Law enforcement officers from the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office have exposed and dismantled a large-scale criminal scheme operating on a 23-hectare industrial landfill within Dnipro city limits. Executives of a local enterprise earned millions of hryvnias by burying thousands of tons of hazardous industrial waste on forest fund land under the guise of safe materials, while simultaneously running an illegal mining operation on the same site.
According to pre-trial investigations, the enterprise contracted with nine major companies for waste disposal services over the past year, receiving nearly 6 million UAH. However, no actual neutralization or safe processing took place. Instead, the perpetrators executed a systematic cover-up:
Falsifying Documentation: Officials changed classification hazard codes on invoices and official environmental reports.
Manipulating Lab Results: Laboratory test certificates were forged to falsely categorize toxic materials as harmless.
Direct Burial: The hazardous waste was transported directly to the landfill and buried without treatment, posing a severe threat to local soil, air quality, and the broader environment.
«The suspects registered toxic industrial waste as completely safe. Instead of going through complex neutralization processes, more than 23,000 tons of hazardous substances were simply buried on city forest fund land,» stated representatives from the regional prosecutor’s office.
The illegal operation went beyond toxic waste disposal. Investigators discovered that the company’s director also organized an illicit extraction operation on the landfill grounds to mine loam—a key raw material used in construction.
Using heavy machinery, the group illegally extracted over 1,300 cubic meters of loam. The raw material was then transported and sold to private buyers disguised as different construction products, generating additional unrecorded profits.
The investigation spanned across two regions—Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and Kyiv. Law enforcement conducted 65 authorized searches targeting the suspects’ residences, corporate offices, vehicles, and the landfill site itself. The raids yielded significant evidence, including:
Heavy machinery and specialized transport vehicles;
Mobile phones, digital media, and shadow accounting records;
Substantial amounts of cash in various currencies;
Original forged environmental and lab compliance documents.
Official notices of suspicion have been served to the primary suspects—the company director, chief engineer, and chief accountant—for violating subsoil protection and illegal mining regulations under Parts 2 and 3 of Art. 27 and Part 3 of Art. 240 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Prosecutors are requesting pretrial detention measures, while comprehensive environmental expert studies are underway to calculate the full scale of the ecological damage.
Note: In accordance with Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.