The case of Dmytro Sennychenko, the “whistleblower” and former SPFU Head

Case description

The NABU and the SAPO exposed a criminal organization headed by Dmytro Sennychenko, former Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU). The scheme participants are suspected of embezzling over UAH 500 million from the Odesa Portside Plant and the United Mining and Chemical Company.

According to the prosecution, the former Head of SPFU, together with others, was involved in the seizure of more than UAH 500 million in 2019-2021. Thus, the first episode concerns the Odesa Portside Plant, which lost more than UAH 390 million as a result of fraud from May to December 2020. According to the investigation, in early 2020, Sennychenko helped elect members of the Supervisory Board of the Odesa Portside Plant. Subsequently, these individuals agreed to appoint a person controlled by the former Head of SPFU as Director. In particular, this may refer to Mykola Synytsia, who took over the Odesa Portside Plant (OPP) in 2020. 

The exclusive partner of OPP was Auto Gas Trading (AGT), a company controlled by Sennychenko, which supplied gas to the plant in exchange for manufactured products, such as ammonia and urea. The company sold fertilizers on the market, taking all the revenue, while the OPP received only a fixed fee for manufacturing services. Attempts to change the supplier in 2020 were thwarted by Sennychenko's criminal group; at the next tender, he arranged for the real winner, Ihor Kolomoiskyi's Ukrnaftoburinnya, to cancel the tender. For the second time, the competition was also blocked, and such large chains as OKKO and Socar were rejected.

Between November 2019 and July 2020, Sennychenko alone could have received USD 1.3 million in illegal remuneration. The investigation estimates the total amount of the alleged criminal organization's improper advantage for the entire period of control over the OPP at UAH 2 billion. 

The second episode concerned the United Mining and Chemical Company. According to the NABU and the SAPO, in October 2020, Sennychenko managed to get a loyal acting director appointed, as in the previous case. The latter signed four contracts for the sale of titanium-containing raw materials in 2020-2021. The counterparty was a Czech company controlled by Sennychenko's advisor. Such raw materials were sold at reduced prices, causing the national budget to suffer more than UAH 118 million in losses.

Interesting fact: in 2020, Dmytro Sennychenko established himself as a corruption whistleblower by refusing multimillion-dollar bribes. For example, he applied to the NABU with a statement about a USD 5 million bribe offered to him for the appointment of a managing director of the Odesa Portside Plant at the same time as the criminal scheme that has now been exposed was in operation. As the NABU later claimed, the former official did this to create a favorable image and eliminate competing suppliers as part of a criminal scheme.

Sennychenko is charged under Article 255(1), Article 255(2), Article 255(3), Article 364(2), Article 209(3) and Article 191(5) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In November 2023, the NABU reviewed the suspicion notice against Sennychenko, and now he is also suspected of laundering more than UAH 10 billion. The defendants also include:

• Andrii Hmyrin, co-organizer of the crime and a close associate of the Head of SPFU;

• Yurii Lypka, Advisor to the Head of SPFU; 

• Mykola Parsentiev and Mykola Synytsia, two former Acting Directors of the Odesa Portside Plant; 

• Artur Somov, acting Head of the UMCC;

• Volodymyr Kolot and Oleksandr Horbunenko, two owners of the auction-winning LLC at the Odesa Portside Plant; 

• banker Pavlo Prysiazhniuk and another accomplice in the crime.