Following his arrest a few days ago, Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky has been officially charged with suspected fraud in the PrivatBank scheme. The prosecutor’s office said he is suspected of having embezzled funds from the bank amounting to more than 9.2 billion hryvnia (€233 million). The prosecutor’s office referred in its letter to the “former head of the Dnipro region” and beneficiary of the bank at the time of the crime in 2015.
In a statement, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said six people were suspected of embezzling 9.2 billion hryvnias ($250 million) from lender PrivatBank. It did not name them but posted a blurred photo of a man resembling Kolomoisky (picture above).
The indictment has been sent to the court, it added. Accordingly, in addition to Kolomoyskyj, five other suspects in the PrivatBank fraud case face trial. Kolomoyskyj had been arrested on Sunday on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. According to the investigation so far, between January and March 2015, he “worked out a plan to seize funds” from PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank. Igor Kolomoysky was a co-owner of the PrivatBank banking group before its nationalization in 2016.
Kolomoyskyj has had a dubious reputation for years. He is among the tycoons who built their fortunes in the ashes of the Soviet Union and amassed political power in Ukraine’s fragile democracy. The oligarch is on a U.S. sanctions list and is not allowed to enter the United States, accused of corruption and anti-democratic aspirations. The billionaire was one of Ukraine’s richest men before the Russian invasion of the country, with holdings in numerous business sectors, including media, aviation, and energy.
Kolomoisky’s relationship with President Zelensky, who was previously associated with Kolomoisky’s media empire, has been a topic of speculation. Zelenskyj had been elected in 2019 with the help of Kolomoyskyj’s media empire in particular. Since then, however, the president has sought to distance himself from his former ally. At the time, the entrepreneur and billionaire owned the television station where Selenskyj appeared as a comedian and became well-known.
