Luxury real estate in a cemetery: Former prosecutor Verbytsky has declared ownership of a plot in an Odessa cemetery, while the NABU is searching for his 30 million
Dmytro Verbytskyi, a former Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine—against whom anti-corruption authorities found evidence of illicit enrichment totaling over 30 million hryvnias—managed to declare a plot at a municipal cemetery in Odesa as an asset “used free of charge.”
This information came to light from official documents of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NAZK) following a full audit of the former prosecutor’s declaration, which were obtained by the editorial staff. While the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) is investigating a criminal case regarding his millions in assets, the newly admitted member of the “Batkivshchyna” party has demonstrated a literally otherworldly transparency to the state.
Top findings by anti-corruption investigators: from criminal activity to the otherworldly
Based on the results of the audit of Verbytskyi’s amended annual declaration for 2023, the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NAZK) officially recorded two serious criminal offenses, which have already been referred to NABU:
- Illegal enrichment under Article 368-5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the colossal amount of 30,266,502 hryvnias, the origin of which cannot be explained by the family’s official income.
- False statements in the declaration (Part 1 of Article 366-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) — the amount of inaccurate information (in simpler terms, “errors” in the prosecutor’s favor) totaled 2,379,310 hryvnias.
However, the real gem of the entire audit report was the section on real estate. In an attempt to prove that he is disclosing absolutely everything to the public, Verbytsky included in his declaration a 17.92-square-meter plot of land in Odesa that belongs to the municipal enterprise “Specialized Enterprise for Municipal and Public Services”—that is, the city cemetery.
A “crypt” in use and a stern lecture from the NACP
The former Deputy Prosecutor General even backed up his otherworldly assets with documentation, providing the NACP with a copy of an official burial certificate where he is listed as the “user of the plot.” According to Verbytsky, the right to erect grave markers automatically equates a grave with real estate, which must be disclosed to the Ukrainian people.
The NACP did not appreciate such gallantry and gave the former top prosecutor a crash course on the Civil Code:
“Land under burial sites is communal property, not subject to privatization or lease, and a burial certificate only grants the right to organize the process and erect a monument, but does not make a person the ‘owner or lessee’ of communal concrete. This information was not subject to disclosure in the declaration at all.”
The Turkish-Odessa Gambit with His Ex-Wife
The cemetery oddity looks particularly cynical against the backdrop of Verbytsky’s attempts to hide his actual elite estates. In his public blogs and interviews, he persistently argued that his ex-wife, Verbytska V.V., has been a complete stranger to him since their divorce in 2023, so her property has nothing to do with him.
But his past as a prosecutor once again succumbed to legal illiteracy: Verbytsky personally listed his ex-wife’s assets in the declaration as “place of residence (free use)”:
- Another apartment and a plot of land in the elite Turkish resort of Antalya (Alanya).
- A luxurious residential building in Odesa with an area of 420.1 square meters, including the land.
The NACP clearly established: the divorce was merely a smokescreen, and all these foreign and Ukrainian properties were in fact acquired with the personal funds of Dmytro Verbytskyi, who has the full right to dispose of them directly or indirectly.
Political ties and the secrecy of the investigation
Currently, detailed investigations into the Turkish and Odesa properties are blocked by the secrecy of the investigation, as the NACP’s materials have been officially incorporated into the NABU criminal proceedings.
In addition, the UA.NEWS editorial team has already sent an official request to party leader Yulia Tymoshenko asking her to explain the ethical criteria for selecting such associates. It has also appealed to the People’s Deputies heading the relevant Temporary Investigative Commissions, Oleksiy Honcharenko and Yaroslav Zheleznyak, asking them to take personal control of the investigation into the former prosecutor, which began in May 2024.
