Law enforcement uncovered a scheme to seize agricultural products worth nearly €600,000: an MP and a regional council deputy are suspected

The Security Service of Ukraine and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine have exposed a Ukrainian member of parliament in a land scheme involving property of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine worth 30 million hryvnias (about €587,800).

The security service reported.

“The Security Service, together with NABU, documented new crimes by a sitting member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, who was exposed in August 2023 taking a bribe to resolve ‘land issues.’ It has now been established that the MP also organized a scheme to embezzle property of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences totaling more than 30 million hryvnias,” the SBU said in a statement on Telegram on Wednesday.

According to the case materials, between 2021 and 2023 the suspect used controlled farmland to grow crops and illegally sell wholesale batches of grain through a network of affiliated companies. The scheme involved more than 2,500 tons of agricultural products.

To carry it out, the MP allegedly involved a member of the Kyiv Oblast Council, two heads of state enterprises under the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, and a trusted associate. To conceal the crime, the participants did not record the actual amount of harvested crops in shipping and accompanying documents.

Based on the evidence collected, the MP and four alleged accomplices were served notices of suspicion under Part 5 of Article 191 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (embezzlement/misappropriation of property or taking it through abuse of office, committed on an especially large scale by an organized group). The issue of choosing a preventive measure is being decided. The suspects face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

The SBU also recalled that in August 2023, the SBU and NABU caught the same MP allegedly taking an $85,000 bribe. In exchange, he allegedly promised a businessman the right to use land plots belonging to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences. That case is already being heard in court.

According to media sources in law enforcement, the MP in question is Anatolii Hunko (an MP in the “Restoration of Ukraine” parliamentary group in the Verkhovna Rada).