Question: How did Lviv customs officers get expensive apartments and land in the Carpathians during the war?
Of course, for few of our readers this will be a “sensation”. However, we will not tire of showing what we and our colleagues find. This time, TSN journalists carefully studied what Lviv customs officers might own. It turned out that it was possible to assemble a whole company of officials who had elite lands and real estate. All these objects are located not only on the territory of Ukraine, but even in neighboring Poland.
Relatives of Lviv customs officers were found to have luxury real estate, expensive land and other luxury items. While their loved ones are working in public service, these relatives generously share their property with them. Indefinitely and free of charge providing customs officers with cars, apartments and houses.
This is stated in the story of TSN correspondent Victoria Kovtsun.
How can you make money at customs?
Acquired at several times lower than the market value in mountain areas, where the price of one hundred square meters is not calculated in hryvnias, beauty salons and luxury recreation centers located in the most beautiful corners of the Carpathians - all this is about the property of relatives of Lviv customs officers.
Lviv customs. There are a dozen checkpoints along the Ukrainian-Polish border. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the cessation of air traffic and the full operation of the ports, the load on them has increased significantly.
Accordingly, the customs officers themselves have had to do more. What to indicate in the customs declaration, to evaluate the property, determine the cost of customs clearance and even how long the cargo will wait in line - all this is within their authority.
“What is the greatest corruption risk of such a position? It won't arrive without a customs officer. You can manipulate the subject of customs clearance, that is, write down some valuable item as something so cheap. If the importer provides only documents, they can be taken into account, for example, on faith and no additional assessments are made,” says TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL UKRAINE legal advisor Alexander Kalitenko.
Andrey Kuznik - I.O. head of Lviv customs
Andrey Kuznik, 38 years old. Acting head of Lviv customs since March 2023. According to his track record, he headed the Rivne and Ivano-Frankivsk customs, and before that he served in the SBU in various positions for 17 years. He has the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Salary, plot with a small country house near Kiev, inherited and rented apartment in Lviv for 170 square meters. This is data from his declaration.
His mother is Victoria Kuznik. She also once worked at customs. Now retired. According to the register of real estate rights, she owns 4 apartments in the capital and three land plots near Kyiv. One of them is on 11 acres in the premium cottage town “Canadian Village”. Similar plots can be found on real estate websites for prices ranging from 50 to 80 thousand dollars.
Another plot on the other side of the Kyiv region is two and a half times larger than the previous one - with an area of 28 acres and, despite the views, is much cheaper - on average, a thousand dollars per plot.
Andrey Kuznik’s mother also owns a car. But this 2010 Lexus is in the use of my son, and accordingly, it is indicated in his declaration.
There is also another mention of the mother - in 2021 she gave her son a valuable gift - a Mont Blanc watch, and in the same year his brother gave him a Louis Vuitton backpack. Each gift costs 100 thousand hryvnia.
The customs officer's wife is Antonina Kuznik. Until the summer of 2021, she was also a civil servant - she worked in the structure of service centers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then she quit and in October 23rd opened the cosmetology studio “Happy I am.” In the premises of a 5-star hotel almost in the center of Lviv. How much it costs to rent this premises is not indicated in the husband’s declaration. In addition to cosmetology, Mrs. Antonina also practices psychology. On her Instagram page it is stated that she is a transformational psychologist. Gives advice on a happy life and private consultations - for more than two thousand hryvnia per hour.
Thanks to her entrepreneurial activities, Antonina Kuznik earned almost a million hryvnia during 2023. Among the plots of land owned by the wife of the chief Lviv customs officer, there are two in the heart of the Carpathians, in the village of Yablunytsya near Bukovel. They were acquired after a full-scale invasion. These two areas on one of the mountains of the Carpathian village are now fenced off with barbed wire.
But the most interesting thing here is not only the location and picturesque landscape, but also the cost. According to the declaration of the acting chairman of the Lviv customs, these plots cost 32 thousand hryvnia, which turns out to be 914 hryvnia per hundred square meters. Although the real cost of one hundred square meters in this part of the village starts at an average of 2 and a half thousand dollars.
And the wife of the acting chairman of the Lvov customs did not buy these plots at such a low price herself. They have another owner - Victoria Sush, she is also the wife of a customs officer and former subordinate Andrei Kuznik.
Ruslan Daniv - Head of the Department for Combating Smuggling and Violations of Customs Regulations at Ivano-Frankivsk Customs
Ruslan Daniv. 35 years old. Heads the anti-smuggling department at Ivano-Frankivsk customs. Which was once led by Andrey Kuznik. You can find shared photos on social networks. And similar points in the declaration are where the Carpathian plots are indicated, which their wives own together.
