Despite the full-scale war with Russia, the leading Ukrainian trade networks, including the Rosette, Comfi and Epicenter, continued to buy climate equipment from the company that the investigation suspects in financing the budget of the aggressor state. This is stated in the journalistic investigation of Hromadske based on judicial materials and open sources.
It is about LLC "Optim" trade company, owned by businessman Oleg Zudov. His investigation suspects involvement in financing the Russian budget. In December 2023, the parent company Optim Holding GmbH was included in the sanction list of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. However, as journalists found out, the purchase of Optim products continued even after sanctions.
In particular, one of the subsidiaries of "Rosette", after the imposition of sanctions, continued to import climate equipment into Optim. Journalists sent a request to the representatives of the socket with the question of whether they knew about the sanction status of the supplier. As of the time of publication, no answer was obtained.
In addition to the likely links with the financing of the aggressor country, OpTIM is in criminal proceedings to reduce the customs value of imported equipment. In some cases, in customs declarations, the value of goods was stated as zero, which created the preconditions for tax evasion and caused damage to the State Budget of Ukraine.
According to the investigation, optim had corruption with representatives of the state customs and tax services. According to sources, officials received a reward for "non -interference" in illegal operations.
"Representatives of the specified private entity have corruption in the customs and tax authorities, which for a separate monetary remuneration do not take appropriate response measures," - said in the case file.
Journalists continue to monitor the development of the case and expect answers from the investigation.
