Director of anti-corruption agency says Operation Carthage is being "fiercely" obstructed

Semen Kryvonos, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), has said that Operation Carthage is ongoing but is encountering fierce resistance from interested parties.

Source: a press briefing by Kryvonos and Oleksandr Klymenko, Head of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), on 14 September

Quote: "A pre-trial investigation is ongoing. It is quite active, but any comments now about what we plan to do next will be harmful. Because this criminal proceeding is being fiercely obstructed."

Details: Kryvonos said there is constant monitoring of court decisions and the property rights register. Some suspects turned out to have been aware of upcoming searches in advance, as the movements of NABU vehicles are being tracked using the Safe City system.

The NABU director also said that several weeks ago, the Security Service of Ukraine tried to gain access to the log in the High Anti-Corruption Court's D-3 computer system to see which motions were being filed.

Quote: "There is also some unexplained activity by the state company Information Systems, which at the same time approaches the High Council of Justice, suddenly raising the question of whether a detective can restrict access to the contents of search warrants. The High Council of Justice replies, 'No, they cannot', although this issue had not arisen before.

All of this appears to be an attempt to obstruct the work of NABU and SAPO by gaining access to sensitive information about planned investigative actions."

Background:

• On 4 September, Ukrainska Pravda reported that NABU and SAPO were conducting searches at the premises of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko as part of Operation Carthage to expose a criminal organisation.
• On 5 September, the Prosecutor General's Office confirmed that NABU detectives had conducted searches at official premises "used by Kravchenko".
• NABU and SAPO detained Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the International Legal Cooperation Department at the Prosecutor General's Office.
• On 5 September, NABU and SAPO announced that they had uncovered a criminal organisation headed by a senior official in one of the structural units of the Prosecutor General's Office. Its members are suspected of systematically accepting bribes from scam call centres and money laundering.
• The court has imposed pre-trial restrictions on several suspects in the Carthage case. Ruslan Kravchenko, who may be the person referred to by the "Chief" codename on recordings made by anti-corruption agencies, has not yet been served with a notice of suspicion.
• On 14 September, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suspended Kravchenko from the post of prosecutor general.

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