Ukraine's Operation Carthage: SBU General Accused of Shielding Scam Call Centres and a Drug Cartel Smashed Phones and a Hard Drive During a Raid
KYIV — The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) announced on November 4 that, in the months-long Operation Carthage, they had exposed a criminal organisation whose members allegedly included current senior law-enforcement officials who systematically took bribes to let fraudulent call centres and other illegal businesses operate unhindered. The two agencies carried out more than 70 searches across the country that day, and the organisation had at least 12 members.
Senior officials named by investigators include Major General Serhiy Duka, First Deputy Head of the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) Department for the Protection of National Statehood; Colonel Anton Kravchuk, head of the SBU's Main Directorate of Internal Security; Oleksandr Kovalchuk, First Deputy Head of a main directorate of that department; and Volodymyr Tsenov, First Deputy Head of the National Police's Department of Strategic Investigations.
According to the agencies, the businesses the organisation protected included 52 fraudulent call centres employing more than 2,700 operators targeting victims in Ukraine and across Europe, the drug trafficking of the transnational Khimprom cartel, the illegal production of counterfeit cigarettes and forged currency, and paid assaults and kidnappings. The network was allegedly run by figures including Andrii Osipov, who has three convictions, and Yehor Burkin, the fugitive founder of Khimprom.
The search of Duka's home turned into an armed standoff. Oleksandr Abakumov, head of NABU's detective unit, said on November 6 that detectives arrived at Duka's country house in a Kyiv-region village on the morning of November 4 with a High Anti-Corruption Court warrant and met armed resistance: SBU personnel inside took positions at the windows with automatic rifles, while Duka appeared at a second-floor window holding a pistol and shouting, and in the meantime smashed two mobile phones and a computer hard drive on the balcony. Duka was later detained. At a High Anti-Corruption Court hearing on preventive measures, SAPO prosecutor Mykola Karas said Duka had destroyed phones with an axe during the search, and prosecutors asked the court to remand him in custody with bail set at 100 million hryvnias.
All of the above are allegations and accounts published by Ukrainian investigative agencies; the case is under investigation and has not been adjudicated by a court.
(Source: National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine)
Source: National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：乌克兰基辅独立广场（资料图）。Juan Antonio Segal 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine (file photo). By Juan Antonio Segal, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
