NABU suspects former head of State Property Fund Sennychenko of laundering $277 million

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau has renewed charges against a former senior official accused of plundering state coffers through a sophisticated money laundering scheme.

The NABU alleges Dmytro Sennychenko, once head of the State Property Fund, orchestrated the laundering of more than 10 billion hryvnias ($277 million) during his time at the agency.

The case against Sennychenko consists of two parts: embezzlement at the Odesa Port Plant and embezzlement at the United Mining and Chemical Company.

In total, the investigation suspects 10 people.

Previously, they were charged with creating a criminal organization (Article 255 of the Criminal Code) and misappropriation of property (Article 191 of the Criminal Code), and now abuse of power (Article 364 of the Criminal Code) and legalization of property (Article 209 of the Criminal Code) have been added. The maximum sanction provided for in the articles is 13 years of imprisonment.

At the same time, NABU somewhat reduced the estimate of losses caused, in its opinion, by Sennychenko and other suspects.

Earlier NABU claimed that the Odesa Port Plant lost more than 390 million hryvnias ($10.8 million) from May to December 2020, now - that OPP underreceived 300 million ($8.3 million) in the period from May 2020 to October 2021.

In total, over 400 million hryvnias ($11.1 million) of losses were caused to the state in two episodes, according to NABU.

On March 22, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and the NABU charged Sennychenko in absentia. The investigation believes that he was allegedly one of the key organizers of the group that withdrew money during 2019-2021 from OPP and UMCC.

He is wanted. In 2022, Sennychenko was seen on the Cote d'Azur, and in December 2022, he apparently became the director of one of the Spanish companies.