You're reading: Authorities arrest former deputy head of Naftogaz Katsuba, set record bail (VIDEO)

Prosecutor General's Office detained ex-deputy head of Naftogaz Ukraine Oleksandr Katsuba on June 17.

Katsuba is
accused of creating a criminal group and misappropriation of Hr 450 million in
state funds.

Following the detention, Holosiyvskiy District Court in Kyiv ordered to arrest Katsuba for two months and set a bail of Hr 450 million ($18
million) that matches the funds that he allegedly embezzled.

It is a record bail for Ukrainian courts. In February 2015, a former lawmaker Oleksandr Yefremov, suspected of abuse of office, was released on a bail of just Hr 3.6 million.

Kyiv Post wasn’t able to reach Katsuba for a comment. He was placed in one of the pre-trial prisons of Kyiv.

Katsuba worked as deputy head of the state-owned
oil and gas company Naftogaz in 2012-2014. Before that, the same position was
occupied by his elder brother Serhiy Katsuba. Both were members of the Party of
Regions, a party of Ukraine’s ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.


A video released by the Prosecutor General’s Office shows the arrest of Oleksandr Katsuba (left) in Kyiv on June 17.

Both brothers have been investigated for
misappropriation of funds, but only the younger brother was arrested.

The Katsuba brothers’ father Volodymyr
Katsuba is a lawmaker and a member of Vidrodzhennya faction in parliament. In
the previous parliament, he also was a member of the Party of Regions.

The investigators suspect the arrested
Oleksandr Katsuba to be an accomplice of a fugitive businessman Serhiy
Kurchenko, who is
accused
of
fraudulent operations with liquefied gas and in the banking
sector that led to misappropriation of Hr 5.6 billion ($224 million).

“He (Oleksandr Katsuba) is a good target, but he is only a pale shadow of his elder brother. It was Serhiy Katsuba who was the main mastermind behind Kurchenko’s robbery of Naftogaz,” lawmaker and former journalist Serhii Leshchenko wrote on Facebook, commenting the arrest on June 18.

It’s the third
suspect with ties to Kurchenko who was arrested this month.

On June 10,
the former Deputy Economy Minister Oleksandr Sukhomlyn was arrested. He is
accused of embezzlement and abuse of power in his time as a head of State Auction
Committee on Oil, Gas Condensate, Liquefied Gas and Coal Sales in 2010-2014.
Sukhomlyn is suspected of acting in the interest of Kurchenko.

The CEO of Kurchenko’s
VETEK company, Andriy Koshel was detained on the same charges on June 12 when
he attempted to cross Ukrainian-Poland border
.

However, so
far Prosecutor General Office failed to bring to the justice the top Yanukovych
cronies who are suspected of stealing billions of dollars from the country.

Read Sergii Leshchenko’s
ranking of corrupt officials who escaped prosecution

The list of
the Yanukovych cronies who escaped prosecution includes Kurchenko, ex-Prime
Minister Mykola Azarov, ex-Health Minister Raisa Bogatyryova, ex-Finance
Minister Yuriy Kolobov and ex-lawmaker Yuriy
Ivaniushchenko.

On June 7,
the news broke that Ivaniushchenko, a former lawmaker and a top ally of
Yanukovych, was taken off the Interpol’s wanted list

after a Ukrainian court closed a criminal case against him.