How do we usually imagine the fight against corruption? NABU, SBI, SBU detained some official for a bribe; the minister who appointed the official was fired; the son of a dim-witted supplier was laid in his shorts with his face on the floor; photo in panties was leaked by friendly media. All.
Is the minister stealing? No. Let's give ourselves a little green tick. Is the new head of the agency stealing? No. We put a green tick.
Has corruption been overcome? No! It occurs at the lower levels, where it is almost impossible to catch it unless systemic reforms are adopted.
As a matter of fact, the fact that corruption in the Ministry of Defense has not been overcome is evidenced by the photo of that same trunk from the car of the company’s accountant Tatyana Glinyana. The accountant was taken by law enforcement last Friday.
Now let’s figure out how, given that corruption has supposedly been overcome in the Moscow Region and prices in the food catalog have been lowered to the thresholds of the State Statistics Service, someone manages to wash away millions of euros of cash.
So, this story publicly began with the fact that last week the Mit Prom company, which is one of the food suppliers for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which was contracted by the State Logistics Operator, announced that its work was blocked by law enforcement officers.
“Due to the actions of BEB representatives, the process of shipping food products for the needs of the army was completely blocked. BEB employees blocked the exit of loaded cars and prohibited employees from going to their workplaces. The criminal proceedings, in which BEB detectives literally burst into the company’s enterprise and warehouses, were registered more than eight months ago. All this time, the company reasonably refuted BEB’s unfounded suspicions of alleged evasion of value added tax, providing representatives of the investigation with appropriate explanations and documentary evidence,” the statement stated.
Mit Prom also hinted that the company “in strict compliance with the tax legislation of Ukraine fulfills all its obligations under contracts with the Ministry of Defense” and hinted that BEB was allegedly inclining them to some kind of extralegal cooperation.
In response, law enforcement officials said that as part of an investigation into criminal proceedings for tax evasion by a group of companies that supplied products to the Ministry of Defense, detectives from the Terrestrial Directorate of the Bureau of Economic Security discovered and seized more than 4.7 million euros in unaccounted cash.
“The funds were transported by the company accountant in the trunk of the car. The woman could not explain the origin of the money. Detectives exposed the attempt to remove and hide the “black” cash register during investigative activities. The issue of seizing the seized funds is being decided,” the BEB press service reports in the telegram channel.
It also indicated that during 2022-2023 the company supplied products worth UAH 14.5 billion including VAT to the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, its officials documented a number of non-commodity transactions for the purchase and supply of food products with controlled enterprises that had signs of fictitiousness.
The name of the company was not mentioned in the press release, but some media outlets indicated that this was the accountant of Mit Prom.
Later, the company itself denied that this was its accountant.
However, this does not mean that Mit Prom has nothing to do with this pool of campaigns.
So who are we talking about and why did journalists guess Glinyanaya’s group so easily?
So, as law enforcement officers noted, we are talking about a company that supplied the Ministry of Defense with products worth UAH 14.5 billion, including VAT. In fact, we are talking about at least two companies - Grand Consult LLC, Active Company LLC.
Both of which are part of Tatyana Glinyanaya’s group. Based on the results of bidding in the Prozorro system, GRAND CONSULT LLC signed contracts worth UAH 8.6 billion. And direct contracts were concluded with “Aktiv Kompaniya” for 13 billion, but due to access to Prozorro the company received only half of the amount (almost 8 billion)
In the register of court decisions you can find a resolution that talks about the investigation of the State Bureau of Investigation, within the framework of which a criminal scheme was revealed by the head of the flight technical canteen of one of the military units in the Kiev region, who, with the help of several other military personnel, embezzled the property of the Ministry of Defense.
I would like to note that it was to the Kiev region that the company of the Glinyanaya group supplied goods. And last summer, even despite the introduction of bidding into the Prozorro system, a non-competitive auction took place between the two companies of the group, where Grand Consult won (tender UA-2023-05-25-013846-a-L1) with the highest price for additional 147 UAH
In purchases carried out from November to December 2023, the highest price for a set of products was 117.84 UAH, and also from GRAND CONSULT LLC. Deliveries were made to military units of the Kyiv region.
As an analysis commissioned by the Public Anti-Corruption Council and NAKO shows, in the contracts of GRAND CONSULT LLC, prices in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions are inflated, sometimes 2 times, compared to other contracts in the same period in other regions.
For example, fresh green onions usually cost 85 UAH/kg from this supplier in winter under all contracts, and 190-200 UAH/kg in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions.
The most expensive prices for meat and meat products are concluded in an agreement with GRAND CONSULT LLC (No. 286/2/23/22 dated 06/22/2023 - this is the same expensive agreement through Prozorro).
