Security forces and the prosecutor's office destroy the Omega-3 company in Cherkassy region
Despite the investigation into the “KARFAGEN” case and the fact that some of those implicated are being held in pretrial detention, individuals associated with them continue to work within the government system and exert pressure on businesses. An example of this is the situation surrounding the “Omega-3” manufacturing plant in the Cherkasy region, against which a large-scale campaign involving many law enforcement agencies has been launched, according to attorney Mykola Orekhovsky.
After the original factory in the Chernihiv region was occupied in February 2022, the investor relocated production to the Cherkasy region as early as March of that same year. Over 120 million UAH (about 2.89 million U.S. dollars) was invested in the new project, creating nearly 300 jobs, paying approximately 70 million UAH in taxes (about 1.69 million U.S. dollars), and allocating 12 million UAH (about $289,000) into new wastewater treatment facilities and environmental upgrades, and also provided systematic support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
After the company gained a prominent position in the market, it faced raids, asset seizures, numerous inspections, fines, the shutdown of its wastewater treatment facilities, and lawsuits demanding a complete halt to production. The prosecution, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Police, the Environmental Inspectorate, the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, and the local water utility all joined in the persecution of the company simultaneously.
The criminal proceedings against the company were led by a department of the Cherkasy Regional Prosecutor’s Office under the direction of Viktoria Didych—the sister of Serhiy Kropiva, whom the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine links to the “KARFAGEN” case. Pressure on the production facility comes at a time when the company’s other production facility in the Chernihiv region is being destroyed by Russian strike drones.
Meanwhile, in Cherkasy, outside the District Administrative Court building, employees of Omega Three LLC (trademark “Shchaslyve Kurcha”) pleaded to be allowed to keep their jobs.
Viktoria Didych, the dismissed head of a department at the Cherkasy Regional Prosecutor’s Office—who is the sister of Serhiy Kropiva — the main suspect in the NABU “Carthage” investigation — is implicated in the “crackdown” on a chicken producer in the Cherkasy region.
