Under the procedural guidance of prosecutors from the Office of the Prosecutor General, investigators from the Main Investigation Department of the National Police of Ukraine, together with operational staff from the Department for Combating Cybercrime of the National Police of Ukraine, uncovered an organized group of individuals who committed theft of funds on the territory of Ukraine by infecting the computers of accountants at Ukrainian firms with malicious software.

According to the investigation, the organized group, consisting of at least three individuals, embezzled several million hryvnias from the accounts of a number of leading industrial enterprises in Ukraine. The perpetrators attacked the accounting systems of legal entities using malicious software. Gaining covert remote access to the accountants' computers, the suspects transferred funds to pre-prepared controlled accounts of individual entrepreneurs under the pretext of payment for services rendered and subsequently cashed them out.

The organizer of the criminal scheme and his accomplice have been identified. The latter was responsible for forming an extensive network of drop accounts. Some of them registered as individual entrepreneurs for a monetary reward and provided their bank accounts for use by the criminals. The scheme also involved individuals who registered accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges and rented them out to members of the group.

In this way, the criminals stole nearly 4 million hryvnias from the accounts of Ukrainian business entities.

Individuals involved in organizing these criminal activities have been notified of suspicions under Part 5 of Article 185 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. A preventive measure in the form of detention has been applied to one of the suspects.

Pre-trial investigation is ongoing.

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.