“This could be a potential conflict of interest, provided that these people continue to have an official relationship, they can take part in joint events, joint meetings. This can also be extra-official relationships, just as if they influence exactly what decision should be made, or, conversely, refrain from making a certain decision,” says legal adviser to TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL UKRAINE Alexander Kalitenko.
In addition to the plots in Yablunytsia purchased at the rate of 23 dollars per hundred square meters, Victoria Daniv has another plot nearby - 47 hectares, surrounded by forest. Her husband's declaration does not indicate the value of this land. At the market price - the average here is $1,000 per hundred square meters. And it’s cheap for this region, because it’s impossible to get here from Bukovel.
The wife of an Ivano-Frankivsk customs officer also has a business. And the income from it last year amounted to slightly less than 5 and a half million hryvnia. The sole proprietorship of her mother Irina was registered at the same address, which, according to the Ukontrol service, is engaged in retail trade in the market. However, on Irina Sush’s social networks there is not a word about this business, only photos and videos from vacations abroad - North Macedonia, Egypt, Montenegro, Italy.
Ruslan Daniv himself rents an apartment in one of the best residential complexes in Ivano-Frankivsk, and with the outbreak of a full-scale war, he purchased a 2017 Lexus. He also owns one apartment in Lviv. He purchased it in '21.
The top floor with its own terrace is only 98 square meters. And according to the declaration, at the exchange rate of three years ago, this apartment cost the customs officer only 16 and a half thousand dollars, which is a little more than 150 dollars per square meter. And this is in the central region of Lviv. Two kilometers from Rynok Square.
On the real estate website, in the same gated residential complex, the cost per square meter without renovation starts from 1,500 thousand dollars.
Ruslan Daniv also has a plot of land in the city of Yaremche. And around it there is only land that belongs to relatives - mother-in-law Irina Sush, father Ivan, and also sister Martha, she inherited the plot. Now there is a wooden house, a garage for two cars, and the territory is guarded by an Akita Inu dog.
There is no mention of the house itself in Ruslan Daniv’s declaration, but sister Marta, who holds the position of deputy head of one of the departments of the Ministry of Energy, indicates it as unfinished. The same car, which is registered to the customs officer’s father, has been parked right next to the house for several days.
Ivan Daniv is also a civil servant. Works in the Carpathian forestry - the head of the Voronenkovsky environmental research department. There is also not a single mention of this house in Pan Ivan’s declaration. But there is another section of it, located in the tourist Vorokhta, on the street leading to Goverla.
He, like his daughter-in-law Victoria, acquired 25 acres of land in 2023. He also does not indicate its value in the declaration. Land here costs an average of 2 thousand dollars per hundred square meters.
Ostap Kozak – chief state inspector of the department of operational and analytical work of the department for ensuring counteraction to customs offenses of Lviv customs
July '23. Customs point Smilnitsa. Volunteers claim that the customs officer refuses to let the car through to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and allegedly demands a bribe. Subsequently, the Lvov customs will explain that employees can detain the cargo to clarify the documents, and they will have a conversation with the customs officer himself, because he did not inform citizens that filming is prohibited at the checkpoint.
This is Ostap Kozak - the chief state inspector for analytical work of the department for combating customs violations of the Lvov customs. And according to the declaration, he only has a small apartment in Lvov and a 2012 Audi that was removed in 2023.
Previously, he had 9 acres of land in the resort Polyanytsya with an estimate of 308 thousand hryvnia. Whereas the price of one hundred square meters there starts from at least 5 thousand dollars.
In 2018, this property disappeared from Kozak’s declaration, but appeared in another – in the declaration of his mother Ulyana – as a gift from her son. She is also a civil servant, the head of the medical service of one of the military units.
But attempts to find the house indicated in the declaration on the site were in vain. Is there a spa center of a 4-star hotel complex nearby? Which belongs to the mother of another, already former Lviv customs officer - Mikhail Kolomiets.
In general, the Lviv customs officer-analyst has family ties with several other customs officers. His stepfather is Evgeniy Fau, now deputy head of the Kolomyia customs post. Godfather Roman Rifyak - in 2022, by decision of the National Security and Defense Council, he came under special inspection as a person who could help people against whom personal sanctions were applied.
