On April 2, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau together with the Specialized Prosecutor's Office detained former adviser to the Office of the President and ex-employee of the SBU Artem Shila.
He is suspected of organizing a scheme to steal almost 100 million UAH from purchases for Ukrzaliznytsia. In addition to high-profile names, there is another interesting component in this case - the persons involved in the scheme. Some personally, and some, such as Lviv businessmen Doskichi, providing the opportunity for schemers to use the accounts and products of their enterprises to carry out illegal activities.
Yuri and Ostap Doskichi are the founders of Gal-Kat LLC, specializing in the production of rolled metallurgy, including copper and aluminum wires and cables. Yuri Doskich is a deputy of the Lviv Regional Council from the Servant of the People, his brother Ostap is a deputy of the Lviv City Council from European Solidarity. In addition to the wire manufacturing plant, the brothers are also involved in the construction business and have a charitable foundation. Both of them are among the richest deputies of the Lviv region with an insane number of apartments, houses and land plots.
The companies in which the Doskichi brothers were founders are involved in several criminal cases. As a result of one of them, the Gal-Kat accounts were seized. The case concerned tax evasion. By order of the judge of the Pechersky Court of Kyiv, in December 2022, 5.2 million hryvnia were seized.
Based on the results of investigative actions, it was established that the settlement accounts of Gal-Kat LLC could be used to carry out illegal activities.
The investigation investigated the circumstances under which officials of the Dnipropetrovsk Tax Region tried to assign the registration limit of value added tax to companies located in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. “The specified actions are committed by members of the criminal group falsifying official documents to obtain qualified electronic signatures on behalf of officials of legal entities, the registration limits of the value added tax of which are subsequently unlawfully appropriated and subsequent commission in the system of the State Tax Service of Ukraine on behalf of the relevant business entities of actions on registration of tax invoices and conducting non-commodity transactions with a number of legal entities registered in the Dnepropetrovsk, Kyiv, Lvov, Odessa and Cherkasy regions,” the case file says.
For their illegal schemes, according to investigators, the “black” tax authorities could use the Gal-Kat accounts of the Doskichev brothers. And that is why they were seized as evidence.
The fact that the Gal-Kat company is a systematic violator of tax laws is also evidenced by its recent inclusion in the “risky” list. “The tax authority awards this status to companies that are suspected of VAT laundering and fictitious transactions, and the status itself becomes a “black mark” for the company’s counterparties,” writes journalist Evgeny Plinsky and describes in detail a scheme by which a company can try to minimize taxes: “It turned out that that in 2023, Gal-Kat sold goods worth 3.15 billion UAH, and purchased goods worth 5.88 billion... Moreover, out of 5.88 billion, as many as 3.19 billion were purchases subject to VAT... The specificity of the production of copper wire rod is that 90% of the cost of the finished products are copper scrap metal, which is not subject to VAT, but finished products are already subject to VAT. And at the time of sale, 20% must be paid to the budget for all purchased scrap and expenses excluding VAT... If you calculate in real money, then with the amount of product sales for 2023 being 3.15 billion UAH, the real VAT should be 441 million UAH, but it turned out to be approximately 63 million. The state could lose about 380 million UAH. taxes."
Confirmation that Gal-Kat often takes credit for purchases that actually did not happen can be found in the court register. Thus, Doskichev’s enterprise appears in a criminal case concerning Scientific-Technical and Financial-Industrial Company VGIK LLC, suspected of carrying out fictitious business activities to minimize taxes. Moreover, another company in Doskichev’s orbit of influence is involved in the same case and, in fact, connects them with large-scale theft of purchases for Ukrzaliznytsia.
Thus, in the period 2021-2022, NTIFPC VGIK LLC recorded the documentary acquisition of more than 4.5 thousand tons of scrap copper for a total amount of more than 370 million UAH. in LLC "Kontes LTD" and LLC "SK Vtormet", which have signs of carrying out fictitious economic activities. Subsequently, Kontes LTD LLC purchased copper scrap for a total amount of more than 370 million UAH. at Technics Company LLC. This company is suspected by investigators of conducting financial transactions with companies that have signs of “transit”. In another episode, the same LLC NTIFPC VGIK, using a number of other companies, including Gal-Kat, carried out dubious transactions for the purchase and sale of copper scrap worth millions of hryvnia. Thus, according to the investigation, the budget of Ukraine was missing at least 118,662,436 hryvnia in value added tax.
Among the companies that were involved in the scheme, we see OP Ukrkabel LLC. This enterprise is now part of the Ukrkabel group of Vladimir Dovbenko. But from March 2017 to September 2022, Yuri and Ostap Doskichi were also among the founders.
The company is a defendant in a criminal case, according to which a group of individuals created a criminal group whose goal was to seize funds from Ukrzaliznytsia by supplying cable and wire products at inflated prices. According to the investigation, the theft occurred precisely during the period when Doskichi was among the founders of OP Ukrkabel LLC. The investigation considers the founders and managers of Eney LLC, Vladimir Kotlyar and Sergei Kondratenko, to be the organizers of the scheme and the leaders of the organized crime group.
During the pre-trial investigation, several episodes were investigated in which inflated prices for the sale of copper cable for Ukrzaliznytsia were discovered. All of them relate to 2021-2022. The amount of damage to the railway is estimated at 117 million hryvnia. Thus, in fact, Yuriy and Ostap Doskichi, as the founders of OP Ukrkabel LLC during the specified period, can be considered henchmen of the theft of public funds.
And here you should pay attention to the company “Aeneas”. She appears in the case of the former SBU and ex-adviser to the head of the Office of the President Artem Shila, mentioned at the beginning of the material. In some journalistic investigations, Shila is directly called the “supervisor” of Ukrzaliznytsia from the OP. And this is partly confirmed by covert investigative search actions. According to one episode, Shila is suspected of creating a criminal group with the aim of seizing funds from Ukrzaliznytsia in 2021.
This is where the mentioned company “Eney” appears, which supplied cables to Ukrzaliznytsia. As noted by journalist Tatyana Nikolaenko, who described in detail the trial of Shila, telephone conversations of some participants in the case were heard at the court hearing. Among them, one could hear a conversation between one of the managers of Eney LLC, Sergei Kondratenko, and an employee of Ukrzaliznytsia. The first calls Sheel a “serious dude” who is similar to the highest officials of the state.
Let us remind you that Eney LLC is a defendant in a criminal case together with the company OP Ukrkabel, the founders of which during the investigation were, among others, Lviv businessmen Doskichi.
The declarations of Yuri and Ostap Doskichev are full of amounts with many zeros, dozens of apartments in Lviv and Kyiv, numerous land plots and estates. They are called one of the richest deputies of the Lviv region.
At the same time, analyzing the criminal cases of the companies of which they are the founders, you are surprised how they still continue to get away with it. And they feel so calm that their company Gal-Kat is an active participant in government tenders, often held on an uncontested basis. For example, last year in 2023, the Doskichev company signed an agreement for the supply of wires for the Lviv utility company Lvovelektrotrans. The contract amount is 20 million hryvnia. And, by a strange coincidence, Gal-Kat had absolutely no competitors in this tender.
If the investigation has reached the former SBU officer Artem Shila in the case of embezzlement of Ukrzaliznytsia funds, the Doskich brothers definitely need to strain themselves.
