The Specialized Prosecutor's Office in the Defense Sector of the Central Region has reported suspicions against three officials of the city council and the director of a private company for abuse of office and official forgery during the procurement of satellite phones for the military (Part 2 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 364, Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

According to the investigation, in 2023, the director of the city council's department, along with two subordinate specialists, in collusion with the director of the company, organized the procurement of 70 satellite phones at an inflated price with the aim of obtaining illegal benefits.

The officials of the department conducted the procurement without a competitive procedure and predetermined the supplier as the chosen company. To create the appearance of a justified price, one of the specialists conducted a formal market analysis, using only inflated offers.

After the contract was signed, the director of the company created an invoice with false information about the alleged delivery of the entire batch of phones, although no actual delivery took place. Another specialist from the department included knowingly false information in the document about the receipt of the satellite phones.

Based on the forged documents, the director of the department signed payment instructions, after which over 13 million UAH of budget funds were unjustifiably transferred to the company's account.

After receiving the money, the director of the company purchased phones from another supplier at a significantly lower price. The difference between the actual and inflated costs was embezzled by the participants in the scheme. 

As a result of these actions, the local budget suffered losses of over 5 million UAH.

Preventive measures have been chosen for the suspects.

The pre-trial investigation is being conducted by the Territorial Department of the Bureau of Economic Security in the Poltava region with operational support from the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Police in the region.

Note: According to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until their guilt is proven in a lawful manner and established by a guilty verdict of the court.