SBI uncovers scheme of oak felling with losses worth tens of millions of hryvnias

Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation exposed a scheme of oak wood felling and exports that covered six regions. The owner of two wood processing companies and the head of the Central Forestry Office branch of the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" were detained .

The activities were carried out in Volyn, Lviv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia and Zakarpattia regions. According to the investigation, the owner of two wood processing companies agreed with a forestry official to systematically illegally cut down oaks.

"The timber was released outside the official accounting, and the businessman promised a bribe to the official for "cooperation", the SBI reported.

To disguise the origin of the timber, the scheme participants developed a system. The entrepreneur's subordinates produced fictitious documents through which the wood was allegedly sold between their own companies.

The processed products were exported abroad through a third company registered in the name of a businessman he knew.

Both suspects were detained directly during the money transfer. The entrepreneur was served a notice of suspicion for giving an undue advantage to an official (Article 369(3) of the Criminal Code), and the forestry official was served a notice of suspicion for receiving an undue advantage in a particularly large amount (Article 368(4) of the Criminal Code).

The defendants face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

• In October, it became known that Ukraine is switching to new methods of forestry management – more environmentally friendly and economically profitable. Instead of the old Soviet practice of cutting down large areas, forestry methods close to natural.