Ukraine's tax police have united four criminal cases against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko concerning the activities of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) Corporation into one.
"We have received criminal cases from the Prosecutor General’s Office… Since one person is involved in all of the cases, they have been combined. At present, we have one criminal case," the first deputy chief of tax police and the chief of the main investigative department at the State Tax Service, Anatoliy Yakovynets, said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
He said that Tymoshenko had been charged under Part 5, Article 191 (embezzlement) and Part 3, Article 212 (tax evasion) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine of 2001 and under Article 80-1 (the concealment of foreign currency earnings) of the Criminal Code of 1960.
He said that Tymoshenko had been accused of organizing the concealment of foreign exchange earnings of over $165 million, embezzling budgetary funds and evading the payment of more than Hr 147 million in taxes through the introduction of a financial scheme of payments by the UESU Corporation, as well as concealing proceeds through offshore companies.
"Tymoshenko, as an individual, avoided paying income tax and committed a number of crimes while serving as president of the UESU corporation, the president of Pivdenkombank, and a co-founder of Somolli Enterprises Limited. In particular, in 1996-1998, Tymoshenko received about $1 million in income from the activities of a foreign company, on which she did not pay the proper amount of tax," he said.