His wife has a common business with Kozak’s mother - Mrs. Roksolana and Ulyana have a two-story beauty salon with its own garden near Stryisky Park, and a plot of land under it.
Where did the government official get the funds to start such a business and why doesn’t she declare her income as an entrepreneur? In 2023, she also managed to purchase a new Toyota RAV 4.
Roman Rifyak – Chief Specialist of the Department of Organization and Control for the Implementation of Decisions of the Directorate for Ensuring Industrial Implementation of Decisions at the Lviv Region Western Directorate of the Ministry of Justice
Roman Rifyak is the godfather of customs officer-analyst Ostap Kozak. We learned about this family connection from our own sources.
Several years ago, Rifyak also worked at customs, since he was fired, he has been trying to be reinstated in his position and the case has reached the Supreme Court. Now he works as the chief specialist of one of the departments in the department of enforcement of decisions of the Ministry of Justice in the Lviv region.
His wife, in addition to sharing a beauty salon with Orest Kozak’s mother, also owns a law firm and earned a little more than 2 and a half million hryvnia in 2023.
Like all the heroes of this story, she has land plots, 4 in total, and also an apartment in Poland purchased after February 22 for 11 million hryvnia and a house along with land in Bryukhovichi near Lvov, which the family is now selling for 110 thousand dollars.
Roksolana Rifyak also has two more apartments in the center of Lviv, and her father-in-law has two more in the same building - so they own the entire building. In addition to his wife, his son Rostislav and daughter Oresta, who simultaneously works in the court of the eighth administrative court of appeal in Lvov, are also engaged in their own business as private entrepreneurs.
Mikhail Kolomiets - former state inspector of Lviv customs
Mikhail Kolomiets worked as a state inspector at Lviv customs, but in 23 he was fired, and now he, like Roman Rifyak, is trying to recover through the courts.
In general, there is not much property in Kolomiets’ declaration. He has a small apartment and a plot of land in a village in the Lviv region. However, he actually lives in a house in the private sector of Lvov. The declaration of the former customs inspector indicates the area is more than 300 square meters and that it belongs to the father. And the cars that are listed as in use - a passenger car and a large SUV - are registered to the mother. She is also the owner of a 4-star hotel in Bukovel located next to Orest Kozak’s site - with a large territory, its own spa center and several buildings, which offers a luxurious vacation on its website.
All the land plots for the 4-star hotel were donated to the customs officer’s mother in 2014, and she bought another one a few years later. And she began to build on this donated land. Now all these plots, including Orest Kozak’s plots, are under the arrest of the prosecutor’s office due to criminal proceedings regarding their illegal allocation on forest territory. But this is not all the property of the Kolomiytsev family. For example, my father has two more plots in Polyanitsa, one of them is still just a pine forest, which is difficult to get to even on foot. The second is public land in the very center of the Carpathian resort along the river.
The Polyanitsky village council gave it to the father of Mikhail Kolomiets for free and indefinite use for travel. However, the village council does not explain why he needs this passage.
Also, Ivan Kolomiets, together with Roman Rifyak’s father, also Roman Rifyak, own the Girbud company, which is engaged in the construction of residential and non-residential buildings.
Andrey Basarab - former chief inspector of Lviv customs
And then the story of Andrey Basarab, the former chief inspector of Lviv customs. We did not find any family ties between him and his colleagues. But the principles of running a family business are similar. Just like others, his wife owns a recreation complex in the middle of the forest on recreational areas. Closed area, hotel rooms, cottages, own water park, spa, baths, gym, fishing, swimming pool, salt rooms, and a mini-football field. All this is two kilometers from Old Sambir and 25 kilometers from the border with Poland.
Basarab's wife became the owner of this land in 2017. And she got the plots very profitably, for 3 and 7 thousand hryvnia. 5 agricultural villages, which became a hotel complex, according to her husband’s declaration, were purchased for an average of 40 thousand hryvnia each. And it was then that Andrei Basarab headed the Smolnitsa customs post, located 25 kilometers from these sites.
It is interesting that, despite such an amount of land and property owned by his wife, Andrei Basarab himself, according to the declaration, does not even have a car. Just a small apartment in Lviv.
Andrey Gavrik - state inspector of Lviv customs
In 2021, Andrei Gavrik was accused of eating a bribe. However, an internal audit did not prove this, so he continued to work. Andrey Gavrik has been working at customs almost all his life, in particular at Rava-Russkaya. Now he heads the Mostiska-Zheleznodorozhny post. His property includes one plot of land. Everything else is up to the wife.
