NABU accuses KNIISE experts of falsifying property valuation for SBU officer’s wife

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has announced suspicion notices against employees of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise (KNIISE): according to investigators, they falsified a report on the value of an apartment belonging to the wife of a senior SBU officer.

According to NABU materials, in December 2023 the official’s wife purchased an apartment for 21.6 million hryvnias. However, the sale-and-purchase agreement deliberately understated the price by nearly half — to 12.8 million hryvnias.

In April 2024, the couple’s lawyer initiated a valuation and construction expert examination at KNIISE. In May, a panel of experts submitted a report placing the apartment’s market value at 12.3 million hryvnias — that is, 9.3 million hryvnias below the actual price. The lawyers subsequently used this document as evidence before the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, NABU, and in court.

NABU detectives ordered a new examination, but the experts ignored this demand and continued to stand by their conclusions, comparing the purchased apartment with the cheapest properties on the market. In addition, they falsified the date of the report: the document was signed in early December 2024 but was dated early November. Notably, the detectives received a copy of the report not from KNIISE but from the suspected official’s lawyer.

Following the investigation, NABU called for the creation of its own expert institution in order to be independent of KNIISE when conducting examinations.

The scandal is unfolding against the backdrop of a broader confrontation between NABU and the SBU. KNIISE is a key institution for expert examinations conducted by the SBU and other agencies, including in numerous treason cases. Defense lawyers in political cases have accumulated numerous complaints about the institute’s reports.

An open standoff between NABU and the SBU, which is under presidential control, has been ongoing since last year. NABU’s support group periodically claims that the SBU and Volodymyr Zelensky are preparing a strike against anti-corruption bodies, using testimony from Fedir Khrystenko, a member of parliament convicted of treason. NABU, for its part, regularly opens criminal corruption cases against SBU employees and accuses the security service of surveilling its detectives.