Swiss prosecutors have searched the office of Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK Trading company in Geneva in connection with MAKO Trading, a coal trading company owned by Oleksandr Yanukovych, the oldest son of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych.
Ukrainian
news site Hubs.com.ua, citing Swiss newspaper Sonntags Zeitung, reported that
the search was conducted on Feb. 27 as part of a Swiss police investigation
into alleged money laundering by Oleksandr Yanukovych.
According
to the March 16 Sonntags Zeitung report, Akhmetov’s DTEK is closely intertwined
with that of Oleksandr Yanukovych’s MAKO. The Swiss newspaper also calls
Akhmetov a “generous donor” of the former president’s previous election campaigns, further tying him to the Yanukovych family.
Sonntags
Zeitung reported that DTEK confirmed the search of its Geneva office.
“DTEK
confirms that the Swiss authorities have launched an investigation into the
activities of some firms owned by Ukrainian officials. We have provided the
Swiss law enforcement authorities of financial and legal documentation of our
Swiss branch,” the newspaper reported the company’s press service as saying.
DTEK
also noted that its business is conducted in a fully transparent manner and
complies with applicable laws of the country, and therefore is prepared to
provide all necessary documents to Swiss police to aid in its investigation,
the newspaper reported.
DTEK’s press service told the Kyiv Post on March 17 in an emailed reply: “At the end of February 2014, under investigation by the Swiss authorities regarding the activities of a number of former officials of Ukraine, in the Geneva office of DTEK Trading SA, Switzerland law enforcement agencies for the study was “temporarily seized its constituent and other documents.
“We have provided all necessary assistance to law enforcement authorities. Since investigative activities are conducted in order to identify possible relationships of DTEK Trading SA with MAKO Trading SA, we confirmed the absence to law enforcement bodies of corporate, contractual and other relations with this or other companies associated with O. (Oleksandr) Yanukovych.
“Seizure of documents of this kind are a common practice for law enforcement authorities in Switzerland and we do not see any risk to our business in connection with the conduct of the investigation.
“Currently trading operations DTEK performed in normal mode, contractual obligations to all the partners of the company are carried out in full,” the statement concluded.
European
countries and the United States in recent weeks have slapped the Yanukovych family and
other Ukrainian businesspersons and former officials with harsh sanctions,
blocking access to assets and freezing several offshore accounts.
Thus far, Akhmetov has not been included in the list of those hit with the sanctions. But at least
one Ukrainian billionaire has come under investigation by the U.S. since the
change of power in Kyiv.
Dmytro
Firtash was arrested in Vienna on suspicion of organized crime and bribery
based on a warrant that an American court granted to the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation, stated the Austrian Interior Ministry.
Firtash,
a chemicals and energy tycoon worth an estimated $2.3 billion, was detained
without incident late on March 12 in the immediate vicinity of his business
premises, Austrian News Agency reported.
A
day after he was arrested in Vienna a local court set the conditions for his
bail. To be freed, the chemicals and energy tycoon must put up €125 million,
and agree to remain in Austria.
Moreover,
interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has accused the former president and
his inner circle of secretly making off with nearly $70 billion of state money,
leaving Ukraine’s treasury “empty.”
Chief
prosecutor Oleh Makhnitsky on March 13 announced four criminal cases had been
opened against the fugitive ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
In
addition to being a suspect in mass murder, Yanukovych is being investigated
for illegally acquiring public property on a large scale in unison with other
individuals, and legalizing and laundering money that was acquired
fraudulently.
The
other two cases are for illegally seizing power unconstitutionally in 2010 by
amending the constitution through the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and for
publicly calling for the seizure of state power during a press conference he
gave in Rostov-on-Don, Russia on Feb. 27, where he is currently in hiding.
