In the latest Ukraine corruption scandal, this evening the Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko has been caught up in what is purportedly a massive scandal of the legal enforcers taking a cut of the ‘action’ to cover up dirty money operations. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General was forced to resign as the scandal swept through his office. It all took about 48 hours.
Late on Friday, his premises along with those of his deputy Mariia Vdovychenko and other offices in the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) were searched by the anti-corruption agencies, NABU and SAPO. They announced that they had uncovered a criminal organization which investigators said was run by a PGO department head. Then yesterday, department head Serhii Kropyva was arrested with bail set at UAH 120 million (US$2.7 million). And today, the High Anti-Corruption Court imposed a pre-trial restriction on his collaborator, 24-year-old Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko. Then Kravchenko told reporters that he had no plans to resign. Later today, after meeting with acting president Volodymyr Zelensky, Kravchenko resigned.
Around 2,000 scam call centers presently operate in Ukraine, according to Zerkalo Nedeli (ZN) news agency. Roughly half allegedly pay bribes to government officials in exchange for protection and are designated “white.” The remainder try to keep underground, avoiding the authorities’ bribe system and are designated “partisans.” ZN’s sources estimate that each “white” pays around $20,000/month and that the PGO gets about 15% of that off the top—or about $36 million/year for the PGO. The aggressive call centers scam many foreigners, but wealthy Europeans are reportedly a specialty.
