A police officer stole physical evidence worth 2.5 million hryvnias from his workplace

Prosecutors from the Khmelnytskyi Regional Prosecutor’s Office have completed their investigation and filed an indictment against a former senior investigator from one of the units of the National Police’s Main Directorate in the region. The former law enforcement officer is accused of embezzling a large sum of money that was being held as physical evidence in a criminal case.

This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General.

The investigation established that in January 2024, the police officer joined an investigative team conducting a pre-trial investigation. During an authorized search of a private entrepreneur’s home, significant funds were seized: 40,000 U.S. dollars, 20,000 euros, and 112,000 hryvnias. At the official exchange rate, this amount was equivalent to nearly 2.5 million hryvnias.

The seized funds were properly examined and recorded in the report. Afterward, the investigator was supposed to transfer the money to a bank for official safekeeping, but instead kept it for himself.

The disappearance of the physical evidence was not discovered immediately, but only after the law enforcement officer was dismissed from the police force in August 2024. When the man was informed of a scheduled unscheduled inventory, he attempted to conceal the crime and return the funds. However, during the audit, it was discovered that the serial numbers on the returned bills did not match the numbers recorded during the search.

The former senior investigator is charged with misappropriation of another person’s property through abuse of official position, as well as the substitution of seized property that had been entrusted to him for safekeeping.

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