The head of the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine, Ihor Cherkaskyi, through whom Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs take billions worth of corruptly obtained wealth abroad, faced a difficult choice with the victory of Donald Trump.
In particular, due to the conflict between Democrats and Republicans, as well as Trump's desire to conduct an audit of all American aid to Ukraine, some of which could become the subject of corruption abuses by Ukrainian officials, Ihor Cherkasky will probably have to "surrender" some of his "clients", in whose interests he legalized and exported billions worth of wealth abroad.
In order to understand the "scale of the problem", let's mention only some "clients" of Ihor Cherkasky, for whom he was engaged in the legalization of capital abroad. These are politicians and oligarchs - Serhiy Taruta, Yulia Tymoshenko, Viktor Pinchuk, Dmytro Firtash, Vira Ulyanchenko. According to our sources, 2 billion dollars were withdrawn and legalized from Ukraine to the USA through Cherkassky only in the interests of Vira Ulyanchenko.
As a separate case, it is worth noting the work of Ihor Cherkaskyi in the interests of oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, who is closely related to the Democratic Party in Ukraine. It is precisely this kind of "operations" that will most likely first of all become the subject of inspection by "Trump's auditors". And all of them could not pass without the knowledge and sanction of Ihor Cherkaskyi, who has been the head of the State Financial Monitoring Service since 2014.
In this context, it is worth mentioning a few more interesting facts about the connections and business of Ihor Cherkasky's entourage. In particular, Cherkasky has long had good business and friendly relations with Austrian Jews and has direct communication with Donald Trump's son-in-law, financier Jared Kushner.
Jared Kushner, through his work in the Trump administration, and later through the private investment company Affinity Partners, has close ties to part of the Israeli elite, probably the very one with which there were conflicts in the Democratic Party. Of course, Kushner will be able to provide "guarantees of immunity" to Cherkassky under Trump, but in exchange for what "services" exactly?
By the way, the issue of "guarantees" has always been extremely difficult for Ihor Cherkaskyi. Despite the fact that Cherkassky is a brilliant financier and has a habit of dividing and keeping spoofing material for each of his "clients" in case of "trouble", a number of criminal cases were nevertheless initiated in relation to his illegal activities.
The most high-profile criminal case against Ihor Cherkaskyi was initiated by NABU in the winter of 2017, regarding Cherkaskyi's complicity in the embezzlement of confiscated "Yanukovych money." It was about the sum of 1.5 billion dollars . According to the then Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, this money belonged to ex-president Viktor Yanukovych and his entourage.
In the fall of 2018, it became known that the criminal case conducted by NABU against Cherkassky regarding the embezzlement of "Yanukovych's money" was closed. That is, Ihor Cherkasky was not responsible for his involvement in the embezzlement of 1.5 billion US dollars, which he liked to show off to his friends.
Another interesting point is that Ihor Cherkasky is the owner of one of the largest collections of art and antiques in Ukraine, worth more than one million dollars. A special place in Cherkasskyi's collection is occupied by items from the antique collections of fugitive regionals, that is, 1.5 billion of "Yanukovych's money" was not enough for Cherkasskyi.
People's deputy Oleksandr Dubinsky also succeeded in opening criminal proceedings of the SAP against Ihor Cherkaskyi in 2020. The basis of criminal case No. 42020000000000953 was the facts revealed, according to which the head of the State Financial Monitoring Ihor Cherkaskyi covered a global scheme for obtaining illegal compensation from VAT during 2019-2020, which resulted in budget losses of UAH 79 billion.
The embezzlements were set on a broad foot and went on with a large scale. Criminals led by Cherkasky used a wide network of transit and conversion enterprises. In February 2020 alone, the state budget did not receive UAH 3.5 billion. Individual heads of regional divisions of the Federal Tax Service, employees of the Ministry of Finance and 549 companies were involved in the scheme.
As we can see, while for ordinary Ukrainians the state is strengthening the rules of financial monitoring and introducing additional restrictions, for Ihor Cherkaskyi, who withdraws billions from Ukraine, the most urgent question in the near future will be "which folder to hand over to the FBI" in order to continue supervising the financial sector.
