Slawomir Novak, a Polish citizen who served as head of Ukrainian state road agency Ukravtodor in 2016-2019, was arrested on corruption charges in Poland on July 20.
International anti-corruption investigators from Ukraine and Poland detained the former official in Gdansk, a northwestern city in Poland, the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau in Poland reported.
Novak allegedly ran a scheme to steal funds allocated by international financial organizations for Ukraine to repair the country’s poor roads. The investigation is looking into road repair tenders worth €270 million.
Novak faces six criminal charges “of a corrupt nature” connected with his activities during his tenure at Ukravtodor, according to Stanislaw Zaryn, a spokesman of the minister-coordinator of Poland’s Special Services.
According to Ukrainian investigators, the charges are connected to the procurement tenders held by Ukravtodor.
Apart from Novak, the law enforcement detained two more suspects: a former commander of Poland’s Grom Elite Military Unit and a businessman from Gdansk. Their names haven’t been disclosed yet.
Currently, the detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine jointly with the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau and District Prosecutor’s Office of Poland are conducting some 50 searches the Ukravtodor offices, Acompanies which participated in tenders of the state agency, as well as as “former homes of some ex-officials of Ukravtodor.”
The searches are underway in Kyiv, Lviv and in Poland.
It’s not yet clear whether Novak and his alleged accomplices will be prosecuted in Ukraine or Poland. If found guilty in Ukraine, they face up to 12 years in prison.
The joint Ukraine-Poland investigation was launched in November 2019, one month after Novak had resigned from his position. Detectives found that the criminal scheme originated in Ukraine but participants were receiving profits in Poland.
“In order to receive all evidence we had to carry out investigative actions both in Ukraine and Poland,” said Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. “It’s the first time in the history of Ukraine when two anti-corruption agencies conducted the work within a joint international group.”
Bank accounts and assets of suspects will be arrested and, if their guilt is proven, confiscated, according to Sytnyk.
Investigators didn’t reveal details of all the embezzlement and money laundering schemes that Novak was allegedly running. In one instance, he allegedly accepted bribes from contractors to help them avoid penalties for failing to finish road construction on time. Novak allegedly was receiving bribes through a company registered in Poland.
“In this way not only illegal benefits were received, but the funds were officially legalized,” said Grishchuk. “It’s only a tip of the iceberg that we can reveal now.”
Ukravtodor’s spokeswoman Alexandra Azarkhina only commented that the current Ukravtodor management “probably knew” that the investigation into their predecessors was underway.
In the recent interview with Kyiv Post, current head of Ukravtodor Oleksandr Kubrakov assessed Novak’s performance at Ukravtodor as relatively poor, despite several achievements like investment grants from the European Union for several construction projects, and joint projects with the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
On the other hand, half of Ukrainian oblasts were not managed or controlled from the central Ukravtodor office, according to Kubrakov.
“There were people that Slawomir (Novak) did not control. It was a weak spot in his work,” Kubrakov told the Kyiv Post.
Before being hired for Ukravtodor, Novak, 45, served as the minister of transport of Poland in 2011-2013, and a member of the Polish parliament in 2001-2005.
