Detectives from Ukraine’s Bureau of Economic Security (BEB) have conducted searches at a metallurgical plant in Brovary owned by current and former officials connected to former Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi. The raids were triggered by large-scale tax evasion, though law enforcement authorities have yet to issue an official report on the investigation’s outcomes.
According to media reports and sources at Ukrainska Pravda, the searches targeted the companies LLC Altegh and LLC Braz. The industrial complex is owned by current Kyiv City Council member Roman Yaroshenko, former council member Andriy Zaiets, and businessmen Viacheslav and Oleksandr Suprunenko.
During the operations, law enforcement uncovered a massive financial ecosystem designed to minimize tax obligations to the state budget.
Key violations uncovered at the group’s entities include:
286M UAH (~$7M) — total value of unaccounted commercial inventory;
39M UAH (~$950K) — value of undocumented scrap metal, including hundreds of tons of aluminum with no legal documentation;
23.5M UAH — underreported Value Added Tax (VAT);
8.9M UAH — underreported real estate tax achieved by concealing actual facility dimensions.
To legitimize the unaccounted products, the individuals allegedly operated a network of shell intermediary companies (including Ukrmetsort, Shtabmet, Alum Product, and others) to conduct fictitious, paper-only transactions.
«A key element of the scheme is Asvio Bank, controlled by Yaroshenko, Zaiets, and the Suprunenko brothers. Billions in cashless transfers from shell companies were funneled through the bank and converted into cash to purchase scrap off the books and siphon capital into the shadow economy,» sources report.
The facility targeted in the raids is the former state-owned enterprise Kyiv Aluminum Construction Structures Plant (KZABK). The complex includes eight real estate facilities spanning 122,000 square meters and a 26-hectare land plot in Brovary.
The privatization process began during Leonid Chernovetskyi’s mayoral tenure. While serving on the Kyiv City Council’s budget committee, Roman Yaroshenko and his associates blocked municipal financial aid to the plant. The artificially created cash shortage forced the public enterprise to secure high-risk loans from Khreshchatyk Bank, pledging its entire real estate portfolio as collateral.
Following an artificial bankruptcy, the plant’s assets were shuffled through a chain of affiliated shell entities. In 2023, a court dismissed the illegal asset seizure case due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Shortly after, Ukraine’s Anti-Monopoly Committee authorized firms linked to the Suprunenko and Yaroshenko group to officially consolidate control over the complex.
Despite the scale of the findings, neither the Bureau of Economic Security nor the regional prosecutor’s office has released official statements regarding the case.
Journalists and legal analysts express concern that the lack of public disclosure suggests ongoing attempts to quietly settle the matter behind closed doors, potentially downgrading major tax fraud charges to minor administrative infractions with minimal fines.