Employees of the State Bureau of Investigation have uncovered officials from the State Consumer Protection Service of two regions who were earning millions of hryvnias each month from agricultural product exporters.

Officials from the Main Department of the State Consumer Protection Service in the Odessa and Zaporizhzhia regions organized a corrupt scheme to demand money for issuing phytosanitary certificates necessary for the export and import of agricultural products, as well as for producing inspection reports required for the export of barley and maize.

In fact, the State Consumer Protection Service officials formed an organized criminal group with clear division of roles and responsibilities. The group consisted of over 11 people, including the head of the Main Department of the State Consumer Protection Service in the Zaporizhzhia region and the head of the Phytosanitary Safety Department of the Main Department of the State Consumer Protection Service in the Odessa region.

The group also included two chief inspectors from the Main Department of the State Consumer Protection Service in the Odessa region and two from the Zaporizhzhia region, as well as civilians, including heads of brokerage companies acting as intermediaries.

According to preliminary estimates, the "operators" received over $160,000 monthly from their illegal activities.

In various regions of Ukraine, 60 searches have been conducted, during which over $100,000 USD and 500,000 UAH have already been found and seized from illegal activities. Additionally, eight luxury cars have been confiscated, along with notebooks detailing the distribution of funds among scheme participants, draft records, and computer equipment used to produce the seized documents. Other items and evidence relevant to the pre-trial investigation have also been secured.

Five members of the criminal group have been detained and informed of suspicions of extortion on an especially large scale (Part 3 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Decision regarding declaring suspicion to the officials involved in the scheme is also being considered.

The investigative actions are ongoing.

The procedural guidance is provided by the Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office.