The National Agency on Corruption Prevention of Ukraine (NACP) accused Leonid Berezinsky, the former head of the Northeastern Office of the State Audit Service in Luhansk oblast, of concealing more than Hr 37.5 million ($1.4 million).
The former official reported that he owns little more than Hr 7.5 million in multiple declarations. While reviewing his 2020 declaration, the NACP said it found that Berezinsky’s wife lent a third party $1.6 million (about Hr 45 million). The wife’s resources were not indicated in any of Berezinsky’s asset declarations, according to the Agency.
The former official said he did not report these funds because he did not know about them. The investigation later turned up a notarized statement from Berezinsky agreeing to transfer the sum, the NACP reported.
Berezinsky then explained that this was money his wife received from her father. According to the Agency, the State Register of Taxpayers showed that the father’s official income only amounted to Hr 4,000 for the period from 1998 to 2019.
The Agency suspects that $1.4 million of the official’s assets has signs of illegal enrichment.
The case has been transferred to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
In July, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law reinstating imprisonment for lying in asset declarations, which the Constitutional Court of Ukraine abolished last year.
