Black loggers will be tried in Khmelnytskyi region, who caused losses of UAH 3.3 million

Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) together with the National Police completed a pre-trial investigation into an organized crime group (OCG) from the Khmelnytskyi region, whose members engaged in illegal logging and caused losses to the state in the amount of UAH 3.3 million.

This was reported to the SBI.

In May, the bureau exposed this criminal group of 6 people. It included the head of the department of one of the law enforcement agencies of the Shepetiv district, his brother, two managers of a utility company engaged in logging, and two assistants who did all the "dirty" work.

In the course of the investigation, two businessmen who were not part of the OZH, but helped to transport illegal goods, were also caught "under distribution". They were informed about the suspicion.

The initiator of the illegal arrangement was the law enforcement officer's brother. He figured out how to make money from illegal felling: executors went into the forest and cut down trees, then private carriers illegally delivered the received wood to enterprises, where it was processed and then sold. Meanwhile, his law enforcement brother covered their activities.

The criminal group managed to work for about half a year – from November 2023 until the SBI was exposed in May 2024. "Black loggers" managed to cut down almost 200 trees in the forests of communal forestry. In particular, century-old oaks were also affected.

Currently, the law enforcement officer has been suspended from his post. He and all the participants of the OZH are accused of illegal felling of the forest, committed repeatedly, according to a previous conspiracy by a group of persons, which caused grave consequences (Part 4 of Article 28, Part 4 of Article 246 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The employee of the law enforcement agencies is also accused of aiding and abetting the specified crime, as well as of abuse of office (Part 5 of Article 27, Part 4 of Article 28, Part 4 of Article 246, Part 5 of Article 27, Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The sanction of the articles provides for punishment in the form of deprivation of liberty for a term of up to 7 years.

In order to compensate for the losses, the court seized the land plots of the accused.

As EcoPolitic reported earlier, in 3 months independent observers found 137 sites with changes in forest cover in the Lviv and Transcarpathian regions. We also talked about organized criminal group, which was collected by a foreigner in order to carry out illegal felling in protective forest plantations on the territory of the Mykolaiv district of the Mykolaiv region.