Now, how did you make money on these supplies? We are talking about fraud in the military unit in Vasilkov.
First, the boss instructed the cook to “dispense 30% less food products to the canteen than the quantity indicated in the primary accounting documents.”
This actually meant that the portion of military food in the HF became one third smaller. And then the “saved” products were sold for money.
In particular, the military sold 60 kg of sugar, 15 kg of pasta, 4 bags of frozen hake weighing almost 60 kg, 110 kg of frozen pork, almost 30 kg of broiler thighs, 20 cans of tomato paste and other products.
But later, judging by the case materials, the newly minted businessmen decided that it was dangerous to keep excess goods at the base, so they “improved” the scheme.
As a result, the organizer of the scheme “decided to organize an illegal scheme, which consisted of re-posting them (food products - ed.) in accounting on the basis of fictitious primary accounting documents about their alleged delivery to the military unit of Active Company LLC, which at that time supplied food products to military unit NUMBER_1 on the basis of Agreement No. 286/2/22/75 concluded with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine dated 12/23/2022,” the court order says.
This is the same contract where eggs of 17 were initially written.
“According to the agreement, counterfeit summary acts by an official of Active Company LLC, not identified by the investigation, were to be submitted to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine for payment, and the illegally received funds of Active Company LLC were to be distributed among the group members,” notes the pre-trial materials. consequences.
As a result, only during June - July 2023, false invoices and invoices were issued for supplies of Active Company LLC to a military unit for a total amount of UAH 1,393,170.89.
In November, the Ministry of Defense paid Aktiv Company under the contract. After which, an “unidentified person” withdrew funds from the accounts and distributed them among members of the criminal group.
If you think that after this the circuit stopped, then no. It’s just that in July they brought in a representative from Grand Consult LLC.
Grand Consult LLC won the same area and parts that Aktiv Company previously served. This is the tender with the highest additional price mentioned above.
As of January 2024, the investigation obtained evidence indicating the possible fictitiousness of invoices for the supply of food products to one military unit from Grand Consult LLC in an amount exceeding 3,645,000 hryvnia, and from Active Company LLC in an amount exceeding 1 400,000 UAH.
In December 2023 - January 2024, the State Bureau of Investigation announced suspicions against those involved in the scheme. House arrest was applied to them. The management of both Glinyanaya companies was not affected by this in any way. Not to mention the leader of the group herself.
Moreover, in April the courts lifted the arrest of one of those arrested .
Although the investigation insisted that it had evidence giving grounds to suspect PERSON_5 of committing the crime charged against him.
Among them:
- report of the detective of the 2nd sector of the 2nd department of the Main Inspectorate "D" of the Department of Internal Affairs of the State Security Service of Ukraine in Kiev and the Kyiv region PERSON_10 dated 02.03. 2023 on the unlawful actions of individual military personnel HF NUMBER_1, who, acting in prior agreement with business entities, under martial law, carry out fictitious transactions when purchasing food for the needs of a military unit, and also carry out the illegal sale of fuels and lubricants to unidentified individuals and legal entities ;
- letters from DVKR SBU dated 03/28/2023 and dated 04/10/2023 regarding unlawful actions of military personnel of HF NUMBER_1, who sell food products on the territory of the city of Vasylkiv;
- protocols of covert investigative (search) actions containing information about the unlawful actions of soldier PERSON_6 (including protocols dated 10/03/2023, 10/04/2023 and 07/20/2023), from which it follows that she, together with PERSON_7, PERSON_11 and other unidentified Currently, individuals carry out “savings” of food products contained in the food warehouse of military unit NUMBER_1, and for the remaining products received, they sign fictitious primary accounting documents about their delivery to the military unit, and sell some of them to unauthorized persons;
- testimony of the senior military department of the State Security Service of Ukraine in Kiev and the Kyiv region PERSON_12 dated 04/19/2023 regarding the unlawful actions of individual military personnel HF NUMBER_1 and business entities; testimony of witness PERSON_13 dated November 18, 2023, according to which PERSON_5 is involved in the commission of a criminal offense and receives a percentage of illegally obtained funds for committing illegal actions;
- inspection protocol dated March 18, 2024, during which the files (computer data) obtained during the examination of the mobile phone of witness PERSON_14 were examined, and correspondence between PERSON_14 and PERSON_5 was discovered, as well as correspondence between PERSON_14 and PERSON_13 on the production of fictitious invoices;
- protocols of temporary access to documents held by mobile operators, from which it is clear that the subscriber numbers used by PERSON_5 and PERSON_7 during the commission of this crime repeatedly had connections;
- inspection protocol dated November 18, 2023, according to which PERSON_13 voluntarily gave out funds in the amount of 50 thousand UAH, which were provided to him by PERSON_7 as a reward for recording fictitious invoices in military unit NUMBER_1 (that’s what that money from the trunk is for, among other things. Themselves food chiefs admit that some of their colleagues have not stopped taking money for fictitious supplies even now);
- inspection protocol dated 10.25.2023, during which a mail item from Mit Mix LLC was inspected, which contained, among other things, fictitious primary accounting documents (invoices, delivery notes) with signatures and seals of Grand Consult LLC, but without signatures of representatives of military unit NUMBER_1; inspection protocol dated November 21, 2023 and other materials of criminal proceedings in their entirety.
