Law enforcement officers have uncovered a large-scale corruption scheme in the Poltava region related to the illegal appropriation of budget funds during the purchase of satellite phones for the military. According to the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for Defense of the Central Region, suspicions have been declared against three officials of the city council department and the director of a private company.
The investigation established that in 2023, the director of the department, together with subordinate specialists, acting in collusion with the head of a commercial firm, organized the purchase of 70 satellite phones at a knowingly inflated price. The goal was to obtain an illegal benefit and further misappropriate part of the budget funds.
Officials secured the purchase without competitive procedures and appointed a pre-selected company as the winner. Formal market monitoring, which was supposed to confirm the adequacy of the price, was deliberately built exclusively on inflated offers, which created the appearance of the legitimate cost of the goods.
After the contract was signed, the company director submitted a bill of lading with false information about the full delivery of phones, although in fact there was no shipment. Another specialist in the department entered fake information about the receipt of equipment into the documents, knowing that the delivery did not take place.
Based on the falsified documents, the director of the department signed payment instructions. Over UAH 13 million was transferred from the local budget to the account of the contractor company. Only after receiving the money did the director of the company purchase the phones from a third-party supplier at a significantly lower price, and the participants in the scheme divided the difference between the real and fictitious cost among themselves.
The losses to the local budget were estimated at over 5 million UAH.
The actions of the suspects were qualified under articles on abuse of power and official forgery (Part 2 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 364; Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). All those involved have already been given preventive measures.
