SAPO accuses former MP Dmytro Kriuchkov of embezzling over 1.5 billion UAH from Cherkasyoblenergo and Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo. Officials from these companies were also involved in the criminal scheme.
Dmytro Kriuchkov is a former MP and former Chair of the Board of Private Corporation Holding Company Energinetwork. This case was one of the first after the NABU started operating in 2015. Investigators believe that in 2015–2016, officials of Cherkasyoblenergo and Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo illegally signed debt transfer agreements with Kriuchkov’s company. The defendants organized a scheme under which consumers paid directly to Holding Company Energinetwork instead of their regional power distribution companies. The private company was supposed to transfer the money to the regional power companies, yet failed to do this. As a result, the semi-state-owned regional power companies suffered UAH 1.5 billion in losses.
According to the investigation, the case could have also involved Ihor Kornilenkov, former energy sales director of Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo; Svitlana Kuzminska, former acting chair of Cherkasyoblenergo and Kriuchkov’s life partner; and Oleksii Bespalov, former first deputy chair of Cherkasyoblenergo.
The media has linked Kriuchkov to the Surkis brothers, Dmytro Firtash, former Presidential Administration chief of staff Borys Lozhkin, and Petro Poroshenko’s business partner Ihor Kononenko, saying that Kriuchkov did not organize the schemes on his own, but only followed the instructions of the Surkis brothers, who held stakes in regional power companies at the time of the events. However, they are not officially involved in the case.
In their investigation, journalists of the Skhemy program (Schemes) provided details of the criminal schemes. In the episode with Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo, Firtash’s Azot company made payments for electricity directly to Kriuchkov’s company, thereby causing the budget to lose the budget UAH 300 million. In the same way, they managed to seize another UAH 500 million, which was transferred to Energinetwork by Zaporizhzhia Ferroalloy Plant and Zaporizhzhia Titanium-Magnesium Plant and Dniprospetsstal. The journalists also reported that an attempt to change the management of Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo controlled by Kriuchkov was prevented. A similar story allegedly happened at Kharkivoblenergo, which provided financial assistance to companies controlled by Kriuchkov and did not receive it back.
Dmytro Kriuchkov and Svitlana Kuzminska are charged under Article 191, part 5; Article 364, part 2; Article 209, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The HACC found the defendants guilty. Kriuchkov was sentenced to 15 years in prison with confiscation of all his property. He must also pay a fine of UAH 17,000 and is banned from holding managerial positions for three years. The court applied special confiscation to UAH 468 million of Kriuchkov's assets and other property deemed to be the proceeds of the crime. However, he was acquitted of certain instances of official abuse.
According to the civil lawsuits filed by Odesa CHP and Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo, Dmytro Kriuchkov is required to pay UAH 49 million. Also, Kriuchkov and Kuzminska are jointly required to pay UAH 14 million in a civil lawsuit filed by Cherkasyoblenergo.
Kriuchkov was put on the wanted list in 2016 and was extradited to Ukraine from Germany in 2019, after which he was taken into custody with the right to post a UAH 7 million bail. In 2021, Kriuchkov appeared intoxicated during a hearing for another case at the HACC. In February 2024, as a father of multiple children, Kriuchkov left Ukraine and never came back. He is currently residing in Switzerland and France.
15/11/2021
