Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court has remanded former State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleksandr Bankov into custody. He is suspected of organizing an criminal group and embezzling $1.2 million in international aid. According to investigators, the funds were funneled through a controlled non-governmental organization and subsequently laundered.
Case files indicate that Bankov recruited subordinates from the Foreign Ministry to carry out the illicit operations. The former official, who previously served as Ukraine’s Ambassador to Romania and was considered a leading expert on the region, allegedly leveraged his diplomatic network to establish the fund-diversion pipeline.
Concurrently, law enforcement agencies are investigating additional aspects of the former diplomat’s activities. Sources within the Foreign Ministry report Bankov’s potential connection to a network that facilitated illegal Romanian citizenship. The scheme involved forging documents to deceptively prove clients’ ancestry from pre-war Bessarabia.
«We are close to uncovering how Russian citizen and illegal gambling operator Sergey Tokarev managed to obtain a Romanian passport through this network,» sources familiar with the investigation stated.
Bankov built a long-standing career in diplomacy, making his arrest one of the most high-profile scandals within Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry in recent years. Anti-corruption agencies are continuing their investigation to identify all members of the organized group and verify further instances of money laundering.