Court Provides NABU Access to Accounts of Avakov Associate

Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv provided NABU detectives access to the accounts and documents of Alfa Bank and Credit Agricole with regard to investigation of withdrawal of $40 million from Ukraine by People’s Front MP Igor Kotvitskyi, the Anti-Corruption Action Center informs. The NGO urged NABU to open criminal proceedings in this case.

In particular, the court allowed detectives to inspect and seize documents about the transfer of $40 million from Kotvitskyi’s account to Panama-based company Kingston Group S.А in summer 2015. NABU wants to identify where this money came from, as Kotvitskyi did not declare it until the end of 2015.

In total, NABU detectives received 14 permits to seize banking and statutory documents in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Panama and Norway that concern Kingston Group S.А. and Tiway FSU B.V. – two companies involved in the withdrawal of the undeclared $40 million. NABU is investigating an alleged conspiracy between National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) officers and several offshore companies.

Kotvitskyi is known to be an associate and business partner of the Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. The latter asserts that the MP legally withdrew $40 million from Ukraine. In November 2015, the Prosecutor General’s Office tried to transfer this case to the Interior Ministry, even though this would have caused a conflict of interest.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda