They “warmed up” the state for more than a third of a billion hryvnia and used the embezzled funds to sponsor the Russian Church in Ukraine. In the Kyiv region, the BEB exposed Inna Melnik, the wife of Brovary businessman, owner of a number of companies, Sergei Melnik.
The pre-trial investigation of the criminal case continues - the word is up to the trial, which will take place on October 3. Will the “tax evader” be able to avoid liability? After all, her husband, also involved in financial schemes, is known in the city for influential connections and openly boasts of his ability to “solve” matters in his favor.
The Melniks are quite well known in the business and criminal circles of Brovary. Sergei is a co-owner of a number of companies registered in the Kyiv and Chernigov regions, and his wife Inna is a private entrepreneur. Both, as local residents say, are passionate admirers and generous patrons of the Church of the Russian Patriarchate.
It is noteworthy that individual entrepreneur Inna Vladimirovna Melnik (TIN 2632712503) with the main activity “Wholesale trade of textile goods” was historically registered in Brovary, but later, due to her husband’s conflict with the city council, she changed her place of “registration” to Kyiv in order not to pay taxes in Brovary territorial community.
As recorded by the information and analytical platform YouControl, as of today, five enforcement proceedings have been opened against individual entrepreneurs.
According to our sources, since March 2019, Melnik I.V. All super- and mini-markets of the FORUM, BONUS and RC chains, as well as MEDEA pharmacies, were decorated. And with the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine, taking advantage of the situation and the moratorium on inspections, the entrepreneur stopped filing reports, paying personal income tax on workers’ salaries and other taxes, except VAT. In addition, it did not formally register employees, thus bringing a significant part of the business “into the shadows.”
A year ago, Inna came to the attention of law enforcement officers in connection with a large-scale tax evasion scheme. The main detective unit of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine, under the procedural leadership of prosecutors of the Office of the Prosecutor General, is investigating criminal proceedings No. 72023000110000102 of October 26, 2023 on the grounds of a criminal offense under Part 3 of Art. 212 UKU.
The defendant is the above-mentioned individual entrepreneur I.V. Melnik, and the hearing on the case is scheduled to take place on October 3, 2024.
We are talking about a considerable amount: 356 million UAH. How did this debt to the state arise?
As follows from the materials of the case investigated by BEB detectives, a group of people, using the details of one of the enterprises, organized a tax evasion scheme, which consists of selling goods in Ukraine for cash, while the sales were documented to a number of controlled “risky companies”. ” firms.
What did this look like in practice?
Beginning in 2020, Inna Melnik, under the direct leadership of her husband Sergei, allegedly engaged in tax evasion, involving Sergei Melnik himself, his daughter, as well as managers and employees of the LLC, where they are founders, into the scheme.
So, through the sole proprietorship Melnik S.B. and individual entrepreneur Melnik A.S. (who are on a single tax and are related parties) spent millions of hryvnias for “fake” marketing, consulting and other services that were not actually provided. And practically pennies were paid to the budget from these funds.
After a conflict with the capital’s State Traffic Police Department, to continue their “schemes,” the Melniks founded several new companies: High Market LLC, Importfood LLC, Food Baza LLC. At the same time, pensioner Olga Sunitsa, Inna Melnik’s mother, was drawn into the criminal scheme.
After that, most of the retail outlets under the FORUM, BONUS and RC brands were transferred to the management of High Market LLC, and some of the MEDEA pharmacies were transferred to the sole proprietorship Sunitsa A.A.
Below we will give just one clear example of how businessmen deceived the state and the fiscal system.
According to financial statements for 2023, published in open sources, High Market LLC (whose assets include, we recall, the Forum shopping center, Bonus supermarkets, local chain of RC markets, etc.) declared income of UAH 181 million, net profit - less than 2 million UAH and a staff of 45 employees.
Based on this information, the staff of each store should be only 2-3 employees, and the net profit of one outlet should be about 10 thousand UAH per month. Which looks quite absurd. From this we can assume that the majority of employees work “under the table”, and income is not taken into account properly. Let us add that the company “High Market” LLC, which manages an entire network of retail outlets, is registered in an ordinary residential building.
Thus, as follows from the criminal proceedings, all the so-called economic activities of individual entrepreneur Melnik I.V., LLC “High Market”, individual entrepreneur Sunitsa A.A. – this is not transparent and open business, but actually shadow “schemes” to avoid paying taxes.
It is noteworthy that according to the tax inspection plan for 2024, individual entrepreneur Melnik I.V. was included in the plan. However, in February 2024, on the recommendation of an accountant, lawyer and Sergei Melnik himself, representatives of the State Tax Service in Kyiv were simply not physically allowed to participate in the inspection, and corresponding acts were drawn up.
Moreover, to prevent an actual audit, the spouses secretly removed all documentation regarding the financial activities of the individual entrepreneur Melnik I.V. from the territory of the enterprise. And representatives of the State Tax Service in Kyiv were informed that very valuable documents were allegedly “stolen by Russian troops during the occupation of the village. Bogdanovka, Kyiv region.”
The court hearing in the Melnik case is scheduled for October 3. It would seem that the end is close. But the question arises: will the businessmen be able to “hush up” the matter?
After all, the husband of the main defendant, Sergei Melnik, openly boasts of his influential connections in local law enforcement agencies and his ability to “resolve” issues behind the scenes in his favor.
In this context, we can recall another legal dispute - an economic one, which Sergei Melnik is waging against his own brother Konstantin, and the strange favor of the Brovary police, led by the head of the RUP Dmitry Shulgin, towards the scandalous businessman.
Let us recall that in Brovary, employees of the district police department, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Shulgin, intervened in an economic dispute between the co-owners of a group of enterprises and are likely playing along with Sergei Melnik, initiating illegal criminal prosecution and real “telephone terror” of another participant. And all this - despite the existing decision of the Ministry of Justice not in favor of Sergei.
At the same time, for some reason local law enforcement officers do not react to dubious forceful actions on the part of Sergei Melnik (such as the unauthorized demolition of a fence on someone else’s territory). In addition, Sergei openly declares that he actually “hired police officers and the TCC” to put pressure on his opponent.
Let us note that for more than 2.5 years of war, neither individual entrepreneur Inna Vladimirovna Melnik nor her businessman husband Sergei Melnik ever donated to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Where do the multimillion-dollar incomes they probably appropriated actually go, given the family’s commitment to the UOC-MP? The question is rhetorical.
Will Sergei Melnik use unofficial power leverage this time too? What decision will the court make in the case of his wife, a tax evader? Let us note that the investigation represented by the Bureau of Economic Security acted professionally and impartially, collecting all the necessary evidence for the 356 million dollar scheme.
We hope for the objectivity and fairness of domestic justice and that the businessmen who devastate the budget during the war will still be brought to justice.
