The State Bureau of Investigation has served a notice of suspicion to Russian oligarch Igor Churkin, who seized the real estate of CJSC Municipal Transport Plant (formerly OJSC Lviv Automobile Plant, LAZ).
It was established that in 2005, Churkin was elected chairman of the supervisory board of CJSC Municipal Transport Plant. This allowed the oligarch to perform organisational and administrative functions at the enterprise, including making decisions on the alienation of real estate.
In 2008, he organised the alienation of eight properties of the former state-owned Lviv Automobile Plant. His own commercial structures became their new owners.
To carry out the transaction, Churkin instructed his subordinate to forge official financial documents of the Municipal Transport Plant CJSC. They were used to remove all financial encumbrances from the real estate, which saved the oligarch money and allowed him to actually steal part of the plant's premises.
The Russian oligarch repeated a similar scheme in 2016. He organised the forgery of a court decision, which became the basis for creating allegedly legal conditions for the alienation of the plant's real estate in favour of his group of companies.
The amount of damage caused to CJSC Municipal Transport Plant is over UAH 367 million. The property of the plant has now been returned to the state.
The Russian was served a notice of suspicion under Article 358 (forgery for the purpose of using an official document drawn up in the form prescribed by law and containing the details required by law, committed repeatedly by prior conspiracy by a group of persons, combined with organising the use of a knowingly forged document) and Article 191 (misappropriation of another's property by abuse of office, committed repeatedly by prior conspiracy by a group of persons on an especially large scale) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The charges provide for imprisonment for up to 12 years. The Prosecutor-General's Office is in charge of the proceedings.
Last May, Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyy proposed to nationalise the buildings located on the territory of the Lviv Bus Plant LAZ, which has been owned by Russians since the 1990s.