Police on Aug. 10 arrested two people allegedly promising to get a willing client appointed as head of the Mykolaiv Oblast State Administration in exchange for money.
The duo were asking for $600,000 to bribe high-ranking officials to ensure the appointment, according to police.
The Internal Affairs Ministry said that the organizer of the scheme is a 64-year-old woman from Kyiv who previously worked in the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. Her accomplice is a 36-year-old journalist and head of a charitable organization, who lives in Kyiv.
The ministry did not disclose any additional details about the suspects.
According to the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, the younger suspect is named Oleksiy Osker, head of the Oleksiy Osker Charity Fund and one of the executives of an organization called Evro Stolytsia.
From 2012 to 2014, Osker worked as an aide to independent lawmaker Yuriy Shapovalov. Afterwards, he worked for Oleksiy Lenskiy, a former lawmaker from Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party until 2019.
Osker ran for parliament and the Kyiv city council a total of three times but was never elected.
If convicted, the two face up to 12 years in prison and the confiscation of their property.
This is not the only alleged corruption scheme concerning Mykolaiv Oblast exposed on Aug. 10. On the same day, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau said it busted an embezzlement scheme in the region, which led to losses of Hr 26.8 million (more than $1 million).
