Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) completed the investigation and sent an indictment to the court against members of an organized criminal group among the leaders of a number of forest and hunting farms in the Lviv region, who illegally cut down trees worth more than UAH 64 million.
This was reported in the SBI.
The investigation found that the organizer of the transaction was one of the leaders of the Western Interregional Forestry and Hunting Administration. At the time of the crime, he was the chief forester of the Lviv Regional Department of Forestry and Hunting.
Photo: dbr.gov.ua.
The criminal group included the directors and chief engineers of 5 state forestry enterprises of the Lviv region. One of them is an active deputy of the district council.
In order to be able to trade in illegally obtained wood, the offenders illegally included the so-called "cutting of sparse forests" in the projects of the organization of activities of the forestry enterprises subordinate to them. Thus, they violated the requirements of the law and exceeded their authority.
Photo: dbr.gov.ua.
Photo: dbr.gov.ua.
On the basis of these projects, they issued logging tickets for the felling of valuable forest species. The obtained wood was then sold to private enterprises, which later often exported it abroad.
The organizer and 7 members of the criminal group are accused of exceeding official authority and conducting illegal logging (Article 28, Part 3 of Article 365, Part 4 of Article 246 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The sanction of the articles provides for a punishment of up to 10 years of imprisonment.
At the beginning of August, EcoPolitic told that in Transcarpathia exposed accomplices who conducted fictitious sanitary logging.
