Motor Sich assets worth UAH 500 million blocked

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has reported the seizure of the property belonging to the son of the former president of JSC Motor Sich, who, together with his father, is suspected of embezzling the company's assets.

"The total amount of the blocked property is half a billion hryvnias. This includes 62 commercial and residential real estate objects in Ukraine, corporate rights to 18 Ukrainian companies and shares of two domestic joint-stock companies," the SBU’s Telegram channel said on Thursday.

According to the SBU, among the seized assets are helicopter assembly shops, a grinding equipment production plant and dozens of Motor Sich properties, which the defendants illegally alienated for their own benefit.

The special service recalls that in April of this year, a joint investigative group of the SBU and the Prosecutor General's Office, law enforcement agencies of the Principality of Monaco and the French Republic detained the son of the former head of the industrial giant in Monaco.

According to the case materials, the son and his father illegally seized a controlling stake in a state-owned enterprise, and then sold it for $650 million. SBU investigators at the time served suspicion notices to the perpetrators of embezzlement and laundering of property obtained by criminal means in particularly large amounts.

"To hide the stolen assets, the organizers of the transaction registered them in controlled offshore companies managed by the son of the ex-head of Motor Sich. However, an international investigation revealed all the hidden real estate that the defendants used in shadow schemes," the SBU says.