Within the framework of documenting the scheme of illegal acquisition of agricultural land in the Vinnytsia region, law enforcement officers established that it was organized by a lawyer who involved two officials from the village council of the Khmilnytskyi district.

Under his instructions, the village head and the clerk of one of the village council's districts entered false information into official documentation. Specifically, they altered the journals of notarized actions regarding the issuance of wills on behalf of deceased individuals, certificates of registration at the time of death, the inheritance register, and also forged duplicates of wills.

From 2022 to 2024, 11 individuals, including the village council clerk, illegally acquired ownership rights to 19 unclaimed land shares of deceased persons. The total area of agricultural land amounts to nearly 50 hectares, with an estimated value of over 4 million hryvnias.

The lawyer has been detained in accordance with Article 615 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, and at the request of the prosecutor's office, a preventive measure in the form of detention with the possibility of bail has been chosen.

The actions of the organized group members have been qualified under Articles 190, 209, 358, 362, 364, and 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Other unlawful owners were exposed earlier. The pre-trial investigation against them has been completed, and the indictment acts have been submitted to the court. Convictions have already been issued for two of them.

As part of the investigation, all land plots have been seized.

Under the procedural guidance of the Vinnytsia Regional Prosecutor's Office, the pre-trial investigation is being conducted by the investigative department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Vinnytsia region, with operational support from the Criminal Investigation Department of the police and the Security Service of Ukraine in the Vinnytsia 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 court verdict.