Five suspects under the so-called ”gas case” of MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the investigation, according to the press service of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).
Among those individuals is the director of Lviv Universal Exchange, the director of Ukrainian Universal Commodity Exchange, and an exchange broker, who together organized sham auctions for gas sales in favor of companies controlled by MP Onyshchenko. In addition, a facilitator and a person responsible for the creation of shell companies used to siphon off the proceeds from the resale of gas have also agreed to cooperate with investigators.
The mentioned individuals provided valuable incriminating evidence about the crime organizers, according to the report.
The NABU reported that as of late August, two out of three joint operation agreements were annulled that had been signed between Ukraine`s largest gas company Ukrgazvydobuvannya and Nadra Geocenter LLC, and HUS Company LLC, both being under the control of Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko, who has fled the country.
According to the contracts, the produced gas was sold through sham auctions at reduced prices to intermediary firms, which then resold it to industrial customers at market prices.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on June 15, 2016, the NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor`s Office reported the exposure of an organized criminal group, which had inflicted a loss of over UAH 3 billion on the state as a result of joint operation agreements concluded with the PJSC Ukrgazvydobuvannya.
