By KYIV. Nov 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Detectives from the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) of Ukraine notified the board chairman of PJSC Poltava Mining, part of the Ferrexpo group, of suspicion of large-scale tax evasion and forgery of official documents.
According to a BES press release on Friday, from 2018 to 2021, the suspect entered false information into the official documents of the enterprise and underestimated the payment to the budget for the use of the subsoil of the iron ore deposit by UAH 2.2 billion.
The enterprise’s tax returns reflected the volume and cost of marketable products in the form of crushed ore, that is, without the beneficiation process, which significantly affects the cost of royalty payments.
Currently, the head of Poltava Mining has been notified of suspicion under Part 3 of Article 212, Part 2 of Article 28, and Part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The pretrial investigation continues. Procedural management is carried out by prosecutors from the Office of the Prosecutor General. Operational support is from officers of the Security Service of Ukraine.
In turn, the Office of the Prosecutor General said on its Telegram channel that the board chairman of one of the largest mining and processing enterprises in Ukraine, which extracted iron ore, was notified of suspicion for non-payment of more than UAH 2.2 billion in taxes. He was charged with intentional evasion of taxes on an especially large scale and official forgery (Part 3 of Article 212, Part 2 of Article 28, and Part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
According to investigators, from April 2018 to February 2022, in a preliminary conspiracy with the chief accountant and other persons, they submitted to the tax authority tax returns on royalty payments for the period 2018-2021, containing deliberately false information regarding the understatement of the amount of royalty payments. This led to the non-receipt of taxes amounting to more than UAH 2.2 billion to the state budget. At the same time, the mining and processing plant officials were aware of the procedure for calculating and paying royalty, as well as the object of taxation of royalty for the use of subsoil for the extraction of minerals.
In criminal proceedings on these facts, suspicion was previously reported to the chief accountant of this mining and processing enterprise.
Currently, the suspect is being held in custody in another criminal proceeding – on the grounds of illegal mining and use of minerals, which caused about UAH 157 billion in damage to the state.
Pretrial investigation is performed by BES, and operational support is from the Security Service of Ukraine.
