Andrii Lozovoy, a Ukrainian lawmaker with the 21-member Radical Party faction in parliament, got arrested on Nov. 5 in an airport in Prague as he tried to pay for a purchase with fake euros.
The lawmaker was detained by the Czech police for eight hours and was eventually released.
Lozovoy wasn’t available for comment. Yet he stated via Facebook that was a victim of a fraud.
According to Lozovoy, the fake euros came from a money exchange outlet in Kyiv. Lozovoy allegedly had his assistant exchange money for him prior to the trip to the Czech Republic. The money turned out to be fake. He didn’t name the exact outlet where the fake euros allegedly came from, saying it was no longer there.
Lozovoy’s income and assets declaration for 2017 showed he had 150,000 euros in cash.
As Lozovoy was stuck in Prague, his representatives in Kyiv filed a complaint to police about the alleged fraud. Kyiv Police spokesperson Oksana Blyshchyk confirmed that police started an investigation.
Lozovoy, 29, is a key member of the Radical Party, having been second on the party list during the 2014 parliamentary election after the party leader Oleh Lyashko.
In 2017, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s office started an investigation of Lozovoy on suspicion of tax evasion. The young lawmaker, whose entire career was in politics, filed a lavish declaration showing large sums in cash and multiple luxurious items, including antique furniture and collections of art, wines and arms.
The prosecutors applied to Verkhovna Rada to strip Lozovoy of the immunity to prosecution he has as a lawmaker, yet the parliament in July 2017 voted to not do so.
Lozovoy denied wrongdoing and stated the investigation was politically motivated and was meant to put pressure on the Radical Party.
