Another Ukrainian oligarch may be put on trial

Konstantyn Zhevago is a well-known businessman from the Ferrexpo group. Now all the bank accounts of Ferrexpo Poltava Mining, which belongs to this group, have been arrested. Zhevago himself is under suspicion of wasting $113 million of Bank Finance and Credit.

Information about the arrest was provided by the press service of the Ferrexpo group. The basis of this was the decision of the Shevchenkivskyi district court of Kyiv. Now, all debit transactions of the plant are stopped, but tax payments can be made.

The company itself disapproved of such measures. The management notes that these restrictions make it impossible to pay wages for January to more than 7.5 thousand employees of the mining plant.

The case took place in several stages:

• Announcement of suspicion to the chief manager of the Poltava plant in causing damage to the state for 2 billion UAH.
• At the end of 2019, it was permitted to arrest Zhevago for transferring 2.5 billion UAH of Bank Finance and Credit to offshore organizations, which caused its bankruptcy.
• In the summer of 2021, Interpol took on the search for the oligarch.
• In July 2022, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, together with the State Bureau of Investigation, turned to 30 countries for help in the arrest and extradition of Zhevago.
• On December 22, 2022, the businessman was arrested in Courchevel at the request of Ukraine.
• It seemed that the punishment would happen soon since an extradition arrest for 40 days was implemented. However, for now, the case is delayed.

To post bail with the stolen money as a ticket to freedom

At first, the decision on extradition should be made on January 5, but with time, the deadline was postponed to January 19. Prosecutors and investigators explained that there was not enough time for extradition to translate materials from one language to another. Moreover, strikes by transport companies began in the country. Although Zhevago is not going to be extradited from the country by train or bus, this influenced the decision for some reason.

Meanwhile, a court in Chambers, France, released the oligarch from custody after posting a bail of 1 million EUR, which he paid for himself. The condition was that Zhevago did not leave the French mainland.

Whether the oligarch will stand trial, whether he will be returned to Ukraine, whether it will be possible to see the victory of justice on capital - all this will be demonstrated in the near future by the Zhevago case.