Servant of the People MP relaxes abroad during war and drives new US$190,000 car

Investigative journalists have documented that MP Bohdan Torokhtii is driving a Mercedes-Benz EQS purchased in March 2023 and found evidence of his trips abroad during wartime.

Source: an investigation by Bihus.Info

Details: According to a previous investigation by Bihus.Info, Bohdan Torokhtii, a member of the Servant of the People faction, was one of the visitors to the office of businessman Illia Pavliuk, the informal handler of a group of MPs. This group is known for organising votes in favour of various financial and industrial groups, most often in the interests of oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. Torokhtii voted in coordination with the entire group.

Torokhtii's family have managed to replace their car three times since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. All the cars were purchased in the name of Torokhtii's wife, Alina Levchenko. The daughter of football coach Vitalii Levchenko, she has been an assistant to MP Serhii Kaplin and an adviser to former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelian.

In July 2022, Alina Levchenko sold her Range Rover Sport for about US$76,000, and in the same month, she became the owner of a 2020 Mercedes-Benz G400. These SUVs cost at least US$158,800 on the used-car market.

In December 2022, Levchenko replaced her Mercedes with a new Range Rover. According to Torokhtii, the couple pre-ordered the car in 2021, and the SUV was delivered late because of the full-scale war. Cars similar to Levchenko's Range Rover currently sell for US$185,000.

In March 2023, the Range Rover was "exchanged" for a 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 electric car. Judging by the car's two-tone colour, this is a special edition of the EQS 580 – Edition One. A new one can be found on sale for US$197,851, and in March, the EQS 580 Edition One was sold for US$185,000. The journalists have evidence of Torokhtii himself using Levchenko’s car.

Shortly before the full-scale invasion, Torokhtii was among the initiators of draft law No. 7055. It provided for a ban on MPs leaving the country, except when directed to by the president to exercise their powers. However, this legislative ban on MPs was never adopted.

On 23 April 2022, Bohdan Torokhtii attempted to leave the country through the Porubne border point, which is on the border with Romania. On that occasion the border guards did not let him out of the country. Bihus.Info learned about this from the court register: Torokhtii filed an appeal against the travel ban decision, and the issue was settled out of court.

The journalists were able to identify one of Torokhtii's trips abroad from his wife's social media posts. Torokhtii and Levchenko were in Bulgaria in August 2022, shortly before their second wedding anniversary.

Bihus.Info found this out thanks to several photographs of Levchenko taken in the Bulgarian town of Elenite. Despite the fact that Levchenko did not use geolocation tags, the journalists identified the place portrayed in the photo thanks to a metal grille, a napkin and a window; this appeared to be the Fish Restaurant Levant Beach, located on the Black Sea coast in Elenite.

On 14 August 2022, Levchenko posted a photo of herself in the restaurant. A few days later, on 20 August, their wedding anniversary, she posted a photo of herself with Torokhtii, taken in the same place, wearing the same clothes, with the same makeup and jewellery, and obviously on the same day as the previous photo. Overall, during the summer of 2022 Levchenko posted a lot of photos from Bulgaria, confirming that she was in that country at the time. And the joint photo with Torokhtii proves that he was also in Bulgaria in August 2022.

The MP confirmed to reporters that he had travelled abroad after the full-scale invasion for family reasons: to visit his children, who had left Ukraine, and his wife.

When it came to his stay in Bulgaria, Torokhtii replied that he did not remember whether he had been there in August 2022 – or his likely purpose in staying there. He asked the journalists to send him their questions in writing and give him time to prepare an answer. Half an hour after receiving the questions, Torokhtii sent the journalist a screenshot revealing the date of the photo with Levchenko in the Fish Restaurant Levant Beach to be 27 September 2021. This was an attempt to imply that the photo had not been taken in 2022.

The journalists noted, however, that users of Apple devices can change the date of a photograph, bypassing the recording of the change of metadata. 

Furthermore, the journalists went on to analyse Alina Levchenko's posts for September 2021; they indicate that she and Torokhtii were in Kyiv at that time. On 27 September, Levchenko posted a photo from her apartment in Kyiv and a joint photo with Torokhtii from Veranda on the Dnieper, a restaurant in the capital. Levchenko also posted photos from Kyiv on the days before and after. And overall, during September 2021, she did not post a single photo or video from Bulgaria (where, according to the MP’s current story, she was at that time).

The fact that the joint photo of Levchenko and Torokhtii from Bulgaria was not taken in 2021, as the parliamentarian had tried to convince Bihus.Info, is also confirmed by the exterior of the restaurant in the photo. It matches the exterior of summer 2022, not September 2021.

On 28 August 2022, Torokhtii’s wife posted a series of photos taken in front of the facade of the Fish Restaurant Levant Beach. Her dress, makeup and accessories are identical to those in which she was photographed with Torokhtii. On one of the elements of the facade, you can see two dark markings, as well as a crack to the right of them which divides into two closer to the bottom.

The journalists analysed photos taken in this restaurant by other Instagram users at different times. In August 2021, neither of the two marks near the crack had appeared yet. In June 2022, photos of the restaurant showed only one mark. Two marks identical to those in Alina Levchenko’s photo were recorded for the first time in July 2022.

The journalists are therefore convinced that Bohhan Torokhtii tried to mislead them and forged metadata in his photos from Bulgaria, where he actually was with his wife in August 2022.

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