The director of the Shatskyi National Nature Park in Volyn, Maria Khristetska, is suspected of employing eight "dead souls", that is, employees who were listed only on paper.
She is also suspected of organizing a criminal group of several employees, for which the woman faces up to 12 years in prison, reports Channel 12.
It is noted that the criminal group included several employees of the national park, and the director was the organizer. She is also suspected of committing a number of other criminal offenses.
The authors said that after a journalistic investigation, law enforcement agencies became interested in the official. She received the first suspicions about two phantom employees back in November 2022. Prosecutors petitioned for the removal of Khristecska from her post.
"According to the investigation, from October of last year [2021] to June of this year [2022], after hiring two people who did not perform any work and were not at work, the official entered information in the time sheet. In this way they were paid a salary in the amount of more than 615,000 hryvnias. Therefore, budget funds were wasted," the spokeswoman of the regional prosecutor's office Nataliya Murakhevich said in the fall of 2022.
The article emphasized that the court obliged Khrysetska to observe night house arrest, but after appeals from the defender, officials changed the preventive measure to a personal commitment. So she continues to go to work and, according to prosecutors, influences witnesses.
"At the same time, the criminal investigation is ongoing. And already in January, the investigation changed the legal qualification of suspicion for the official. Now she is suspected of arranging not two, but eight "dead souls". The criminal group included several employees of the institution," the authors emphasized.
They added that the suspicion was also reported to her roommate, as well as to the deputy. The director was the organizer, according to the investigation. And these, as prosecutors say, are particularly serious crimes. Maria Khristetskyi is again chosen as a preventive measure.
"Prosecutors applied for removal from office and for changing the preventive measure from personal commitment to house arrest. The court of first instance did not grant this request. Prosecutors will appeal this decision in the appeal procedure, insisting on removal from office and the choice of preventive measure," explained the spokeswoman of the prosecutor's office.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office reported on suspicion to the ex-deputy minister of ecology and natural resources of Ukraine during the time of President Yanukovych.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, they will appear in court in the Vinnytsia region 5 forestry officials, whose forest machinations caused losses of 87 million hryvnias.
