The National Anti-Corruption Bureau has rejected the arguments of Mykola Solskyy, the Minister of Agrarian Policy suspected of misappropriating state land, that it was transferred to ATO veterans.
The Bureau's press service said this was not true. The plots were indeed registered in the names of ATO veterans who were entitled to free land, but the condition for registration was an agreement to transfer it to an agricultural holding in whose interests the members of the criminal group acted.
The video released by the NABU shows conversations between the participants in the scheme, including Solskyy's current deputy, Markiyan Dmytrasevych. According to the investigation, in 2017, the Polish man, who was then the owner of agricultural firms, decided to take possession of the land in the interests of a private agricultural holding.
Solskyy is considered to be a co-organiser of the scheme, together with the then head of the StateGeoCadastre and the head of the agricultural holding.
The scheme was implemented in several stages. Solskyy's trustee, his current deputy, regularly reported on court proceedings that could have disrupted the scheme.
The land was transferred to pre-determined people through controlled officials of the Sumy branch of the State Geocadastre. These people signed an agreement that they would transfer the land to the agricultural holding before receiving it.
However, in one case, the registrar issued an extract on state registration of land ownership directly to one of the owners, which meant that the scheme lost control over its implementation. The scheme participants suspected that "some bastard" was obstructing the scheme. They decided to find out who it was.
