Real Estate in Antalya and Odessa: The NACP Exposes Verbytsky's Attempt to Hide Luxury Properties by Filing for Divorce
During a comprehensive audit of the asset declaration of former Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytskyi, NACP investigators uncovered a glaring discrepancy between his public justifications and the facts. In an attempt to explain the origin of his luxury real estate, the former official became completely entangled in the legal status of his ex-wife, V.V. Verbytska.
In his interviews and official statements, Verbytsky repeatedly assured anti-corruption officials that Verbytska V.V. was not a member of his family under the law as of the end of the reporting period, since their marriage had been officially dissolved back in 2023. With this argument, the former prosecutor attempted to prove that he had no connection to her assets.
However, during an analysis of the declaration, the NACP discovered a certain inconsistency. While claiming that his ex-wife was a complete stranger to him, Verbytsky, for some reason, personally included in his declaration a whole series of real estate properties registered in her name, referring to this as “free use (his ex-wife’s place of residence).” Specifically, this refers to:
- An apartment and a land plot in the elite Turkish resort of Antalya (Alanya);
- A luxurious estate-style residential house with a built-in non-residential space of 420.1 square meters and the land beneath it in Odesa.
The NACP stated that this information should not have been disclosed in this declaration at all. And that’s not all. The anti-corruption agency clearly established that all these foreign and Ukrainian real estate properties were in fact acquired with Dmytro Verbytskyi’s personal funds.
It is entirely possible that the former prosecutor simply used his ex-wife as a front, but, likely due to legal ignorance, he himself documented his connection to this property. The NACP concluded that Verbytsky has every right to directly or indirectly dispose of these houses and apartments, and his attempts to hide assets behind his ex-wife’s “fictitious” status have completely failed.
It should be noted that an investigation into Verbytsky’s alleged illicit enrichment has been underway since last year. The agency identified signs of enrichment amounting to 30.27 million UAH and inaccurate data amounting to an additional 2.38 million UAH. Real estate in Turkey, Odesa, and Kyiv was registered in the names of his ex-wife, nephew, and other individuals, but the funds to purchase all this property came from Verbytsky himself, according to the investigators.
Two years have passed since May 7, 2024, when an investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Schemes program uncovered undeclared assets and questionable real estate purchases by Ukraine’s Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytskyi. The published facts sparked widespread public outrage and set off a chain of events that culminated in the high-ranking official’s dismissal and the opening of criminal proceedings.
Currently, NABU and the SAPO are continuing their pre-trial investigation into former Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytskyi, who was dismissed amid scandal.
