint of the NGO "Non-Stop". Therefore, the local district attorney's office must now investigate the facts reported to them by this organization.
As stated in NGO "Non-Stop", officials under the leadership of the director of the mentioned department Ruslan Kandibor (in the collage on the left) and his deputy Dmytro Rakhmatulin create non-competitive conditions when concluding such agreements, concluding contracts only with "controlled and affiliated enterprises, in particular LLC "Expedition" 7. According to the organization, such agreements are drawn up in such a way as to "maximally protect the business interests of tow truck entrepreneurs by limiting their liability, the ability to independently set tariffs and make decisions at their own discretion", which leads to "restriction of the rights and interests of the population".
Also, NGO "Non-Stop" believes that the leadership of the Kyiv city police and KMDA, for the benefit of the specified entrepreneurs-evacuators, install road signs that "contribute to the only option for the evacuation of vehicles." According to the organization, in case of violation of the requirements of a road sign, parking inspectors who work in the inspection of the same name at the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA, make a decision to evacuate the vehicle - even when it is unfounded.
That is, according to Non-Stop NGO, parking prohibition signs are installed "where necessary and where not necessary", which makes it difficult for drivers to avoid parking violations. In turn, municipal inspectors initiate the evacuation of "offending" cars to penalty parking lots even in cases when this is not necessary - for example, when the vehicle "doesn't disturb anyone".
According to the organization, the result of this is that tow truck entrepreneurs assigned to the inspectors transport cars to penalty parking lots, and the inspectors receive, quote, a "kickback". Then the tow trucks deliver the vehicles to three penalty parking lots - at 4 Naberezhnii Lugovoi Street, 20-B Khotkevicha Street and 19 Akademika Tupolev Street. To pick up cars, their owners or users must pay a fine of 680 hryvnias (340 hryvnias if paid at within ten days), 144 hryvnias for storing a vehicle in a fine parking lot and 1,270 hryvnias for evacuation services by tow truck entrepreneurs.
At the same time, NGO "Non-Stop" reported that there are more than four hundred cases in court based on complaints by individuals regarding appeals against parking inspectors' decisions on the imposition of fines for violations of the rules for stopping, parking and parking vehicles. The organizations were informed about this in the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA - the corresponding letter from officials is dated April 19, 2023. The NGO "Non-Stop" points out that "a significant number of complaints testify to the fact of systematic illegal actions by parking inspectors of the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the KMDA."
Also, the applicant organization points out that: "Expedition 777" LLC is associated with a number of real and fictitious companies in the field of vehicle evacuation services; participates in public auctions with related parties to create an "image of competition"; as part of the conversion center, withdraws cash for the transfer of "kickbacks" to managers of budget funds; forms its fictitious expenses and income in such a way that the amount of the tax credit exceeds the tax liability - in order to evade the payment of income tax, value added tax (VAT) and illegal VAT refunds from the state; is a transit agent as part of a conversion center for tax evasion, money laundering, cash withdrawal, etc.
However, it seems that NGO "Non-Stop" did not provide confirmation of such accusations - at least there is no relevant information in the rulings issued by the courts during the consideration of this organization's application regarding the need to open criminal proceedings.
At the same time, NGO "Non-Stop" in its statements to law enforcement agencies indicated that "the functions of providing services for the evacuation of vehicles, which are currently performed by LLC "Expedition 777", should be performed by utility companies with the primary goal of replenishing the city and state treasury at the expense of population contributions and prevention of manipulations with the withdrawal of budget funds with the participation of conversion centers".
It should be noted that during the investigation of the National Police it became known that, in addition to "Expedition 777" LLC, three more companies were involved in such activities - "Evacuator Service" LLC and "Avtosos-Service" LLC, which directly provided evacuation services to the Transport Infrastructure Department of the KMDA . cars, as well as Express-T LLC, which probably leased its tow trucks to the aforementioned companies.
But even the indignation of the public did not give an impetus to destroy the corruption of tow trucks.
And here we come to the extreme scandal where the company - the gray cardinal "Express-T" - is already involved.
The Express-T company, which specializes in the evacuation of cars and taxis in the capital of Ukraine, found itself at the center of a scandal due to accusations of illegal activity.
Despite the lack of an official contract with the city car evacuation department, "Express-T" controls most of the market.
Journalist Gennadiy Pavlychenko published a video in which the company's driver rudely tries to interfere with his video recording, threatening physical violence. This is just one of the examples of aggressive behavior of the company's representatives towards the media.
It also became known that back in 2015, journalist Volodymyr Boyko conducted an investigation into "Express-T" and found out that the Pryymak family was behind the company. According to him, the company engages in questionable financial transactions, their income is not officially registered, and many transactions are conducted in cash.
Pavlychenko also claims that Oleksandr Priymak, one of the company's managers, has connections with a high-ranking police officer in the capital, which may explain the company's impunity despite 51 criminal cases filed against it.
In addition, the company is accused of transporting drugs. from Telegram that the drivers of "Express-T" use their cars to deliver drugs. These accusations are confirmed by the previously initiated criminal proceedings.
Finally, "Express-T" is also accused of stealing cars in Buch and Irpen in the Kyiv region. According to the criminal proceedings, the company took cars left behind by the owners due to the Russian invasion, and their value "is two hundred and fifty times or more than the tax-free minimum income of citizens", which qualifies as grand theft.
This is how the Express-T transport company works in Kyiv, despite the many criminal cases against it. During 10 years of investigations, no one from the Pryimak family, which owns the company, was brought to justice.
Despite its criminal status, "Express-T" wins multimillion-dollar state tenders, including cooperation with the State Administration of Affairs and the "Operator of the Gas Transportation System of Ukraine." To participate in tenders, the company creates fictitious companies that are actually controlled by the Pryimak family.
In addition, despite the presence of a powerful fleet, the company does not provide its resources for the needs of the army as part of mobilization. This raises the question of the goals of their war activities.
