Security officers from Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations raided the Kyiv headquarters of the International Investment Bank on Sept. 13 in connection with multiple probes into its high profile owner, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Poroshenko is a majority shareholder of the bank, holding 60 percent of its shares. Other minority stakes are held by his closest affiliates in politics and business – Ihor Kononenko, Oleh Hladkovsky and Oleh Zimin.
The bank is shrouded in a degree of mystery and has faced unproven allegations of being a so-called pocket bank for Poroshenko and his allies, as well as being a facilitator for money laundering.
As the bank was being raided by masked agents throughout the early afternoon of Sept. 13, Poroshenko volunteered himself for questioning at the Bureau of Investigations offices in Kyiv.
SBI investigators wanted to question the ex-president, oligarch, and lawmaker in relation to 13 cases the Bureau of Investigations says are connected to Poroshenko.
The politician, now the leader of the European Solidarity political party, has previously attended the bureau questioning in Kyiv and been the recipient of multiple subpoenas summoning him to be interrogated.
Poroshenko argues that all cases brought against him are politically motivated harassment and are concocted by political adversaries and rivals, such as the billionaire oligarch and former owner of PrivatBank, Ihor Kolomoisky.
Angelika Ivanova, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Investigations, confirmed that the searches were taking place at International Investment Bank: “Investigators… are conducting searches within the framework of a pre-trial investigation of criminal proceedings for a possible violation of the law during the sale and purchase operation of the Kuznya on Rybalsky plant,” she told the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper.
In a number of tweets on Sept. 13, a clearly frustrated Poroshenko said that bureau investigators had questioned him on a number of topics relating to multiple cases brought against him and others.
Poroshenko said that his political opponents and rivals were using the SBI to “exert pressure on the nationalization of PrivatBank”, Ukraine’s largest bank which was brought under government control in 2016 after investigators found a $5.5 billion gap in its ledger. PrivatBank claims it was the victim of a fraud carried out by previous owners, Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Boholyubov, who deny all wrongdoing.
The searches and interrogation have taken place on the first day of a major conference in Kyiv, where Poroshenko’s seat was notably empty as the forum got underway.
They also take place one day after the Kyiv apartment of Valeria Gontareva, former head of the National Bank of Ukraine and pivotal in the privatization of PrivatBank, was also raided by masked gunmen in uniform, likely law enforcement agents.
On Sept. 11, the headquarters of PrivatBank in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro were also raided by police as part of an investigation into alleged malpractice by executives there.
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