On October 16, 2026, the NABU and the SAPO served notices of suspicion on forensic experts from the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Justice, who forged appraisals of a luxury apartment owned by the wife of a top SSU official. The official is likely Illia Vitiuk, whose case is at the preparatory proceedings stage at the HACC. When it sent the case to court, NABU had already flagged possible unlawful interference by KSRIFE experts.

In December 2023, Vitiuk’s wife bought an apartment for UAH 21.6 million, but the price in the official contract was deliberately lowered to UAH 12.8 million.

In April 2024, the family’s lawyer approached KSRIFE for a forensic construction and valuation examination. By May, the expert commission had issued a report valuing the apartment at UAH 12.3 million, UAH 9.3 million below its actual price. To reach the desired figure, the experts knowingly compared the apartment with unsuitable properties.

Also in May 2024, NABU detectives ordered their own examination of the property as part of their investigation. On November 11, however, they formally withdrew the order and asked for the materials to be returned without the examination being carried out.

The experts ignored the withdrawal and carried out the examination anyway. They artificially capped the comparable properties at USD 2,500–2,600 per square meter, instead of the market rate of USD 3,000, and deliberately used only the cheapest listings, starting at USD 1,550, while discarding relevant comparables.

In early December 2024, the experts signed off on the finished document, backdating it to November 8, 2024, so that the examination appeared to have been completed before the detective withdrew the order. Tellingly, investigators obtained a copy of the report from the lawyer of the former official under suspicion, not from the institute itself.