Rivne City Council deputy from the Servant of the People party, founder of the Tax Reform Institute NGO, Olena Khotenko, found herself at the center of a scandal due to possible connections to dubious financing schemes leading to former official Oleksiy Kavylin.
Since 2017, Olena Khotenko has been actively involved in public activities, establishing representative offices of her organization in many regions of Ukraine. However, behind the facade of reformism, as it turned out, there may be close ties to financial gray schemes.
The Tax Reform Institute NGO shares a registered address with several other entities associated with Kavylin, including the Youth for Faith, for a European Ukraine NGO and the KAD-Media company, which publishes the AgroPRO magazine. Moreover, among the co-founders of Khotenko NGO are individuals directly associated with Kavylin: Yevhen Ryabikov, director of KAD-Media, and Mykola Khashcheva, father of the co-founder of another closely related public organization.
Journalists indicate that such networks could have laundered money, in particular from the financial pyramid "Family Capital", which operates in the occupied Crimea and has branches in the territory controlled by Ukraine, in fact violating state sanctions. It is believed that the scheme also used mortgage fraud, involving the brother of the official Denis Kavylin.
Olena Khotenko's history of cooperation with Kavylin has long roots: until 2017, she was his deputy in the State Fiscal Service of Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv regions. This fact only reinforces suspicions of close personal and professional ties.
Interestingly, among the experts of the "Institute of Tax Reforms" for a certain time was also Artemiv - according to journalists, Khotenko's lover.
Although Khotenko officially positions herself as a tax reformer, the history of registrations, co-founders, and shady connections casts a shadow over the transparency of her activities.
