The wife of Deputy Prosecutor General Verbytsky acquired an office space in downtown Odesa ‘for a pittance’

Ordinary Ukrainians barely survive, waiting for tariff and price hikes as well as hiding from representatives of territorial recruitment centers. On the other hand, officials and heads of law enforcement agencies continue to steal millions using their positions.

Journalists can hardly keep up with releasing investigations and uncovering new properties registered to wives, nephews and mistresses.

Less than a month ago, the media released a new investigation into the property of the family of Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Dmytro Verbytskyi. In addition to a luxurious cottage near Kyiv in the elite cottage town “Konyk,” which journalists from “Schemes” reported on at the beginning of the month and which Dmytro Verbytskyi allegedly rents through his nephew from an Odessa businessman, equally expensive real estate was found with his ex-wife. At the end of April 2024, Dmytro Verbytskyi hastily amended his 2023 declaration. As journalists discovered, in their investigation, the deputy prosecutor general’s family owns a small business center in Odessa worth $550,000, built on a summer house plot.

According to media and Telegram channels, half of the plot and the business center built on it have belonged 50% to Dmytro Verbytskyi’s ex-wife Viktoria since November 2023, as per the declaration. The cost of the plot and the building is significantly undervalued in the declaration, which is confirmed by a subsequent transaction where the property was sold for $550,000. Interestingly, the plot previously belonged to a pensioner born in 1955, who clearly could not have built and sold a business center while living in an old apartment with utility debts, like millions of other Ukrainian pensioners.

Journalists also reminded that Dmytro Verbytskyi himself is from Odessa and before his appointment to the Prosecutor General’s Office, he worked for a long time in a senior position in the Odessa Regional Prosecutor’s Office. Former wife Viktoria Verbytska and the second co-owner refused to speak with journalists, so the journalists sent inquiries to anti-corruption agencies.

Western media and embassies should probably also take note of yet another case of enrichment of a Ukrainian top official during the war. This is likely not the last investigation into Dmytro Verbytskyi, who, according to rumors, has another wife.