In addition, the Pechersk and appeal courts refused to seize the Redmi phone, which was involved in this case. One can only imagine how much evidence disappeared (Offtopic: recently NABU tried to conduct searches of one of the representatives of the Ministry of Defense in a fortification case. Unfortunately, the detectives made the wrong apartment and during this time the potential suspect unexpectedly lost his phone).
At the same time, the courts did allow the seizure of computer systems or parts thereof containing program databases (1C, VAG, etc.) for accounting at Grand Consult LLC, Active Company LLC, MIT MIX LLC . As well as trackers from the latest company’s cars.
In addition to this GBR production, there is a BEB production, within the framework of which all documentation on the Ministry of Defense agreements for the purchase of products for 2022 was seized.
Investigators are studying the actions of PYRYATINSKY DELIKATES LLC (code 36313601), GRAND CONSULT LLC (code 42239070), DNEPR RIVER GROUP LLC (code 40464816), MATERIAL AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT 2 LLC (code 41744450), YARD LLC COMPANY (code 44811875), ARVIN PRO LLC (code 44792224) and their conspiracy with employees of the Municipal Educational Institution.
During the pre-trial investigation, 3,591 daily field food packages were seized (these are the same dry rations that are known due to the case against former KSL official Kozlovsky).
So, what does the unfortunate Mitprom have to do with it, you ask?
Moreover, in the information about the detention of the accountant, BEB at least mentions the company that accused him of disrupting his work.
And of the companies supplying something to the Ministry of Defense in those days, only Mitprom blamed BEB.
The owners of Glinyanaya are not visible there.
But. If you open the last lot that Mit Prom won and look at the documents for the capacity, it turns out that they are located in the Belotserkovsky district, the city of Uzin, on Zavodskaya street 23 A.
It also lists Meat Mix LLC, the ultimate owner of which is Nazariy Berezyuk (apparently Glinyana’s grandson). And the head of the company is Lyudmila Tsilitskaya. She also headed one of Glinyanaya’s first enterprises, “Visit”. Actually, “Visit” itself is also registered at this address (it produces the same canned food that the Glinyanaya group supplies). The “Premium Company”, a former supplier company, is also registered there.
“Meat Mix” appears in the production of GBR as a company transporting products to military units.
And if you look at the photos from the BEB searches, you can recognize the transport yard on Zavodskaya.
Just think, you say, a company that won tenders for almost 4 billion hryvnia is renting premises. But it rents power. Well, yes, you can just walk in from the street and rent its main asset from Glinyanaya. The person still lives in Croatia. According to her version, it’s even so good that she buys hotels with the money she earns there. True, from time to time he loses bags with money. But this is already the case.
However, that's not all. When the Public Anti-Corruption Council of the Ministry of Defense analyzed food contracts with the support of NACO, an interesting nuance was found there.
For a number of items, prices for products in the contracts of GRAND CONSULT LLC and MIT PROM LLC coincide down to the penny (winter period contracts), namely for:
- fresh potatoes;
- pitted olives;
- pitted olives;
- fresh red capsicum;
- fresh green onion;
- late potatoes;
- fresh red cabbage;
- pork, frozen liver;
- pork, liver, chilled;
- beef, frozen liver;
- Meat by-products of the second category;
- Veal (all);
- Rabbit meat, chilled carcass;
- Frozen flounder, etc.
The SBI, BEB and other law enforcement officers could spend a long time running around in parts and collecting evidence, just as the military reduces the number of plates by a third, and then signs fictitious invoices with the company. In just a few months, several million were stolen in one part. But the machine detained by the BEB showed at a time what volumes of cache are circulating in this market.
Starting next year, DOT plans to launch a reformed procurement option to attract more direct producers. And we can only hope that another deputy minister and the CSL will not appear on the road to this process, which will slow down all processes. Just like it happened last year.
