The NABU and the SAPO have exposed an organized criminal group led by a former state secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. According to investigators, its members misappropriated funds that foreign citizens and donors had sent to support Ukraine at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, then laundered the money through currency conversion centers.

Law enforcement identifies the scheme's organizer as a former MFA state secretary who held the position from 2020 to 2024. Diplomat Oleksandr Bankov, Ukraine's former ambassador to Romania, served in that role during that period.

Suspicion has also been served on:

• the former head of the state secretary's office at the MFA, now a serving diplomat;
• an adviser to the former foreign minister who heads a controlled NGO;
• the NGO's accountant.

According to investigators, the state secretary persuaded international donors and staff at Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad to direct financial aid to the account of the controlled NGO. Although the funds legally constituted targeted budget money from the MFA's special fund, they were channeled to accounts of controlled individual entrepreneurs and legal entities and from there to conversion centers. The scheme's participants used the laundered funds for personal enrichment, and to make the NGO's activities appear legitimate, they produced fake letters and grant agreements containing false information.

Investigators have established the laundering of over UAH 37 million (approximately $1.28 million at the time of the crime). The suspects are charged under Article 190(4), Article 191(5), and Article 209(3) of the Criminal Code.