Another suspect in anti-corruption agency's Operation Carthage remanded in custody with option of bail

Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court has remanded another suspect in the anti-corruption investigation known as Operation Carthage in custody with the option of bail: Serhii Kutsyi, who works as a driver for Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the International Legal Cooperation Department at the Prosecutor General's Office.

Source: broadcast of a High Anti-Corruption Court hearing; Anti-Corruption Action Centre

Details: The presiding judge partially granted a request from the specialised prosecutor's office. Kutsyi has been remanded in custody for 60 days, with bail set at UAH 3 million (US$67,500).

Kutsyi is referred to by the codename "Comrade" in recordings released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).

If bail is posted, Kutsyi will, among other things, be required to:

• surrender his passports for travel abroad
• refrain from communicating with certain individuals, including Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the Department for International Cooperation at the Prosecutor General's Office, Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and others
• report for any summons from the detective, prosecutor and court
• wear an electronic monitoring tag.

For reference: Serhii Kutsyi is the driver of Serhii Kropyva, who has already been remanded in custody with bail set at UAH 120 million (US$2.7 million).

Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Centre has reported that according to the investigation, Kutsyi was a member of the criminal organisation.

The investigation has established that he monitored security when Kropyva was travelling in an official vehicle and meeting with other people, used unregistered number plates, and took receipt of money from individuals linked to scam call centres and passed it on to Kropyva.

He also helped Kropyva communicate with other members of the organisation, took part in laundering money, and carried out other instructions from him.

Background: On the evening of 4 September, it was reported that NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) were conducting investigative actions at the Prosecutor General's Office as part of a special operation to expose a criminal organisation.

• On 5 September, the Office of the Prosecutor General confirmed that NABU detectives had carried out searches at official premises used by Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, his first deputy Mariia Vdovychenko and other staff from the Prosecutor General's Office at around midnight.
• NABU and SAPO detained Serhii Kropyva.
• On 5 September, NABU and SAPO announced that they had uncovered a criminal organisation which investigators said was headed by the head of a department at the Prosecutor General's Office. Members of the organisation are suspected of regularly taking bribes from scam call centres and laundering the proceeds of crime. Sources told Ukrainska Pravda that the department head in question was Serhii Kropyva.
• On 6 September, Kropyva was remanded in custody with bail set at UAH 120 million (US$2.7 million).
• On 7 September, the High Anti-Corruption Court imposed a pre-trial restriction on 24-year-old Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, a suspect in NABU's Operation Carthage investigation into the alleged protection of scam call centres, ordering 60 days' detention with bail set at UAH 20 million (US$450,000).

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