Case description
On March 6, 2024, the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine sentenced Natalia Lysenko, owner of Vel-Auto-Trans firm, and businessman Serhii Molodyk, who were accused of misappropriating state-owned grain worth more than UAH 700,000.
In August 2015, Natalia Lysenko, as director of Vel-Auto-Trans LLC, allegedly purchased almost 244 tons of grain from the warehouse of Chervonyi Zemlerob State-Owned Enterprise. According to the prosecution, Lysenko did not intend to make any real payment for the products, and in order to conceal the embezzlement of grain, she signed an additional agreement with the company for the storage of agricultural products from the 2015 harvest.
Following that, an acceptance certificate of valuables for safekeeping was drawn up, which contained knowingly false information that Chervonyi Zemlerob State-Owned transferred and Vel-Auto-Trans LLC received 243.94 tons.
In early 2016, Serhii Molodyk was involved in this criminal scheme. In March, the illegally obtained grain was re-registered to the name of his newly acquired private enterprise Kanivavto PE, which did not even have open bank accounts or carry out any business activities, under an interest-free commodity loan agreement. Later, he organized its sale by selling the grain for cash to another company. The perpetrators distributed the received funds in the amount of UAH 770,000 among themselves.
Lysenko’s actions were initially qualified under Article 191, part 5 and Article 209, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and Molodyk’s actions were qualified under Article 205, part 2 and Article 209, part 2 of the Criminal Code.
Natalia Lysenko was found guilty under Article 191, part 5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and sentenced to 8 years in prison with confiscation of half of her property. Serhii Molodyk was found guilty under Article 209, part 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and sentenced to 4 years in prison with confiscation of ¼ of his property. Later, the appellate instance overturned the decision to confiscate Molodyk's property.
However, since he is serving in the military, his main sentence was suspended with a 3-year probationary period. The court also banned both from holding administrative positions for 3 and 2 years respectively and imposed joint compensation for property damage in the amount of almost UAH 750,000.
