Ukrainian court remands another suspect in anti-corruption Carthage Operation, with option of bail

The High Anti-Corruption Court has remanded Serhii Kutsyi, driver for Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the International Legal Cooperation Department of the Prosecutor General's Office, in custody with the option of bail. Kutsyi is a suspect in the Carthage anti-corruption special operation.

Source: broadcast of a High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine hearing; Anti-Corruption Action Centre

Details: The presiding judge partially granted the request from the specialised prosecutor's office. Kutsyi has been remanded in custody for 60 days, with the option of posting bail of UAH 3 million (US$67,500).

On the recordings released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), Kutsyi is referred to by the codename "Comrade".

If the bail is posted, Kutsyi will, among other things, be required to:

• surrender his passports for travel abroad
• refrain from communicating with certain individuals, including Serhii Kropyva, Deputy Head of the Department for International Cooperation of the Office of the Prosecutor General, Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and others
• report for every summons from the detective, prosecutor and court
• wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

For reference: Serhii Kutsyi is the driver of Serhii Kropyva, whom the court has already remanded in custody with bail set at UAH 120 million (US$2.7 million).

Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Centre has reported that, according to the investigation, Kutsyi was a member of the criminal organisation.

The investigation has established that he monitored security during Kropyva's trips in an official vehicle and his meetings with other people, used unregistered number plates, received money from individuals linked to call centres and passed it on to Kropyva.

He also helped Kropyva communicate with other members of the organisation, took part in laundering funds and carried out his other instructions.

Background:

• On the evening of 4 September, it was reported that NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) were conducting investigative actions at the Prosecutor General's Office as part of a special operation to expose a criminal organisation.
• On 5 September, the Office of the Prosecutor General confirmed that NABU detectives carried out searches at official premises used by Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, his first deputy Mariia Vdovychenko and other staff from the Prosecutor General's Office at around midnight.
• NABU and SAPO detained Serhii Kropyva.
• On 5 September, NABU and SAPO announced that they uncovered a criminal organisation which investigators say was headed by the head of a department at the Prosecutor General's Office. Members of the organisation are suspected of regularly taking bribes from scam call centres and laundering the proceeds of crime. According to Ukrainska Pravda sources, this refers to Serhii Kropyva.
• On 6 September, the court imposed a pre-trial restraint of remand in custody on Serhii Kropyva, with the alternative of bail set at UAH 120 million (US$2.7 million).
• On 7 September, the High Anti-Corruption Court imposed a pre-trial restriction on 24-year-old Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, a suspect in NABU's Carthage operation concerning protection of fraudulent call centres, ordering 60 days' detention with the alternative of bail set at UAH 20 million (US$450,000).

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