In Rava-Russkaya, the Gavrikov family owns several plots of land and a hotel. Located in the Old Bank building. It, as well as the plot of land owned by his wife, appeared after the start of the full-scale invasion. And its cost indicated in the declaration is 150 thousand hryvnia for the land and 743 thousand hryvnia for the hotel and restaurant itself. Also in the city, the wife owns a residential building of 350 square meters, which cost her a little less than 97 thousand hryvnia. And over the previous year she earned almost half a million hryvnia.
The only plot that belongs to the customs officer himself is located next to the forest. Enclosed by a fence, there is a lock on the gate. In the trees you can see a small built room similar to a bathhouse and an area equipped for recreation with a barbecue and a children's slide.
It turns out that the fence also unites two more plots - one that belongs to Gavrik’s wife Ruslana, the second to his son Roman. Until 2018, he also worked at customs as a state inspector at the Rava-Russkaya customs post. At that time, he only owned an apartment of 30 square meters in Lviv.
Another son of Andrei Gavrik, Andrei also works as a senior inspector at Volyn customs. He has an apartment in Lviv and a plot of land in the resort Slavske.
Reaction of customs officers
TSN asked each of the customs officers about the origin of all this property. Requests were sent to them at their place of work.
Chairman of Lviv Customs Andrey Kuznik sent the following video response to journalists: “I am always open to communication with the media. All my and my family’s income is available and declared. My wife operates as a sole proprietor and pays all taxes.”
However, the journalists did not receive answers to questions in particular:
- about plots in the middle of the mountains purchased by Andrei Kuznik’s wife together with Ruslan Daniva’s wife at a price that, considering the market price, seemed too low to journalists.
- They did not find out Mr. Kuznik’s position regarding the likely conflict of interest between him and his former subordinate. And also, where did the wife get the money to start her own business?
Ruslan Daniv provided his response in writing. He says he is in a working relationship with Andrei Kuznik. And the plots near the Carpathian resort - the wife acquired before marriage and Mr. Ruslan calls this purchase - a consequence of the wife’s business and friendly relations with Antonina Kuznik. Their low cost was left unanswered. Just like the question about another plot of land in Yablunytsia.
Regarding the land in Yaremche, both a resident of the city as a student and the rest of the family received it for free. And he calls the family house on it a 55-65% unfinished building that has not been put into operation. Even though this house doesn't look like him at all
The mother-in-law's plot nearby does not comment. But it explains the land that appeared in 2023 to my father in Vorokhta was allocated free of charge to my father back in 2005, but does not explain why it appeared in the declaration only this year.
As for his wife’s entrepreneurial activity, she says it is related to the sale of cosmetic products, but does not detail how exactly. The question of purchasing an apartment almost in the center of Lviv at a low market price of just over 16 thousand dollars remained unanswered. However, the next day after receiving a request with questions, Ruslan Danov sold it for almost 10 times more than he bought three years ago, for almost 160 thousand dollars.
According to him, he received the plot of land that Ostap Kozak gave to his mother in Polyanytsya as payment of a debt and does not consider its estimated value of 308 thousand hryvnia to be underestimated. He says that at the time of the gift to the mother there was no residential building on the site. However, he did not explain why he declared this house in 2018 as his property. But he claims that the house, which the journalists did not find, is located next to the 4-star hotel, and not on its territory.
Ostap Kozak’s mother, Ulyana Kozak, did not provide any explanations regarding the plot with the house, or the beauty salon owned and the absence of income from business activities in the declaration.
We also did not receive answers about a significant amount of relatives’ property from Roman Rifyak. But it was not possible to contact Mikhail Kolomiets. However, it is interesting that land plots for a four-star hotel were presented to the mother by a resident of Polyanitsa, Mr. Verbitsky. This is exactly the same Mr. Verbitsky who gave the neighboring plot next to Ostap Kozak for debts.
Andrei Gavrik said in his explanation that his wife inherited the hotel from her sister, who left for the USA. And the cost estimate was ordered from a licensed company. He says he received the plot under the forest for free use from the city council more than 10 years ago. He denies the presence of a fence or structures on it. The wife’s plot nearby, allocated for a vegetable garden, is said to be used jointly, but the son’s plot with an unfinished house is not used, so it is not in the declaration.
Let us remind you that ex-deputy head of customs Cherkassky found housing in Dubai: the price was tens of millions of dollars.
Earlier it was reported that the SBU exposed officials of the State National Security Service who protected the movement of evaders across the border, Vladimir Malyuga was involved in this - media.
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