The head of a defense plant dismantled the facility for scrap and bought a car
The head of a defense enterprise that was being prepared for privatization, together with his subordinates, organized the dismantling of production facilities and the sale of equipment as scrap metal. According to the investigation, the proceeds were spent on the purchase of luxury cars.
Prosecutors have announced new charges against the former acting CEO of the state-owned defense enterprise and three of his employees.
According to the investigation, instead of managing the assets of the enterprise, which was in the process of privatization, the man, together with his subordinates, orchestrated a scheme to destroy it.
The equipment was dismantled, cut up, and sold as scrap metal. Law enforcement officials documented how the participants in the scheme coordinated the arrival of metal buyers by phone, prepared the metal for transport, and sent it to collection points. The losses to the state amount to millions of hryvnias.
This is not the first incident in the case. Previously, the same manager and the company’s chief engineer were notified of suspicions that they had received unlawful benefits—they leased out the state-owned enterprise’s warehouse facilities without signing lease agreements.
During the war, the suspect acquired a collection of luxury cars. Among them are a BMW M8, a Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class, and a Lamborghini Murciélago. According to the investigation, the cars were registered in the names of relatives and acquaintances, although the suspect himself actually used them and did not declare this anywhere.
The man has now been notified of a new charge—for knowingly providing false information in his declarations for 2024 and 2025.
One of the most telling examples is the purchase of an Audi RS7 in 2024.
The car was purchased for 4 million hryvnias, and on the same day it was registered in the name of the suspect’s mother, with another contract listing the price as only 100,000 hryvnias.
The car’s price in the documents dropped 40-fold in a single day. Six months later, the Audi was re-registered to a third party for 4.2 million hryvnias, but the car never appeared in the 2024 declaration.
The total amount of inaccurate information in the 2024 declaration is 11.5 million hryvnias, and for 2025—nearly 13 million hryvnias.
The pretrial investigation into the case has been completed, and the materials of the criminal proceedings have been made available to the suspects for review.
Source: Office of the Prosecutor General
