Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation reported the suspicion of officials from of the forestry sector of Vinnytsia in the illegal issuance of permits for felling of forest for 48.6 million hryvnias.
Criminals destroyed 7,000 trees on the territory of the Mogilev-Podilskyi Forestry on an area of 14 hectares, reports the Terupravlinnia DBR in Khmelnytskyi on Facebook.
The message emphasized that at the time of committing the offense, the official held the position of acting the first deputy head of the Vinnytsia Regional Department of Forestry and Hunting.
The SBI documented 5 episodes of illegal issuance of a permit without an environmental impact assessment procedure.
"The ecosystem of the plantations where the trees were cut down has undergone negative anthropogenic changes and cannot be restored to its prime state for many years to come," the report says.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that in the Vinnytsia region, 5 officials of the forestry industry will be tried, whose machinations caused 87 million hryvnias in damages. Over the course of 3 years, they illegally cut down about 13,000 trees of various species, including rare ones, in Kryzhopolskyi forestry.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, in Volyn, Kovel City Council member Pavel Semenyuk was suspected of organizing a criminal scheme to export illegal timber worth more than 44 million UAH.